The Golden Age of Space

My great-aunt worked as a contractor supporting NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for over 20 years. I’m not entirely sure exactly when it began and ended, but I know she was there during Gemini, and I know she was there for the return to flight after Challenger. During her tenure, she saw Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle.

I began working as a contractor supporting Marshall over a decade later. It struck me that someone who had a tenure equal to hers from the last years of her time there to the early years of mine, rather than the plethora of programs she had seen, would have seen space shuttle their entire time.

I was a little jealous of the Golden Age my aunt had seen.

I haven’t been at Marshall as long as my aunt was yet, but I’m starting to get very close.

Last week, I got to talk with the Artemis II crew that will be the next human beings to circle the Moon. Yesterday, I shook hands with the first American to spend a continuous year in space. I’m grateful that I got to work at Marshall while we were still flying the space shuttle, a magnificent vehicle that in some ways will never be equaled, but I love when crews visit and share their experiences with the different spaceships they’ve flown on, and I look forward to seeing Orion and Starliner added to that list, soon. I’ve watched in person as a rocket with more power than Saturn V left Earth, and as a rocket landed after lofting astronauts toward the space station.

My aunt got to see some amazing stuff during her time at Marshall. But if I were offered the chance to trade experiences with her, I wouldn’t even have to think about it.

The Golden Age of Space is just getting started.