No one's as agile as a Shark Published Dec. 13, 2007 By Brig. Gen. Susan Helms 45th SW commander PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- We got 'er done! The 45th Space Wing Sharks and our mission partners made history this week, for the first time reconfiguring our Eastern Range between two major space launch operations in less than 36 hours -- a process that normally takes at least two full days. When NASA postponed its STS-122 mission early Sunday morning, your agility enabled us to set the wheels in motion to get the Range ready to support the launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying a National Reconnaissance Office payload. The forward-thinking of all involved displayed your ingenuity and ensured the ability of the Eastern Range to support the Atlas V launch as scheduled on Monday evening after two scrubbed attempts to launch Space Shuttle Atlantis. Elements of our evolving warfighting "surge to meet the need and waste no time" culture revealed themselves when our launch team pounced on the challenge and rapidly reconfigured the Range immediately after the scrub was announced at approximately 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning in time to support the picture-perfect Atlas V launch Monday at 5:05 p.m. This success clearly demonstrates your agility and ingenuity, and underscores our commitment to national decision makers and warfighters to provide responsive space capabilities. The ability to surge and provide timely effects is of utmost importance to our Nation. This effort also showcased why there is no doubt that you are the world's best space team. Timely and positive contributions from each of you paved the way to this history-making success. Consummate warfighters that you are, you continue to set the standard with your agility, ingenuity, flexibility and responsiveness...talk about a smart operation in the 21st Century. You're paving the way to a brighter future for space launch. Go Sharks!