Cape Canaveral and Columbia

In January 2003, we finally did something we'd been hoping to do for years: we watched a space shuttle lift off from Cape Canaveral. We'd been checking online for updates, hoping we'd be able to catch one during our month in Florida, and it turned out that the Columbia was scheduled for launch on Thursday the 16th. We had to drive more than 100 miles out of our way, but we figured if anything was worth the trouble, this was.

Arriving in town the night before, we had an outstanding dinner at an Indian restaurant in Cocoa Beach called Punjab. We questioned the waitress, who apparently was also one of the owners, about viewing the shuttle, and she seemed quite knowledgeable on the subject. I just figured that, being so close to the action, she's probably seen shuttles come and go like campaign promises. It didn't dawn on me until later that she probably had a particular interest in this one because there was an Indian-born astronaut aboard.

The police also were quite conspicuous in the area because, as we learned, this shuttle would have the first ever Israeli astronaut aboard, and there had been terrorist threats or at least an alert for terrorist activity. Even the noblest endeavors of the human race, it seems, have to live under the shadow of the nastiest elements of the human race.

Next door to Punjab, by the way, was a fascinating shop that sold fossils, minerals and dinosaur-related items, a shop quite unlike any we'd ever seen. For anywhere from a few bucks to a few thousand bucks, you can take home a conversation piece unlike any other. How ironic that we should find a place like this, featuring millions of years of the earth's past, only a few miles from the heart of the Space Age.

We decided to stake out a viewing spot in Cocoa Beach, just a short distance from Cape Canaveral, on the advice of Jason and Sebastian, two young men we'd met at a Kinko's in Orlando. Like us, they're on the road fulltime, traveling in a motor-home to promote a toy called a Myachi. They've been at it for three years, which makes them novices by our standards; but, unlike us, they know their way around Florida.

When we pulled into Cocoa Beach, it occurred to me that if a person should have to be in Florida during the sweltering summers, this would be the place to be. The town is situated on a peninsula with the ocean no more than a few miles away in either direction, so the breezes should help cool things off a bit. Floridians, by the way, had been complaining that this was one of the coldest winters in recent memory. The mercury was plunging all the way down to 60 at times. Well okay, there were a couple of nights in the twenties, but who minds it when you're asleep. Whatever the temperature, the forecast promised clear skies for the launch, and we certainly were grateful for that.

We parked in the rather large parking lot of Ron Jon's, a definitely large surf shop---in fact, probably the largest in the world. (The original Ron Jon, which opened in 1961, is in New Jersey. This one opened in 1963.) And it's the only one I'm aware of that's open 24 hours--- how much demand could there be for snorkels and sunscreen at 4:00 a.m.? Browsing through its two extensive hardwood floors of beach merchandise was almost enough to make me want to take up surfing. If only they marketed an effective shark repellent!

The launch was scheduled for 10:39 a.m.. We found a comfortable viewing spot on the beach nearly an hour ahead of time, and we were joined not long after by Jason and Sebastian. But most onlookers, having become accustomed to these sky-hops, simply pulled into the lot (including a couple of tour buses full) at about ten minutes before liftoff. We commented about how shuttle launches had become so routine that we heard little about them anymore in the news. About the only time they're considered really newsworthy, someone pointed out, is when something goes wrong.

We thought we had the location of the launch singled out, and that we'd be able to see the engines fire up well in advance. But we'd zeroed in on one of NASA's other launch pads (who would have known there'd be so many of them?); the one being used on this day was obscured by trees. Zephyr and I were playing in the sand with Jason and Sebastian when suddenly someone shouted, "there it goes!" And we glanced up to see Columbia shooting over the horizon---not straight up, but at an angle of about 45 degrees. (I heard, actually, that it was 39 degrees. Was it just a coincidence that the launch was at 10:39, or was there some arcane correlation?)

Even at a steep cant, the shuttle zoomed up into the vault of heaven at an incredible speed, its contrail snaking slightly in contrast to the straighter wake of an airplane. And then suddenly the contrail disappeared altogether, as zowee! just like that, the craft left the atmosphere and entered the region we call space. It was as if someone suddenly closed a valve to stop the fumes from bellowing out. As we continued to watch, with the shuttle appearing to be little more than a silver speck, it divided into TWO silver specks. The booster had burned up all its fuel, and therefore was being jettisoned to reduce drag on the engines for the rest of the voyage.

It was a perfectly clear morning, with not a single cloud to keep us from viewing one of the most awe-inspiring sights anyone ever could witness---and most people had come to take for granted. But the spectators on the beach still cheered as they folded up their lawn chairs and started to leave, reassured that, with all the troubles in the world today, at least something was going right. I jotted down a couple of ideas for a poem that I surely would finish someday---perhaps after I'd sorted out all my thoughts on the mission once Columbia had returned home.

And I thought about how lucky my son was to be able to witness such historic occurrences.

He had even more opportunity a few days later when we visited the Kennedy Space Center, which was hosting Boy Scouts that day to earn their merit badges in space exploration. We were very fortunate to be able to attend a presentation (no, actually TWO presentations) by astronaut Charlie Walker, who has spent a total of 20 days in space during 3 jaunts. An animated speaker who obviously is gung ho about space and flight, he tried to give some indication of what it's like to be aboard a shuttle--- to be strapped in and cramped among tons of multi-million dollar (and very nearly multi-million pound) equipment, to feel gravity compressing you to three times your normal weight during liftoff, and then to feel the weightlessness once you've cleared the atmosphere. But he made it clear that you really can't know what it's like until you've been there.

