The Great Adventure of Discovery

Yesterday afternoon, the Space Shuttle Discovery slipped the surly bonds of earth as I watched from a dock on the Indian River, several miles away. It was a bittersweet moment. I have spent many hours in and around Discovery. I know her every nook and cranny very well, inside and out. I know her smell, her feel. I have sat in her commander’s and pilot’s chairs as well as all the others. I have been inside her payload bay and even stood beneath her three giant engine bells aft. I have looked under her front forward reaction and control rockets hood and peered at the ordered cables behind her electrical panels. I know how she lights up inside in the powered up mode and in the powered down mode. I can still hear her sounds. I consider her a good friend. Yesterday afternoon, my good friend departed on her last great adventure – the very reason for which she was built. But no more.

But, as I have given it much thought, I realized that such thinking is really only wasted sentimentality. Discovery is not a breathing sentient entity – but it is after all just like my boyhood tree house back in Oklahoma – she is the embodiment of an idea fleshed out by the hands of men. My tree house is long gone, but I still hold the secrets we shared together in my heart. I think about it often and what it whispered to me all those years ago. And the idea that framed Discovery’s form is just as wonderful!

Discovery represents... well... discovery! She is designed the from of a notion that mankind has this innate, built in need to discover all that is beyond him. It is a genetic imperative that we seek and explore and discover that which is out of our reach. Historically speaking it drove us out of caves and into straw huts and then into steel skyscrapers and finally into structures orbiting our planet and under the sea. Discovery is an idea that will not end with her mission. Discovery is right now being reborn in the facilities of the League of the New Worlds and her latest incarnation is called the New Worlds Explorer and Leviathan. There are others as well. One is called Spaceship Two and another Dragon.

We are but tiny creatures in the larger scheme of things. But we are tiny creatures with a long reach indeed. I just watched images beamed back from Mars just yesterday, and another set of pictures from Saturn and Titan and a comet. Discovery is about to rack up another 720,000 miles on her odometer during this day alone and before she returns home - 8 million more.

Discovery represents a dream. But more than that, she represents our future – she is the beautiful and powerful embodiment of an idea that has been responsible for humanity’s great journey and will be responsible for all the rest to come. I am so honored to have been a part of her dream of having spent so much time inside her and of having been called to live out yet another taking shape each and every day before my eyes. We may weep and cry over what politicians and lawyers are doing or not doing – but on this very day, my fellow humans are ignoring them and planning and building for yet another day of exploration.

On such a day, it would dishonor Discovery to be sad, when there is so much discovery just ahead.

Dennis Chamberland