As a kid, whenever a Space Shuttle launched, it was an immediate event of utmost importance. Nobody change the channel, nobody say a word. I was about to watch humankind’s ability to come together and make miraculous things happen take the form of “the stack” blasting off from Florida into the heavens. I was too young to know about the Challenger disaster at the time, and the breakup of Columbia was still thirteen years away. All I needed to know was that when the countdown timer hit T minus 30 seconds, the fun would begin. The switches were armed, the checks were complete, and this candle was about to be lit. Five seconds before zero, all hell would break loose on the launchpad…smoke would blast away from the Shuttle system and at zero, four frangible nuts exploded and the entire combination lifted off.

Seeing a shuttle make the eight-minute trip from the pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida to altitudes that only a select few individuals have ever gotten the chance to witness was inspiring, not only to myself, but to many a kid growing up throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The heavens were there, all you had to do was be smart enough to make it into NASA and get your ticket on the hottest ride on the planet. Since 2011, when Atlantis took it’s last leap into space, the Shuttles themselves have been nothing more than museum pieces. Like the SR-71, Concorde, and other machines built before, all we can do now is watch the old footage and tell those who never got to see the magic moment live themselves just how jaw-dropping it was.

Maybe, just maybe, that moment will happen again for a kid. It’s not for a lack of trying by entrepreneurial individuals, that’s for sure. The frontier is still up there. Be it the moon, be it Mars, whatever the case, here’s to the hope that looking up into the starry night leads to another human being looking back down upon the planet in sheer amazement.