Space Shuttle Memories

The Challenger disaster. What memories.

I have a long and odd relationship with the Space Shuttle. Living in Florida in the late 70’s and early 80’s, we were often able to see the shuttle go up even though it was hundreds of miles away on the opposite coast. You could see a trail of smoke trailing a tiny sliver of shininess, and watch the plume arc as the shuttle took off over the Atlantic Ocean.

This was pretty neat for me, having been a space-age kid raised on moon launches and Tang.

I got in trouble in my high school history class because of the shuttle. Our teacher asked for an example of nationalism, and I said the feeling of pride associated with the shuttle taking off. Wrong, she said. “The space shuttle is not nationalistic.” I argued, unsuccessfully, that I said the “feeling of pride,” not the shuttle itself, but it was no use.

My mother was a reporter for the Sarasota Herald Tribune, and a fellow reporter and photographer were assigned to cover a launch. For some odd reason, these young members of the media invited me to come along.

We piled into a tiny car and drove across the state through miles and miles of orange groves and cattle lands. We arrived at the Cape in the early evening and were stopped at a checkpoint.

Reporters with passes could continue on, everyone else had to stay and wait for the public viewing area to open. Our reporter had a pass and she went on to the launch site.The photographer and I were left in the parking lot of the waiting area. “See you tomorrow!” we yelled, not really knowing where we were, where she was going, or how we might meet up again.

The photographer and I started to wonder what to do. Once they allowed us to go to the public viewing area, everyone hopped in cars and took off to get a good spot. We had just given the car away, so we started walking.

Then, for the first and only time in my life, thumbs went out and the two of us were hitchhiking. It only took a moment before someone pulled over and offered us a ride.

The driver of the vehicle was an engineer/scientist who had helped developed the heat-protecting tiles on the shuttle. He told us how they were able to heat them up to glowing hot temperatures, but still pick them up by the edges with bare hands. It was a fascinating drive, and long enough to make us thankful we hadn’t walked the whole way.

Wow. It’s still night time and you look over and there it is. The Space Shuttle. On the pad, steam rising in places, lit up with huge spot lights. Bugs drift in and out of the bright lights. The stars are out. It was really gorgeous.

We spent all night waiting. We heard the occasional updates and countdown pauses. We watched as photographers set up cameras and tripods with enormous lenses. People set up chairs and tents, ate food, and so on. Time killing.

The excitement really builds. You are quite close to this thing, or at least it feels that way. It is going to laucnh right in front of you. How loud will it be? Will the ground shake? Will we see herons and other birds rise up from the swamps from the sudden disturbance?

We waited and watched, watched and waited. At just about time for launch, after a full night of expectation, they scrubbed the mission. Cancelled. Everyone go home.

We met up with the reporter back at the entry gate and drove home, a defeated trio with plenty of interesting stories to tell. Just not THE story.

…

Fast forward a few years and I’m at college and I have a dream. A bad dream. The first space shuttle with a woman on board is about to go up, but the shuttle has problems, veers in stranges ways, leaves a funny smoke trail, and crashes.

It was one of those realistic dreams you remember when you wake up. I recall being a bit nervous when the first woman, Sally Ride, was scheduled to go on the shuttle. I watched, and felt relieved when things went smoothly. How silly of me to worry about a dream.

….

January 28, 1986 I wake up to news that the Challenger had exploded after launch. Shivers. I went to the college dorm TV and watched the news. They were replaying my dream, over and over. The first teacher in space.

It was a very strange, sad day. In many ways it marked the end of an era, and although shuttles continued to fly, manned space missions became a bit less of a priority. Today, NASA outsources launches to the Space Station to private companies.