Endeavour's last trip to Houston

I love NASA and its many successes in space, and I do wish that the one of the space shuttles would reside in Houston permanently.... sigh....

Photo Credit: (NASA/ Sheri Locke, & Pokey Bolton's blog)

The Endeavour made its way across the country this week, passing through Houston on its way to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.  My friend, Laurel Cull, paid her respects and captured its take-off (piggy-back style) from Ellington Field.  See her video below.

My favorite astronaut is Greg Chamitoff (a friend of mine).  He was the Mission Specialist of Endeavour's last space flight, and was at Ellington Field for its early take-off on Thursday morning, September 20, 2012.

Laurel's husband with Astronaut Chamitoff (photo by Laurel Cull)

Greg is a fascinating individual (aren't all astronauts?).  Click here to read an interview he gave in 2008.



The Endeavour's last trip  across Houston skies appears in Pokey Bolton's blog, "Pokey's Ponderings," today.  I must share a quote from Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan (a book on my "must read" list) which Pokey mentions.

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space 

our home - the planet earth - simply "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam"

Pokey mentions that Sagan's book inspired her to make her first quilt block in the 1990's.  I have made a few pieces inspired by NASA and the shuttle myself. (click here to see more NASA posts). 

"In honor of NASA"

"In honor of NASA" is a beaded embellished piece commemorating NASA's 50th birthday, July 29, 2008.  It is 4" by 6", a standard postcard size.

"My US Space Shuttle"

"My US Space Shuttle" is one of many quilts made for the Dream Rocket project and has been on its own tour across the country.  It is 12" x 12" and is part of a quartet of quilts about man's effort to reach the stars.