DIscovery Launched today ©

From the NASA launch blog” 07/04/2006 “2:38 p.m. - 10...9...8...We have a "go" for main engine start...5...4...3....2....1...Booster ignition...and...LIFTOFF OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY - Returning to the Space Station...while paving the way for future missions beyond....”



I saw it live on NASA TV. A series of false starts, Bad weather preventing take off building up two days of disappointed apprehension. Then the 3 inch piece of foam that had dislodged itself from the tank, and the speculation, “that’s where the tax dollars go” and the debate about, as it bad weather, or………
And other stuff happening. Little bickerings, little talks, submissions, and a tumbles on the kerb, bruises and deadlines- the normal nonsense of a human life.



July 4th, so they will do it again today. And a “If the WEATHER permits..” also a little bit of excitement of having never seen a space ship launch before. And this is a Manned mission . Not to Mars, or even nearby to the Moon, just to the International Space Station- barely two days away. But a manned one nonetheless.



And I saw it. Participated in the glory of the human race. Puny insignificant man, incapable of surviving at temperatures very far removed from the mean the frail human body can live in, totally ill-adopted to anything else but a synthetic life devised by thousands of years of collective civilization.


Man, torn forever between ideology, petty insignificant, forever selfish, destroying, living out a false sense of security. Yet daring to dream and what a dream indeed, and even in that skeptical, querulous, quarrelsome.



And then doing it. Achieving it. A determined stubbornness, a concerted will, the power of possible impossibles.



It brings moisture to the eyes, the very realization that I am a part of this species of beings, this wonderfully complex, simply magnificent master of all things, who can think, who dares dream, and who dares to push on regardless, forever on to a newer frontier, and visualizing greater fantasies, only a few more steps away from becoming realities. Tears and an overwhelming feeling of transcending and happiness.



Later on the euphoria will die down, the general nonsense that surrounds will creep back in, the humdrum monotony of being a very insignificant cog in the infinite workings of things will settle in. But for now le tme revel in this, let me be ecstatic in this triumph of my species.




For this day, for now I am just a very proud human being.