He opened the floor to questions, and the first one he fielded was from Zephyr, who wanted to know how far a person could travel in space from a single thrust. The answer, of course, is one would travel forever unless some object interferes. But Mr. Walker's answer was much more colorful, more elaborate, more illustrative, more eloquent. He has a knack for making the listener see as well as hear. The next question was about the hazards of space travel, and he pointed out that the dangers are myriad, and often stem from tiny details that most people wouldn't even consider. There is absolutely no margin for error on a space flight, he said, if disaster is to be averted.

At the Visitors' Center is a "rocket garden", an outdoor exhibit of some of the rockets used for Gemini, Mercury and Apollo missions. One of the most astonishing things to realize is the Cinderella dimensions of these space carriages. Some of those guys had to spend two weeks in the cosmos with barely enough room to stretch their toes. Heaven forbid that anyone should get a charley horse. And I get cabin fever just driving across Rhode Island! Another thing that came as quite a surprise was that some of the rocket engines ran on kerosene.

We took a bus tour to an observation gantry near several of the launch pads, at which we got a pretty close look, especially with the aid of binoculars. We also got a good look at the first alligator we ever saw in the wild, an 8-foot, breathing, slithering, chomping chunk of luggage sunning himself near a marsh as if waiting for another countdown. We pointed him out to one family who said, "oh, we live here, so we see them all the time." Not, I hope, in their back yard. (We later got much closer to another gator, about the same size, at the Visitors' Center. But this one obviously was planted there---the pond was surrounded by a fence.)

Another point on the bus tour that I found fascinating was the control room from which some flights were launched. (The Kennedy Space Center operates the liftoff, after which the Johnson Space Center near Houston takes control for the remainder of the mission.) The monitors depicted a simulated shuttle launch that was quite convincing, even to the point of having a red glow visible through the "outside" windows.

In the same complex was displayed the actual rocket from one of the Apollo missions, stretched out so that you could walk under it with jaws agape. I wanted to take my time and admire it, but Kimberly was eager to catch the bus back to the main complex so Zephyr could attend a session to finish his requirements for his merit badge. Zephyr, being a budding video game designer, was just interested in studying the texture of the walls. So I decided we'd just have to come back another time, so I could finish gawking.

On the bus ride back, the driver pointed out a huge eagle's nest by the road that has been there for nearly 40 years---just about as long as the space program has been in existence. How's that for a fitting coincidence? The driver also pointed out the road that the shuttle travels from the enormous assembly/ maintenance facility to the launch pad and noted that they have to be extremely cautious in transporting it, because the insulation tiles are so fragile they hardly can be touched. How, I wondered, can human life be staked on such delicate contrivances?

Back at the Visitors' Center, Zephyr sat in on a rocketry workshop, which culminated in his making a paper rocket and launching it from a homemade launcher fashioned from a bicycle pump. On his initial attempt, the nose cone blew off. Just like the real thing, it took some trial and error, but on his second attempt he had a beautiful flight.

All that remained, besides collecting Zephyr's merit badge, was to load up on souvenirs in the gift ship. Kimberly bought a T-shirt with the Columbia emblem and the names of the astronauts on it. I bought a cap for my dad with the same thing on it, and a shuttle ink pen for my mom, who collects pens. And Zephyr bought a commemorative Columbia medallion.

Well, this was supposed to be a happy story with a happy ending, but of course it didn't turn out that way. On the morning of Feb. 1, at about the same time my parents were receiving their gifts in the mail, we were in a mall in Harrisonburg, Va. renting some Japanese DVD's for Zephyr, when I noticed that the television playing in the kiosk next to us was showing a special newsbulletin about some kind of explosion---which, the newscaster said, could be heard as far away as Louisiana. I watched, dumbstruck, as they continued the discussion---and showed pictures of the shuttle. OUR shuttle. Oh no, not again.

They must have known about the risks. Charlie Walker did. Every astronaut does. But risk apparently has become routine for them, just as watching a safe launch and return has become routine for us. There was one Challenger, and that, we figured, was that. Time after time, astronauts take humanity into space, and bring the cosmos back. Just like clockwork, from our perspective. Only this time, they didn't come back. The poem began to complete itself in my head pretty quickly, but it turned out to be rather a different piece from what I'd planned.

I am certain these fallen heroes would be aghast at the suggestion some have made, in the aftermath of this tragedy, that shuttle flights should be scrapped. Certainly, there are bugs to be worked out, and perhaps unmanned flights should take up the slack in the meantime. (Both NASA and George Bush received recent warnings that changes needed to be made, from a retired engineer who had worked for NASA for 36 years. Let's hope they're ready to listen now.)

But the notion that mankind doesn't belong in space appears especially absurd when one looks at history. The pioneers in covered wagons, the pilgrims on the Mayflower, the explorers of uncharted continents, the ascenders of mountains and the trekkers to arctic poles, all faced dangers far greater than the men and women who venture into space. They too were told that the risks were too great, that the undertaking was too costly, that there was nothing left to be discovered and no reason to seek anything, that their very aspirations violated God's will. But we are what we are because they did what they did. Who knows what the astronauts may help us achieve?

The world needs dreamers, and the world needs doers. These seven fearless souls were both, and we are all better off for it. My hat goes off to them, and my heart goes out to the ones they left earthbound.

Read Zephyr's article about Columbia