The Last Shuttle Mission Blasts Off Today

As a person who grew up here in Houston, I've had a ringside seat to many of the events surrounding the US space program and NASA since the Johnson Space Center is just outside of town in Clear Lake City.

The Space Shuttle program was being conceived and tested while I was in junior high and high school, and for much of my adult life US space launches meant watching the shuttle go up.

Today marks the launch of Atlantis and the STS-135 mission, the last shuttle launch after 30 years of shuttle flights, assuming the weather holds up and allows it.

Atlantis was moved to the KSC launch pad on May 31 and its planned liftoff for its 12 day mission will be at 10:26 AM CDT

For Houston space junkies like me who have gone on multiple school field trips to the Johnson Space Center, my most memorable one was courtesy of a junior high school writing contest I won.  In addition to the non-standard NASA tour we got, I got to meet Nichelle Nichols and the first group of African American shuttle astronauts that included Dr. Mae Jemison, current NASA director Gen.Charles Bolden, Guy Bluford and the late Dr. Ronald McNair.

The space program is more than just watching launches and landings of spacecraft, it was part of our educations and a proud part of our civic identity.

If you think I'm kidding,  you know the obvious part about our Houston major league sports teams being nicknamed the Astros, Rockets and Comets (sniff, sniff).   The Houston Police Department uniform patch has a planet Earth with a red orbital path crossing over the Houston area twice and the words 'Space City USA' on it.  Four local television stations have either their lead anchors or senior reporters at KSC and the Chronicle has a reporter regularly covering NASA and space issues.    One of our downtown parks honors the Apollo 11 moon landing.   It's why we went off when the city didn't get one of the soon to be retired shuttles for display.

So yeah, we've been through this before in terms of the downtime between one NASA program ending and another one either beginning like Apollo, Skylab and the Space Shuttle one.

The debate will soon commence in terms of wondering what direction the US space program will or should be headed in or going through the arguments of whether we need to spend tax money on space.   Here in H-town, Space City USA, we'd emphatically argue yes we should. 

But it will still be a bittersweet moment when Atlantis blasts off to start STS-135.