At the Cape
Dec. 26th, 2002 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hildy89I've been interested in the space program for as long as I can remember. The following will date myself nicely and I don't care. My parents grew up with the moon race, but I'm from the shuttle generation. My mother recalls being in school and informed not to change classes so Shepard or Glenn could go safely into space. I remembered being a sophomore in high school hearing that "something" had happened to the shuttle. That something was Challenger. I remembered the shuttle launch after Challenger when everyone watched numb-knuckled hoping upon hope. I went to Space Camp/Academy for two summers, flying on the Columbia team.
Now my parents have moved to the Space Coast. They were watching the last Endeavour landing on the NASA channel when they heard the twin boom. Yes, that was the shuttle landing not quite in their backyard. We visited the Kennedy Space Center today which is an impressive place, drawing several million visitors a year. And all several million seemed to be there today! The lines were long and the Florida weather was brisk and windy. By some coincidence, the next shuttle was on the launch pad ready to go up in January. The shuttle was my old friend Columbia. Unfortunately the lookout point didn't give a really good view of the orbiter, just a little orange bit of the solid rocket booster sticking up. The Apollo Center was much more interesting with the massive Saturn V rocket and presentations on Apollo VIII's launch and Apollo XI's moon landing. Mom and I had forgotten how many problems the moon lander had encountered during that trip. Usually history books remember they landed on the moon, not how many times they lost radio or computer contact.
Over dinner, we talked about what had happened with the space race. Dad honestly thinks that they lost something when they got to the moon. We send up the shuttle but nothing seems to come of it. The moon has been forgotten, although the Chinese are talking about going. I pointed out the Hubble telescope and other scientific discoveries, but he was right. We weren't trying to explore new planets, sending little drones and robots. My own thought was that Kennedy gave them one goal to the moon, but no one thought to extend that further to the next goal. After you've scaled the mountain, where do you go from there?
Oddly tonight, I'm wishing I could watch Apollo 13 again.
Now my parents have moved to the Space Coast. They were watching the last Endeavour landing on the NASA channel when they heard the twin boom. Yes, that was the shuttle landing not quite in their backyard. We visited the Kennedy Space Center today which is an impressive place, drawing several million visitors a year. And all several million seemed to be there today! The lines were long and the Florida weather was brisk and windy. By some coincidence, the next shuttle was on the launch pad ready to go up in January. The shuttle was my old friend Columbia. Unfortunately the lookout point didn't give a really good view of the orbiter, just a little orange bit of the solid rocket booster sticking up. The Apollo Center was much more interesting with the massive Saturn V rocket and presentations on Apollo VIII's launch and Apollo XI's moon landing. Mom and I had forgotten how many problems the moon lander had encountered during that trip. Usually history books remember they landed on the moon, not how many times they lost radio or computer contact.
Over dinner, we talked about what had happened with the space race. Dad honestly thinks that they lost something when they got to the moon. We send up the shuttle but nothing seems to come of it. The moon has been forgotten, although the Chinese are talking about going. I pointed out the Hubble telescope and other scientific discoveries, but he was right. We weren't trying to explore new planets, sending little drones and robots. My own thought was that Kennedy gave them one goal to the moon, but no one thought to extend that further to the next goal. After you've scaled the mountain, where do you go from there?
Oddly tonight, I'm wishing I could watch Apollo 13 again.
