Once again, an early morning, a knot in my stomach, NASA TV on my computer, teary eyes and quavering nerves as the Space Shuttle Endeavour prepares for the penultimate shuttle launch, and her final voyage.
She was built to replace the hole left from the Challenger disaster, so in some ways is the strongest reminder for those of us of a certain age, of that tragedy.
She is a beautiful machine that takes the elite of the elite into a place – a space – most of us only dream of, read about, watch on our TVs and embed in our science fiction.
She is a representation of all that we can accomplish, if we put our minds to it.
She has lifted off, the impossibly painful first two minutes of flight have passed and it’s safe to breathe again, and she is away. In a mesh of the thrill of launch and adventure and sorrows of an era coming to an end, it’s impossible to detangle all the complex thoughts and emotions into anything more simple, more primal than this: Godspeed, Endeavour. Godspeed.