Going...Going...Gone

Titusville newsstand

We got up early, ate our breakfast with shaky excited hands, smiled at the fellow diners with JFK t-shirts celebrating 50 years of space exploration, and headed out into the steadily growing stream of traffic.  By the time we got to Titusville, the town with a population one third of our weensy Finnish city, it was swarming with the shuttle faithful.  Nervous spectators, like ourselves, picked the first available parking spots and hiked the couple of miles further into town.  The brave pressed on, hoping to find that one better vantage point.

Where exactly was the launchpad?  Our neighbors pointed out the two towers, barely visible through the haze, 12 miles away across the shimmering water.  We staked our claim in front of a half-empty bank parking lot with our buggy, blanket, and camping chair.  And then we waited, for three and a half hours in impossibly high humidity.  One of our neighbors used to work at the base.  There was nothing in the town in those days, according to his wife, no Lowe's or Home Depot, no mall to speak of.  She wondered about the town's future, some of the store fronts were already empty.

Spectators continued to flow in, by car, on foot, on bicycle, by rickshaw.  Parents pulled bob-haired, pacifier-sucking toddlers in little red wagons.  Older gentlemen with binoculars shuffled slowly and determinedly toward the shore, eyes gazing upward, already anticipating the trajectory.  Mothers with infants sought out shade wherever they could find it.

Forty-five minutes to go.  With street parking at a premium, drivers started leaving their cars on the grass in the middle of the divided highway.  In the spirit of the moment, police officers armed to the teeth in flack jackets and automatic rifles turned a blind eye.

More and more frenzied drivers appeared, desperately looking for a place to stop.  Thirty minutes left, and tv-watching sisters called to say that everything still looked good for the launch. Nine minutes left, or was it fourteen?  People scurried toward the shore.  Others started to chant the countdown.  My heart was fluttering in my throat.  Someone nearby said there was a hold at 31 seconds.  Phones rang again to explain the delay.  How long was the hold?  No one knew.

Suddenly, voices raised the countdown again.  A cloud billowed from the right side.  Whistles and cheers started their crescendo.  A spark and then the tower was split.  A dark cone shape rose, powered by a plume of blinding flame and smoke visible against the hazy sky.  The crowd was in full, 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!' as the craft rocketed upward, revealing the mass and power that distance and perspective had dwarfed...

Ironically, the day the Challenger broke into pieces was the day my interest in all things space-related was piqued and like a lot of kids growing up in the '80s, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut.  It was a dream that would remain with me for several years, until it became clear that I'd probably be better at writing about space shuttles than riding in them.

So as I watched Atlantis make her final voyage that day, soaring heavenward with confidence and grace, I cried, for dreams deferred, for the chance, in a minute way, to be part of this massive undertaking wrought by human hands, for the endeavoring spirit in all of us that drew almost a million people to witness this event together, for the actual lives on board the shuttle being carried away from the comforts of home, and for the uncertain future of the space program.

I watched Atlantis go until she was suddenly swallowed up by the clouds, like a curtain falling on the last act of a play.