When the space shuttle lands on Thursday morning at the Kennedy Space Center, it will not only be the completion of a mission, but the end of an era. The shuttle is an under-rated modern marvel. It has allowed humankind to escape the confines of our planet and explore our extraterrestrial neighborhood. From the shuttle’s cargo bay, satellites have been launched and space stations have been built. Space exploration and the space program have directly impacted the products we buy, what we teach our children in school, and how we look at the sky on a clear summer night.

I’d like to believe that on Thursday, our country will stop for a collective moment and applaud the accomplishments of the countless astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other workers that worked on the 135 shuttle missions. But I doubt that will happen.

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The first shuttle launched 18 months before I was born. When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher Mrs. Hammond had us watch every shuttle launch and landing during the school year. That year for Halloween, I dressed up as an astronaut. My costume was a jumpsuit complete with a motorcycle helmet attached to a silver box via a vacuum tube. I also remember that she had us make paper mache shuttle replicas out of 2-liter bottles. As a child, learning about space was interesting and made me want to be an astronaut.

Yet like most Americans, my high school guidance counselor didn’t list astronaut as one of my post-high school options. I once in awhile would happen to be watching the news when they would show the stock footage of a launch or landing, but never kept up with the daily activities of the astronauts. Like most of my generation, I took for granted the incredible risks and rewards that were happening 122 nautical miles above me.

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As a child, the space program was the realization of endless possibilities that existed in our universe. With the end of the shuttle program and without a new spacecraft in the near future, those possibilities seem to be put on a permanent hiatus for the next generations. I wonder where my children will look for their inspiration. Green technology? Disease treatment? Ending world hunger? What will be the next uncharted territory? What will inspire them to create, to discovery, to explore?

As the shuttle re-enters the earth’s atmosphere on Thursday, most people won’t notice. They will wake up off their memory foam mattresses, put on their scratch-proof glasses, and drink from their filtered water pitchers and not realize that NASA has already had an impact on their day.

We too often forget how apathetic we are to the details of discovery. We don’t care to know how the internet or a microwave works, we just want to check our email and warm up a burrito. We take for granted the countless ways technology has improved, but also severely altered, our lives.

The end of the shuttle program is the end of one avenue of discovery. It is also a challenge for us to continue to create new pathways for future exploration. Hope can only be fostered in an atmosphere where discovery is possible. And while it may be generations before another American spacecraft takes flight, it is imperative that we find ways to inspire future generations to challenge the very limits of what we believe to be possible.