End of the Public Space Era

 Stardate 65757.2

 

14:05 – Space--- The Final Frontier. This is the tale of the end of the public space era and the glorious ride of the space shuttle Discovery to its new home. Discovery hitched a ride on a 747 and was escorted by a fighter jet to Washington DC. It was a sad sight to see this once-spacecraft bound to an earthly vessel, but we are moving forward into a different era of space flight. To watch the end of the public era, Discovery did a couple of victory laps around the capital. We ran to the roof to watch the shuttle up close and personally. Being next to the NASA HQ, the shuttle nearly went over our heads, and we could pluck it out of the sky.

We watched as it started making wider and wider loops around the district. It made its final descent into Dulles Airport on the edge of the metro area before it will be carted off to the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Here it will be on display for generations after us to see a  space ship that boldly went where no man had gone before.