On May 19, 1780, Historian Thomas Campanella explains, “ a preternatural gloom settled upon the New England landscape, and by noon the sun had been all but blotted from the sky.” New England’s “Dark Day” was read as an omen, even, perhaps, as the biblical end of days. But the question has persisted for nearly two and a half centuries- what could have blotted out the Sun?
On August 12, 1977 the space shuttle Enterprise made its first free flight. That is, it was detached from its Boeing 747 "Shuttle Carrier Aircraft” and let fly. It is difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that this vehicle that once was, to me, the symbol of the future is now, itself, history. That is, perhaps, as ironic as the fact that the First Space Shuttle, Enterprise, never went to space.