Ever been to Spaceport, USA? It’s the tourist section of Kennedy Space Center. My dad lived about 20-30 minutes from it, so I’ve been many times. I bet it was packed this week, as John Glenn returned to space, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
I didn’t watch the coverage of the launch this time. I can’t really watch shuttle launches anymore. When I was a kid, my dad and I would drive out to the beach, or to one of the bridges, and watch the launches. It was cool, especially since after a few minutes the sound of the launch actually hit you, and it was damn impressive.
Shuttle launches got to be kinda boring after a while, actually. So I wasn’t exactly charged with excitement in 8th grade when my 8th grade English class went outside on January 28, 1986 to the athletic field to watch the First Teacher In Space get launched into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. The rest of that day…that whole week, actually, was a very trying emotional time for me, at 13.
In fact, it haunted me for years.
Here is a map that shows the distance that I was from the launch pads. We were close enough to hear the launch (after an impressive delay, of course).
The shuttle went up, but we were more concerned with gossip and enjoying the break from class, and looking forward to lunch, which was only a few minutes away.
And then someone shouted “it’s exploded! The shuttle exploded!”
We could see it, but we didn’t believe what we were seeing. Surely that was just the fuel tanks releasing and falling back to earth, as planned. Right?
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12/31/2009 05:21 PM Reply
Did you experience the same feelings again with 9/11. I remember the Kennedy assination on the radio all the way down in NZ as a kid, it seemed so surreal to me. Nice site.
http://www.kevinandreassend.com