three heavy metal pieces

"I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid." -- John F. Kennedy

Last night I was at Cristy's, the usual Friday gang... and I was unaware there was going to be a space shuttle launch.  Suddenly Cristy told us to look to the north at an orange blaze of light in the sky. "The Shuttle" they said. 

Part of me wanted to turn away.  I don't want to rubberneck at accidents, and I remember the heartbreak of two other shuttles. But the blaze continued until it became a speck, then the speck became three specks as the fuel tanks fell away and flew on and on until there was an aura of light around the speck.  "Jesus Christ!,"  I said out loud as I watched the light become two again. 

I was upset and went to my car to turn on the radio and try to find some news.  Then I remembered that there are three parts... two fuel tanks and the solid rocket booster.  I was relieved.  I was also disappointed that the launch wasn't on the radio, or at least the follow-through after the launch.

I got to see the first shuttle go up from up in Cocoa... or maybe it was Rockledge or Titusville, but anyway, it was a  most special day.  We were with friends who drove us to a beach across from the launchsite.  The shiny new shuttle blasted up and angled out into space as people on the beach cheered and cried.  I remember one man echoing all our thoughts, "Go, baby, go! Go, baby, go!"

The next shuttle memory I have is a several years later when I walked out into the common room of my college dorm and saw that everyone was staring silently at the TV and no one was talking.  "What's going on?"  One of the guys wordlessly pointed to the TV and I walked into the room and and turned to the TV. 

The shuttle had exploded.  I suddenly knew what the breaking of a million hearts felt like. 

I lived in Cocoa when I was a kid.  My Dad knew every astronaut who passed through the Cape and most of the men in ground control, including the man whose job was to blow things up that went astray.

We were elsewhere when the shuttle program started but it was the greatest thing we could imagine.  So much wonderful science and innovation has come from the work of getting man into space.   From simple things like the pressurized pen to discoveries that have lead to advances in medicine.  

I remember a demonstration of the shuttle tiles at Cape Kennedy.  The man heated the tile to blazing orange-yellow in a darkened room and then... dropped it into his bare hand.  "Awesome" is an over-used word, but so much about space science is awe-inspiring.

Now, after a second shuttle fell apart in the sky... I can hardly stand to watch.   Hope flies with the little bird, and falls with it, too.

The Space program is about our innate and vain drive to survive on, or off of, a finite planet.  So far, this planet is all we have and we are using it up.  John F. Kennedy knew that.  It was about more than just beating the Russians.  And it wasn't that long after discovering that we could survive a flight across the ocean....

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard...." - JFK

http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/ricetalk.htm

 

Pictures 1 and 2 from the National Archives, picture 3 from clipart.com.