The View from 58-inches High

There are some days you just never forget. I never thought today would be one of them but it is now. Late last night NASA announced that the retired shuttle Endeavour would be flying over the Texas capital on its way to Los Angeles. They announced it late enough that I was already in bed. I wouldn’t have known anything about it except that I got an IM asking if I had time to watch the shuttle fly by from the roof.

I know a ton of folks at NASA and even more that are just space-junkies so I’ve seen my share of fly-over photos. Typically, the shuttle is pretty far off, and even zoomed in you can only kind of see the double wings from the shuttle on the 747. Still, the opportunity to see it myself was too awesome to pass up. Even as I grabbed my coat, I told myself I probably wouldn’t be able to see anything.

There were about 7 of us on the roof, waiting, looking, and wondering what we’d be able to see. As any group of engineers, we spent 10-minutes analyzing which of our two rooftops would have a better view of the capital. Just as we had determined that we probably wouldn’t be able to see it there it was.

I hope that I never get to a point in my life where I cannot recall the image of the shuttle coming towards us out of the rising sun.  Hollywood could never have created a scene so breathtakingly awesome. It was flying so much lower than we had expected. It seemed to be coming right towards us through the Austonian and the Ashton. It continued, slowly flying just across 8^th street. I couldn’t help tearing up a little. I grew up with the space program and this was a sad reminder that those days are gone.