Shuttle program ends 30-year ride with astronomical assets

Today’s scheduled landing of space shuttle Atlantis ends an exciting 30-year era of space exploration for the United States that has reaped astronomical dividends for Americans on myriad earthly fronts.

Lingering debates of the cost-effectiveness of the multi-billion program aside, the payoffs from payloads of Atlantis, Columbia, Discovery, Endeavour and Challenger have opened new vistas on our universe and have enhanced our quality of life.

Take science and global geography, for example. The construction of the International Space Station and its Hubble Space Telescope forever altered and improved Earth’s view of the cosmos and its understanding of the age of the universe. Hubble was launched with the shuttle, fixed with the shuttle and upgraded four times by spacewalkers from the shuttle.

The shuttle has greatly enhanced military planning and aviation by accurately mapping previously inaccessible areas such as jungles and mountaintops.

On more earthly planes, shuttle astronauts discovered an algae nutrient and developed it. Today, it’s in 95 percent of infant formula.

In medicine, famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey helped develop a tiny artificial heart pump based on fluid flow through the space shuttle’s main engines. The shuttle missions also helped build a tool for firefighters that rescues people from crashed cars that is lighter and cheaper than the famed Jaws of Life.

MAHONING VALLEY CONTRIBUTIONS

On this month’s 135th and final shuttle flight, Canfield native and NASA robotics designer Brian Roberts led a team in designing a washing-machine-sized device that will help determine whether satellites can be refueled robotically in outer space. Roberts’ experiment succeeded in its initial tests last week.

The late Ronald Parise Jr. of Warren stands tall as another Valley success story for the shuttle program. Parise, who died in 2008 from a brain tumor, served as a payload specialist aboard shuttles Columbia in 1990 and Endeavour in 1995. The Youngstown State University graduate conducted critical experiments with the Astro observatory on both missions.

Judith Resnik, another Northeastern Ohio native, proved that the benefits of space shuttle missions did not come without enormous human costs.

The Akron native who was the second woman in space died when the Challenger exploded during its launch in January 1986. That accident and the disintegration of space shuttle Columbia as it was re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere in 2003 claimed the lives of 14 astronauts.

WHAT’S NEXT?

But as we remember the three-decade era of space-shuttle flights, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The end of the shuttle program does not translate into the end of American space exploration. In the short term, NASA plans to contract with private companies to launch spacecraft to service the space station.

In the long term, several proposals for ongoing manned space travel are on the drawing boards, including President Barack Obama’s vision for a manned mission to Mars by mid-century.

Whatever direction the future of U.S. manned space flight takes, Americans in general and Ohioans in particular can take pride in the accomplishments the program has wrought from Ohioan John Glenn’s first manned orbit of the Earth in 1962 to Ohioan Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon in 1969 to Brian Roberts’ robotics experiment on Atlantis’ last flight.

Today, we celebrate the end of a proud era in U.S. space-exploration history. We would echo the words of final Atlantis Commander Christopher Ferguson who on Wednesday gave this shout-out to all who have contributed to the shuttle missions’ success over the years: “Id love to have each and everyone of you stand up and take a bow.”