Space

The shuttle Atlantis returned back to earth this morning. Didn't know it was gone? You probably aren't alone.
I'm of a generation that used to get excited about "space shots" as we called them then. Teachers took time out of class as the A/V Club kids wheeled in bulky black and white TV sets and futzed with rabbit ears to get a decent picture.
T-minus 1 minute...t-minus 30...all systems go...5, 4, 3, 2, 1..Liftoff! We all held our breaths, exhaling only as the rocket arched to a speck and beyond the camera range.
Today, a launch is a footnote, probably not even on the front page for those who still read newspapers; The landing, a few seconds on TV for those who still take their news the old fashioned way, at the dinner hour, from Katie, Brian or Diane.
This is the last flight for Atlantis with only two shuttle missions more planned. The date of the next American manned launch after that? No one can say. After November, the only operational manned space vehicles will launch from a Cosmodrome, not a Cape and return not with a chute and a splashdown or with a graceful glide, but with a thud, somewhere on the Russian Steppes.
The space race is over and somehow, we've lost.