I moved to the NASA Ames Research Center in California in July 2002 (and of course, they have a shuttle scale model on display). Fairly soon, on Feb 1st 2003, an interesting opportunity came up: the space shuttle Columbia was returning from space, and the re-entry track brought her over Northern California, promising a very bright overpass (the shuttle’s altitude being only 70 km or so). I was up at 5:30am, but alas, the dreaded marine layer (low clouds) prevented me from seeing anything, and it was only many hours later that I found out that Columbia had disintegrated. Ironically, the same orbiter that as a kid inspired me to go and work for NASA was the one that disintegrated pretty much above my head while I was working at NASA….

After the Columbia disaster, there were no more shuttle launches for a while, but there were still cool space and plane experiences, with a shuttle component. NASA Ames is located right next to Moffett Federal Airfield, and on Memorial Day 2004, the Air Show Network organized what seems to have been the last of the Moffett Airshows — but how cool is that really, an air show at work! In addition to P-51 Mustangs, F-15 Eagles, The Air Force Thunderbirds (flying F-16s), F/A-18 Hornets, and a flyby of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter, the shuttle carrier was on display, to be explored on the inside and the outside.

In 2008, the European Space Agency issued a call for astronauts, and of course the 8 year old in me made sure that I was one of approximately 10,000 candidates — over 8,000 of those were furthremore also qualified (i.e. had a graduate degree and work experience). The whole process in itself was quite interesting and unique, but unfortunately, I didn’t make the final cut. To my own amazement though, I made it to the last remaining group of 192 candidates after two rounds of tests in Germany; the last round being organized in the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. There, the first thing that caught my eye was a large model of the shuttle, right under an equally impressive 1/20 or so scale model of the fully assembled ISS. 

By the time the shuttle program had fully resumed late 2006, a busy teaching and travel schedule turned out to be 100% incompatible with the shuttle launch shedule. In November 2010 though, I finally got to see a shuttle up close and personal when after a work visit to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, I visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Musem (Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center)right next to Washington Dulles international airport with my friend, colleague astrochemist and fellow space enthusiast Stefanie Milam. One of the centerpieces of that exhibit was the space shuttle Enterprise. Although the Enterprise has never been in space, it has been used by astronauts for test flights. It’s the real machine. If you’re into planes btw, and your travels bring you through Washington Dulles airport, try to get a layover of a few hours, take the shuttle to the museum, and enjoy the shuttle (Discovery) in addition to the Concorde, the SR-71 Blackbird, the Enola Gay, and many many many many more…