First it was Sputnik, then the chimps, and Yuri flickering across the 15-inch, black and white screen of our Emerson television set. The Space Race was on! Suddenly math and science achievement levels were in the news and on everyone's mind. As a ten-year old, I started to wonder if we would be able to meet the challenge of being as smart as the Soviets! I began practicing my times tables with even more dedication and fervor at our yellow chrome and laminate kitchen table after supper each evening.
Summer evenings in Texas were a mixture of catching lightning bugs, counting stars in the still visible Milky Way, and vying for the honor of being the first one to spot a satellite glide slowly overhead. When Alan Shepherd became the first American to blast off into space, we felt we were in the game!. Finally, when John Glenn orbited the earth and Perth, Australia turned on their lights to greet him on his journey, we were elated!
For high school senior English, we were required to write a term paper comparing two histrorical figures. I chose to compare two of my heroes, Charles Lindbergh and John Glenn. I got at A, so I suppose I did an adequate job. Twenty years later, I had the pleasure of actually meeting then Senator John Glenn at a cocktail party in Dallas. 'The Right Stuff' had just been released and immediately became one of my favorite movies.
The thrill of watching Neil Armstrong alight on the moon's surface in July, 1969, was also viewed on a small black and white TV in the tiny living room of my first apartment as a newlywed living near the Baylor U. campus in Waco, Texas. My heart always skipped a beat, and I held my breath as launch after launch, shuttle after shuttle blasted off into the heavens. We all remember where we were when the Challenger exploded and the Columbia disintergrated over Texas.
So, when Mike and I arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on June 1, I was fairly skipping across the parking lot to the Visitor's Center. The Endeavor had only returned from its final mission that very morning, while the Atlantis had just been moved to the launch pad the night before. Using binoculars, I had been able to see Endeavor blast off last month from our little beach in Hypoluxo, always a thrill. On the bus tour, you could still see the fresh tracks of the four crawlers, those huge contraptions that take eight hours to make the journey from the Vehicle Prep building to Launch Pad A, 1 mile away.
The enormity of the buildings, the equipment, the rockets, the fuel tanks cannot be adequately described in words. You just have to see it for yourself. I never quite understand how the airplane I am strapped into becomes airborne (I understand the science, but I still don't get it!) So, I kept thinking as I looked at the millions of pounds of equipment that were blasted into space, time and time again, that the scientists and engineers and technicians that made it all happen were truly amazing individuals. As we watched IMAX 3-D films of space station missions, I was impressed and amazed at the patience and dedication of the astronauts who trained so long and hard, then risked their lives to follow their dreams.
We ended the day with a lovely dinner with Mike's sister Norma, and her husband, John, who live in Melbourne, just south of Cape Canaveral. John, retired Air Force, was involved in operations for several of the Shuttle launches in the 80's and has the framed patches to prove it!
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