If you’ve lived longer than a while, you’ve likely heard and/or uttered and answered the question: “Where were you when (fill in the blank with any historic event)?”
Here on the Space Coast, that question for decades is often linked to groundbreaking space-related history, from the tragic to the triumphant.
That’s why this Photo of the Week, of the astronauts from the final space shuttle mission, stands out as they stand tall by Atlantis on July 11 at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Visual journalist Craig Bailey shot the straightforward but compelling photo on July 11, fifteen years after Chris Ferguson, Sandra “Sandy” Magnus, Doug Hurley and Rex Walheim launched aboard Atlantis on the final mission of the Space Shuttle program.
Commander Ferguson, Pilot Hurley and Mission Specialists Magnus and Walheim launched aboard Atlantis on July 8, 2011, from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The mission to the International Space Station lasted 13 days, landing back at KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility on July 21.
And Bailey knows exactly where he was when Atlantis left Kennedy Space Center that summer in 2011.
“I remember vaguely wondering what the next big thing for the space program would be as the vehicle flew out of sight,” Bailey said.
“ULA was still launching Atlas and Delta rockets so I knew there’d be more launches. But SpaceX hadn’t quite proved itself yet; their first Falcon 9 launch was just in 2011 and the first successful booster landing was still just a dream.”
It was a dream of a flight for the astronauts in this photo, too, as Hurley told FLORIDA TODAY.
“Just being the last flight, being the last orbiter that got to fly, and just how well it performed … we had literally almost a flawless mission,” he said. “And that’s just a testament to the folks that processed and worked on this vehicle and kept it in such good shape.”
Bailey, who’s logged countless thousands of photos covering space over the past few decades, is always prepping for that next launch.
And he has a couple of questions of his own, for all who look skyward and dream of what’s out there just waiting to be discovered.
“Who could have guessed where we would be today?” Bailey asked.
“Who knows where (in space?) we’ll be in another 15 years?”
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Photo of Week spurs memories of Atlantis and space shuttle era
Reporting by Britt Kennerly, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Britt Kennerly, Florida Today | USA TODAY Network
