I saw the first Shuttle launch. I was 18 then and had no car, so I hitchiked out from Vero Beach to Jetty Park in Titusville. One fellow hit me up for cash to help on gas for the ride, and I didn't have any. He pulled up to a station along US 1 and offered the attendent (this was back when people still came out and pumped your gas for you - they were called *service* stations for a reason) a couple of doobies in exchange for two gallons. The attendant agreed and we made our way along.

The Shuttle program has existed my entire adult life, and I'm 48. That's an astonishingly long time for a group of reusable spacecraft to remain in business. Yes, the orbiters are figidity, dangerous and horrendously expensive, but they're also one of the most magnificent achievements of our time.

I've personally witnessed at least 12-15 launches. I'm writing this sitting across the Indian River from the launch pad at 2:20 am. It's about six miles off but it's brightly lit and easily visible. I was there at the first launch, and I'm here for the last. In between I saw others, including the spectacular night launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. I remember watching John Glenn's return to orbit from a bar in Washington DC's Union Station. I remember seeing a launch from Mount Dora on a crystal clear evening not long ago and being able to follow it by eye until it was off the coast of New York.

Like everyone else old enough to recall it, I remember the tragic launch of Challenger and and crew that didn't make it back aboard Columbia. For years the launches seemed mundane - yawn - but every one pushed the frontier further back and helped make low earth orbit a familiar place. We live there now, aboard a solid, well-equipped space station that the Shuttle made possible. We will advance beyond that and send people back to the moon, the asteroids, Mars. I'd like to see it happen sooner rather than later, but it will happen. As Heinlein said, the earth is too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in. The Shuttle era is over - and a new era begins now. I hope the next 30 years are as amazing as the last 30.