Voilà qui est fait : une heure à peine, le monde vient d’assister en direct à l’ultime envol de la navette spatiale vers l’espace, en l’occurrence Altantis, pour une mission sur l’ISS d’un peu plus de 11 jours.
Pour l’occasion, la NASA a fait le plein : 2 à 3 000 médias étaient là pour assister à l’événement, et plus de 750 000 visiteurs avaient fait le trajet jusqu’en Floride pour jeter un dernier regard nostalgique à la navette.
Il faut dire que le symbole est grand alors que l’Amérique n’a toujours pas trouvé de remplaçant crédible à la navette, ni même pris de décisions finales concernant l’avenir de l’exploration habitée de l’espace. Certes, la NASA va enfin pouvoir tourner la page sans devoir dépenser une grande partie de son budget sur un programme qui monopolisait trop d’efforts. Déjà des solutions émergent, même s’il n’y a pas encore de consensus.
America will continue the dream...
Alors bon débarras ? Pas exactement : la navette était davantage qu’une simple affaire de gros sous. La navette, c’était aussi une vision, l’incarnation d’un rêve (Le Figaro.fr met en ligne une vidéo très intéressante de l’INA où l’on voit Enterprise passer au-dessus de Roland-Garros et de son public survolté par le spectacle). En fait, tous les ingrédients sont présents pour faire un grand film, et ce, sans qu’il soit besoin de faire appel à l’expertise d’Hollywood. Florilège :
I can’t blame NASA for that. NASA works for the president, and the president can do only what Congress will give him or her the money for. And Congress answers to the people — that is to say, its campaign contributors. They’ve all just been doing what they think they have to do, but an astronomer I know who grew up with the same science fiction dreams and expectations as I did once described himself as a member of the “cheated generation.” I no longer expect to see boot prints on Mars during my lifetime, nor do I expect that whoever eventually makes those boot prints will be drawing a paycheck from NASA, or even speaking English.
Joel Achenbach, « Final NASA shuttle mission clouded by rancor », The Washington Post, 3 juillet 2011
NASA's critics say the human spaceflight program is in a shambles. They see arm-waving and paperwork rather than a carefully defined mission going forward. NASA has lots of plans, but it has no new rocket ready to launch, no specific destination selected, and no means in the near term to get American astronauts into space other than by buying a seat on one of Russia's aging Soyuz spacecraft.
Brian Vastag, « As shuttle era ends, questions loom for shrinking astronaut corps », The Washington Post, 4 juillet 2011
The agency’s vaunted astronaut corps, trained to withstand high acceleration, dangerous spacewalks, isolation and countless technical hiccups, now confronts a challenge with no handy checklist: the unknown.
Oliver Janney et Tom Foreman, « A space town’s long goodbye », CNN, 5 juillet 2011
"Our community is going to lose the gift of hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms that we didn't really have to work very hard to fill," said Thompson. With the last launch, the town's identity will slip a little further into the past. "For me, it's probably going to be a lot of joy and a lot of sorrow all at the same time," said Socks, who knows when the tourists depart this time, all that will be left is a suddenly, shockingly empty sky.
« 'We're all going to lose our jobs in a few days': The empty shells of America's shrinking space industry », Daily Mail, 5 juillet 2011
Soon-to-be-jobless space workers and those who've already lost their jobs are now competing for work in a labour market where more than one in 10 is unemployed. And the Space Coast is still reeling from the housing crisis, making it tougher for workers to sell their homes and move elsewhere for a job. 'Everything is taking a turn for the worst, it seems like,' said Kevin Smith, local president of the union for space centre firefighters, paramedics and workers at emergency landing sites. 'What little is out there, everybody is competing for.
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