The Final Launch: The End of Kids' Dreams?

I am so sad about Friday's final launch of the Shuttle Atlantis because of that giant helmet head right there.

When I heard last year they were canceling the manned shuttle program, I was crushed. Not for me, (although I grew up with the shuttles. A shuttle welcomed me to Florida once.)

But for my sons, who are astronauts every day!

Now, the news (I guess) is a little brighter; the shuttles themselves are retiring, but apparently the space program is not (NASA explains what's next for the shuttle).

So as the final launch is upon us and as someone who lives within viewing distance of the shuttle on the opposite coast of Florida, I worry.

Not just about what's next for the space program and the future of space travel, but even more importantly than that, what's next for my five-year-old's dreams? Or dreams of all our kids, for that matter?

Because who doesn't want to be an astronaut at some point in their lives?

Even I did! (After watching Space Camp, of course!)

I didn't become one. But I could have! (Right?) Perhaps not. But at the time, no one told me I couldn't and I'm thankful for that.

Budget, schumdget, I want to tell my son he can be an astronaut if he wants to be and I wanna mean it.

Because when he parades around in his awesome space outfit complete with giant talking helmet dreaming of walking on the moon, there was once a day where I could tell him, "Anything's possible honey!"

At least with actual shuttles, there was a one-in-one-million-bazillion chance of becoming an astronaut, but what are the chances now? Someone's gotta be that one. Whether it's mine or yours or some little boy in Montana, it should be someone.

Shouldn't it?

Are all hopes dashed?

Perhaps I can still tell him anything's possible while secretly hoping that they'll come up with a new spaceship within his lifetime. I mean, 2030 is still within his lifetime. Heck, maybe he could design the next spaceship. Anything's possible, right?

Or at least, when the space shuttles lifted off, it always felt like anything was possible.

I think that was the real beauty of the space program and space travel as a whole.

It felt like anything was possible.

It was the stuff dreams were made of.

And canceling or postponing the space program is like canceling or postponing our little people's dreams. I know today's astronauts feel this pain, I mean where would they be without these very dreams?
Whether it would be true that he would fulfill his destiny of being an astronaut or whether the dream would eventually morph into "baseball player" or "chemist" or "garbage man" (like my 3 year old), I'm ok with whatever. I am just another parent sitting here, wanting the universe for her son.

Aren't we all?