Modern Flying News Space

Good FLYING Reads: ‘Waiting for Spaceships’

New book celebrates the history and community that emerged during the golden age of the shuttle program.

Meg Godlewski

Friday, January 24, 2025 at 12:40 PM ET

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Edited By: tccjeremy

In 1988, a crowd gathered in California's Mojave Desert to welcome 'Discovery' home. [Courtesy Ted Huetter]

Key Takeaways:

The article reviews Ted Huetter's book, *Waiting for Spaceships*, which chronicles the "golden age" of the Space Shuttle program.
The book vividly portrays the unique "pilgrimage" community that gathered in the Mojave Desert to witness the shuttle's iconic landings.
It highlights the Space Shuttle's cultural dominance in the 1980s and the profound emotional significance of returns like *Discovery*'s first flight after the *Challenger* disaster, symbolizing resilience.
Upon retirement, the shuttles were repurposed for educational display in museums, continuing their legacy.

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I have been a space enthusiast since early childhood. Dad was an aerospace engineer, and I have it on good authority that there was a model of a Saturn V rocket in my nursery. In the 1970s, it was Skylab, and in the 1980s the U.S. brought forth a reusable space vehicle that came to be known as the space shuttle.

The shuttle was launched on the back of a rocket, then at the completion of the mission, returned to Earth an airplane. It was something to witness, as you will learn if you read Waiting for Spaceships: Scenes from a Desert Community in Love with the Space Shuttle by aviation writer and photographer Ted Huetter.

Meg Godlewski

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.