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“Having fired the imagination of a generation, a ship like no other, its place in history secured, the space shuttle pulls into port for the last time, its voyage at an end.” So declares the narrator watching the Atlantis shuttle land at dawn this morning, closing out NASA’s space-shuttle program after thirty years. 今天傍晚，随亚特兰蒂斯号航天飞机的着陆，美国NASA的30年航天计划告一段落。看着亚特兰蒂斯着陆的人这样描述：“结束了一代人的幻想，一艘独一无二的飞船终于最后一次驶回港口，它的旅程结束了，但它将名垂青史。” Upon touchdown, Chris Ferguson, the Atlantis commander, declared this the “last stop,” then addressed Houston, and everyone else listening: “You know, the space station’s changed the way we view our world, and it’s changed the way we view our universe. A lot of emotion today, but one thing’s indisputable: America’s not gonna stop exploring.” 在降落之后，亚特兰蒂斯的船长Chris Ferguson宣布这是最后一次飞行，并且向大家做了讲话：“我们大家都知道，宇宙空间站改变了我们的世界观，也改变了我们的宇宙观。今天的确是感慨万千，但是有一件事情毋庸置疑：那就是美国的探索不会终结。” It’s sometimes surprising to remember that astronauts like Chris Ferguson are still a part of our present, not some fetishized nostalgia item like glass Coke bottles. We don’t bow to airplane pilots the way we once did (except, perhaps, Sully), and Presidents are more the subjects of derision than idolatry. But astronauts remain astronauts: pure and heroic in a way that’s rarely summoned outside childhood, the fifties, or rare moments of national unity. Is it that the vastness of space is so powerful that it inspires even in adults a childlike sense of wonder, or that we all still remember that feeling from when we were young—of limitlessness, of the unknown, of the unknowable—and access it each time we think about what lies above the clouds? | 
