AMERICA GETS IT UP AGAIN!!
Time was when a space shuttle launch seemed a relatively benign, “ho hum” sort of event. Well, it really never was that, of course, but throw enough shuttles into the cosmos without a hitch, and eventually people come to take it for granted. Such is the price of success, I suppose. All of that changed in a heartbeat on February 1, 2003, and nowhere was the impact felt moreso than here in the Clear Lake area.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center is a scant four miles down NASA Parkway, and as you might imagine, as NASA goes, so goes most of Houston and certainly the entire Clear Lake area. You could stand in the middle of any Starbucks in Clear Lake, fire a shotgun in any direction, and you’d be guaranteed to hit a few rocket scientists.
When you consider the magnitude of the effort required to get the shuttle off the launch pad and into space…well, I’m not at all certain a layman can truly appreciate what a massive triumph of engineering a launch truly is. I know that it’s difficult for me to appreciate…I’m a history major (Wouldja like fries with that??).
In most any other endeavor, an 86-2 career record would truly be cause for celebration. In the case of NASA’s space shuttle program, that lack of perfection means that two shuttles and their crews have been tragically lost- Challenger in 1986, and Columbia in 2003. The crews of both shuttles lived in Clear Lake, their children went to local schools, and they were part and parcel of the community. The losses were personal tragedies for the NASA community and the Clear Lake area, and their effects are felt to this day. The effort to get the shuttle back into space has been as much a memorial to the lost astronauts as anything else.
The challenge now becomes getting the seven Discovery astronauts safely back on the ground again. Given the nature of the Columbia tragedy, no one around here will be breathing easily until Discovery has made a successful re-entry and landing. Until then, most of us in the Clear Lake area will be keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best.
Here's a link to the NASA TV page, which offers live feeds over the Internet as well as instructions for receiving analog or digital transmission via home dish. The shuttle will dock with the space station at 0618 Central time tomorrow.
Northstar is not exaggerating when he describes the relationship between the Clear Lake area and the space program. I saw Apollo 13 in a theater years ago. At the end of the movie everyone clapped. You don't see that very much these days. Of course, this theater was just a couple of miles away from Johnson Space Center.
Definitely a huge day....my boyfriend (whom I live with) is an engineer for the TPS dept. They've been working like crazy to get this done, along with countless other people. Love the line about shooting a gun in Starbucks, but you'd better be careful. We do live in Texas and someone may take that as a suggestion!
86-2 career record? Check your stats, buddy. Without taking the 7 seconds it'd take me to google this and 100% verify it, I believe STS-114 is the 113th shuttle flight. Not that I'm trying to slim the odds to negate your point. I just have NO IDEA where that 86 came from.
And yeah, your "shotgun and rocket scientists" comment was a bit distasteful. But while you're in that same Starbucks, how many history majors (behind the counter) are you gonna hit if you swing a dead cat?
Just curious.
86-2 is the record from Challenger (#25) to Columbia (#113).
Thank You Adam! For putting my curiosity to rest.