*****

Part 5:  Farewell Shuttle; hello moon

I was back in the USA long before the Shuttle flew again, living in Ohio when Discovery launched on July 26, 2005.

“The Shuttle launched ‘flawlessly’ as they say.”

Yet I was more interested in a talk I’d had with a nurseryman about how to kill poison ivy.  And a short power outage we’d had.  And after a mundane report of the day, I noted, “Basically kept track of the Shuttle . . .  Much like the 1988 return-to-flight, I felt disconnected.”

And seemed to fear — expect? — another disaster, hoping a minor glitch would stop the launch.  “I didn’t want to see another tragedy — didn’t want it to get off the ground, that’s all.  So I was fighting that feeling.

“And sickened by all the flag-waving talk about how inspiring it is — ‘awesome’ — and a step toward the Moon and Mars.”   I was beyond thinking the Shuttle more than a drain on money.  The same with the Space Station.  I must admit its given a wealth of experience and data on living in space and the body’s adaptation to weightlessness.  And has been a pathfinder in cooperation between countries.  Yes, it’s delivered more than I thought it would in 2005.

“MSNBC carried on coverage well after the 10:39 launch — until 12:15 or so.  It reminded me of the old, old days of Apollo when Walter Cronkite would chat on, the empty launch pad behind him.”

Ahh — there it is — my benchmark for space exploration, Apollo and Walter Cronkite.

“And hearing the press-site announcements in the background during the countdown really took me back to to the times I covered a launch.

“A strange mixture of images & feels — really unsettled me.”

I didn’t follow the Shuttle or Space Station closely in the years that followed.  My mind was focused elsewhere.  Yet when the final Shuttle launch occurred in 2011, I was taken away in waves of nostalgia

*

The final flight of the Shuttle — echoes of the last Apollo launch I wrote about in 1975.  Although I had not covered a Shuttle mission in 17 years.  With that distance from the program, I wrapped myself in the launch, writing about it in my journal as if taking notes for an article on the flight. a space reporter reborn.  At least nostalgically.  It’s 11:16 a.m. on July 8, 2011.  “The final Shuttle is ‘go’ to launch in 10 min.  They just did the final ‘go’ poll.

“Atlantis . . .”

“And I’m watching on the computer =- webcast.  Thinking back 30 years — the first flights.  PCs — just being born.

“The final flight — more final, it feels, than the last Apollo, although they’ve been talking of al these commercial alternatives.  

“The last time– thinking of all all those launches  I followed.

“Crew access arm swinging back.

“. . . All those missions I covered — listening through the mud of the shortwave.

“Whew . . .

“Turning on the TV.  CNN.  Christ, was there a CNN 30 years ago? I guess it was in its nascent state.

“T minus 4 min. 12 sec.  Steering check of aerosurfaces.

“Engine gimbal check.

“3 min. — engines in start position.

“Beanie cap is retracting.

“2 min. 27 sec. 

“2 min.  Close and lock visors.

“T minus 1 min. 11 sec. — sound suppression water system armed.

“One minute to the last Shuttle.  Hard to believe.

“T minus 35 sec.  Handing to computers.

“‘We’ve had a failure.’

“T minus 31 sec. and holding . . . for verification of some retraction.

“‘It’s fully retracted.’

“Beanie cap.)

“Hold time 3 min. 15 sec.

“‘We’re ready to go.’

“Pick up the clock momentarily.

“11:28 — clock starts.

“T minus 15 sec.  Go for Main Engine start.

“Three.

“SRB ignition. ‘The final liftoff of Atlantis . . .’

“The start of a [illegible scrawl]

“11:32 a.m. — ‘Go at throttle up.’

“Long range cameras — through the clouds.

“SRB sep.

“There’s the empty pad, the photographers milling around the countdown clock.  I’ve been there.”  

11:38 a.m.  MECO.

ET sep — on TV.  The Shuttle arcing away.

“Well, we’ll never that again.”

I obviously found myself caught up in the age-old drama of launch, the litany of technical lingo.  I obviously was taken back to my days reporting on launches.  Even though I welcomed the end of the costly, in more ways than one, Shuttle program.  I recalled at the end, a project I heard of in the early 1990s.  Remember NASA officials speaking of it.  I’m not sure it was an official project, but they called it project 2020.  They were looking at ways to keep the Shuttle flying until 2020.  No! I thought at the time, we need to plan to move on from the Shuttle.  

After the launch, I don’t mention the flight again in the journal.  I was busy with other things, life-changing events of my own.

*

I’ve recovered on last launch of note from the old journals — in a way, coming full circle — a moon vehicle reminiscent of Apollo — the Orion capsule and the launch, without a crew of Artemis 1 on a mission to loop the moon, the precursor to human flights to the moon.  

I had to get up in the night to watch the launch in the early morning hours on November 16, 2022, the flight overlapping the Apollo 17’s 50th anniversary of the final moon landing.  “Yes! — the moon rocket launched and I didn’t forget about it!  Checked at 8 p.m. — it was on schedule.  I went to be before 9 and got up at 12:30 — launch set for 1:04 a.m.  But they had a couple minor problems, so I laid down again with the iPad on.  And when the launch was set for 1:47 — got up and watched it on the iMac.

“It seemed to leap off the pad faster than the Shuttle.  But after watching replays, I’d say it looked like a Shuttle launch.  Too bad [it was] at night — couldn’t see anything but the tail flame.

“Anyway, it was nothing like a slow liftoff of  Saturn V.  I kinda felt a letdown.  Plus I was so damn sleepy.”  Why did I often feel letdown by launches? — call it “the empty launch pad syndrome.”

“Well, it’s on the way to the moon, so I’ve lived long enough to see a moon launch again!”

If this one didn’t, the views from the Orion to and around the moon certainly did, the video so clear I felt I was flying the capsule.  I was Borman, Lovell, and Anders again.  I was a teenager again.

And like then, I await the time when I will write in my journal about the next step.

— The end of the five-part essay —