NEW - The Year the Shuttle Stopped and Everything Else Started
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NEW - The Year the Shuttle Stopped and Everything Else Started
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Throwback Thursday 2011 is the year everything was normal right up until it wasn't. The Space Shuttle Atlantis glided home in July with no engines and one shot at the runway and human spaceflight went quiet. The Arab Spring started reshaping the world. Houses cost $250,000. Harry Potter was in theatres. Stephen Harper and Barack Obama talked about Canada and the United States in complete sentences without threatening each other once.
That last part is worth sitting with. The audio of those two leaders on the Canada-US relationship sounds like it needs subtitles today, not because the language is different but because the temperature is. Artemis splashdown is at 8:07 Eastern tomorrow. Someone on this show described the launch as humanity's next great voyage. That framing hasn't been available for a while. 2011 is where it stopped being available and this week is where it came back.
The Canucks lost game seven that year and the city rioted. Progress, maybe, that nobody bothers anymore. Or something else entirely.
Topics: throwback Thursday 2011, Obama Harper audio, Space Shuttle Atlantis, Artemis splashdown, Arab Spring
Originally aired on 2026-04-09