We Saw It

Oh Wow! What a wonderful experience. Anna Lee was surprised at the tears flowing down her face. Jerry kept grinning. We did get to see Endeavor launch and may the trip be safe for all. We had often talked about what a thrill it would be to see a launch and our thoughts understated the reality. We were about 8 miles away as we watched the “Roman candle” effect of the shuttle rising through the clouds and then heard the low roar of its engines. Those few minutes will be etched in our memories forever.

We have been watching people blast off from Cape Canaveral since the dawn of the American space program in the 50s. We thrilled to see John Glenn go into orbit and Apollo 11 leave for the moon and return. Seeing it on television was not the same as being there but, up till this weekend, we did not have the opportunity to experience an actual blast off in person. We had reservations at the Space Center for May 14th and 15th. When the launch of Endeavor was postponed until May 16 we knew we had an opportunity not to be missed. We rearranged our trip and came to the Kennedy Space Center hoping to share the experience of witnessing one of the last shuttle flights with approximately 500,000 other people.

Now back to the start of our “space adventure.”

Our drive to Cape Canaveral was not without consequence. In May love bugs come out and swarm. They seem to be in a perpetual mating frenzy and don’t have the good sense to get off the highway. Our coach was covered. These guys are just plain icky; they don’t bite but have a sticky substance that oozes when you hit one. They are almost impossible to get off the front of cars, let alone big motor homes. And they love to come in and settle on light colored fabrics, must be an aphrodisiac.

We arrived on Saturday and started our tour with a three-hour bus ride around the Kennedy Space Center that gave us several opportunities to photograph the many buildings used to construct and assemble spacecraft.

Our guide gave us excellent background on past and present vehicles. Her enthusiasm for the upcoming shuttle overflowed. Most importantly, we got within 5000 feet (that is considered close) of the Endeavor as it sits on the launch pad awaiting Monday morning.

We then walked beneath another Saturn V rocket (the first was in Houston) viewing its many stages. This display was much broader than the one we saw before as it included many space artifacts, space suits, actual gloves, a manual with moon dust on it and the like. Several moon rocks were also on display. We saw the casts of the astronauts hands that are used for creating their own custom glove, the most delicate and at risk part of their protective clothing.

The second day we took the Then and Now Tour. We didn’t realize Cape Canaveral was where rockets and space ships used to launch and that the Kennedy Space Center is where the shuttles are launched (at least for the next couple of months). Our tour of Canaveral took us back to the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo days when the computers used to launch John Glenn occupied an entire room and had a huge 16 megabytes of memory.

We spent quiet time at the memorial of launch site of Apollo I and also saw a couple of astronauts there.

The talk by Winston Scott, an astronaut on two shuttle missions was quite good. The Q & A was aimed at young people in the audience and he did a good job of saying study, take science, and continue your education.

After walking onto a life-size mock up of a shuttle and visiting the Astronaut Memorial, we went to the Hall of Fame where the mundane details of living in space included photos of their food, personal items and even a fax between an astronaut and his wife.

This was the next to last shuttle launch. Bush cancelled the program and Obama cancelled the Mars program. While 5000 people are about to be laid off, most are finding other jobs. The shuttle has completed its mission and the next space flights must wait for the solution of problems ranging from the loss of calcium that occurs right away in a weightless environment to how to bring astronauts back safe and alive from months or years in space.