Brian Webb’s Thursday email alert for viewing Columbia’s re-entry is still in my inbox. I set the alarm early and poked my head outside to see what the weather was like, but it was pretty well socked over at the coast and didn’t feel like driving far north to see it. So I went back to sleep.
Other blogs have been much more eloquent about today’s events, so I’ll go with this picture instead – the very first shuttle landing (STS-1) out at Edwards in 1981. I was fifteen years old and didn’t know the ways of telephoto lenses so it’s a tiny photo, but I was there. This is how I’ll remember Columbia.