lift off

Yesterday I watched the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. I am lucky enough to work for a company that allows us to take a few hours a week to work out and my gym has tv screens at each treadmill. I raced to the gym yesterday at 11a.m. staked out the treadmill I wanted, which was really not a problem since there was only one other person in the whole place, and flipped to the news. I power walked through the countdown, and the delay, and then as I watched it liftoff, held my breath and started to cry. Not ugly sobbing cry (cuz that would have been weird) just shed a few tears for the end of an era.

I watched the very first shuttle launch as a kid, and can remember it like it was yesterday. I wanted to be a pilot, and to pilot the fastest, most technologically advanced aircraft into and back from space, well, that would have been the ultimate. I was, however, a scrawny, asthmatic girl, so after telling a few people (my father for one) of that dream, and being told in no uncertain terms that that was ridiculous, I just kept my little dream to myself.

The buildup to the launch was all over the news and I was obsessed, I wanted to be there, but since that wasn't an option, I was damn sure gonna watch it on tv. I couldn't sleep at all the night before...I didn't have an alarm clock, someone always woke me up, and I was told that no one was getting up to watch it, so I wasn't allowed. I tossed and turned getting up every half hour or so to see what time it was, and finally at just before 4a.m. I snuck downstairs and turned on the tv. I remember sitting right in front of it, with my legs crossed, leaning forward so I could hear (I knew if anyone got woken up because I had the tv on, I would be in deep shit). T-minus 6 I started holding my breath, then watched with amazement as it rose in the air. I wanted to applaud, I wanted to jump up and down, I wanted to run upstairs and tell my father what I had just saw and I wanted him to be just as excited as me. Instead I just sat there for awhile, and kept watching, and then turned off the tv and went back to bed. I looked it up yesterday, because I wanted to make sure I had remembered it right, and because I was curious to see how old I was at the time, and if it really did happen at 4a.m. like I remembered.

The Space Shuttle Columbia's first launch was April 12, 1981 at 0600 CST. I would have been 7, and since I lived on the west coast, it would have been 0400 local.

I also watched the launch of the Challenger...which for my generation became the "where were you when..." like the Kennedy assassination had been for the previous generations. I was in 7th grade science class, and my teacher was obsessed like I had been, had even applied to be the one who got to go up as part of the teacher in space program. She dragged in one of those tvs on a cart, set it up in front of the class, and we all watched. I remember how excited she was, she wouldn't stop fidgeting or talking, and she kept saying how this was history we were watching. When it blew up the whole class just sat there...we weren't quite sure what had happened, or what it really meant, we were all just stunned. The teacher started to cry, no one knew what to do, and then the bell rang and scared the crap out of us.

The only other memorable launch for me was one I was able to catch from the cockpit of an airliner. We were flying from Miami to Raleigh and the pilots called me up to see something. The three of us watched as it rose from what seemed like directly underneath us to above us and out of sight. I couldn't tell you which one it was, or what mission, but it is one of those experiences that I feel lucky to have had.

I am sad the program is ending...I think it is ridiculous that we are going to pay the Russians to take us into space when we can take ourselves, and I am perplexed with the reasoning that allows thousands of skilled, incredibly intelligent people to lose their jobs...doesn't make sense to me to have them on the unemployment payroll when they could be creating something, discovering something, or inspiring someone (a 7 year old girl perhaps?) by keeping their job.

I wonder what the true cost, long term, will be, to ending the program.