Discovery Thunders Into Space

What a great Fourth of July! Seeing STS-121 Space Shuttle Discovery take off at 2:38 p.m. ET this afternoon on its way to the international space station couldn't have been more thrilling or more beautiful.

In the early 1950s, we only dreamt about space exploration. As a boy, my favorite TV shows included Tom Corbett Space Cadet and Captain Video. I also enjoyed the TV reruns of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, serials that had been shown at movie theaters in the 1930s and found a whole new audience during those early days of television.

When President John F. Kennedy said during his Inaugural Address in 1961 that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, not many believed we would do so. But we did! The Space Program of the 1960s was one of many things that made that decade so exciting. In the 1950s, I never thought I'd see men walking on the moon in my lifetime. But we did--and so much, much more.

Our triumphs in space have been tempered by tragedies. Today, on Independence Day, we once again saw men and women triumph. Let us pray for the safe return of these astronauts to Earth.

George Spink