Like most endings, even though I get the sense of historic proportion of not having a shuttle space program, I also recognize that it was a flawed endeavor. It was not reusable in the way that Nixon claimed it was. Once such a program started, everything else ended because we no longer strove to go to the moon again, to Mars or to find other means of transportation, to defy the laws of physics.
Like most endings, I do not feel the tragedy because the shuttle program was born before my time. It felt like a common occurrence to have something flying off into space–perhaps I lost the capacity for awe.
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