I know it will go with my small collection of signed astronaut books and other memorabilia.
What will the future bring for manned space flight, not to mention ephemera and memorabilia for post-Shuttle collectibles? Let's hope Drew Sheneman's op-ed comic that ran yesterday is not prophetic.
"As we prepare for landing, please fasten your seat belt and make sure your spirit of exploration is safely stowed in the overhead compartment."
And that provides the perfect opportunity to segue into these words from Ray Bradbury, which I blogged about in Archaeolibris.
From Colonies in Space, by T.A. Heppenheimer; Introduction by Ray Bradbury (Stackpole Books, 1977)
"The Life Force speaks to all of us. We should, we can, we must listen. Because wouldn't it be terrible to wake up one morning and discover, without remedy, that we were a failed experiment in our meadow-section of the Universe? Wouldn't it be awful to know that we had been given a chance, a testing, by the Cosmos, and had not delivered--had, by a loss of will and a flimsy excuse at desire, not won the day, and would soon fade into the dust--wouldn't that be a killing truth to lie abed with nights?"In the next paragraph, he writes perhaps my favorite passage, realizing one day the opportunity we once had and squandered:
"Our failed imagination tossed our seed onto the infertile sands of a barren river bottom on a lost world named Earth."
