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Years Later: Day One: Tuesday, August 7, 2001, Melbourne, Florida
I always wanted to see a real space launch since the day I first watched
the Apollo 11 thundered into space on television in 1969. It was incomprehensible
to me to imagine that the powerful Saturn V rocket can ferry 3 men to
land on the moon. My interests in the space program were just beginning
that same year I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. Since then, I've
watched dozens of space launches but only on TV. The networks used to
follow the moon excursions in the early 70s and I stayed up almost 24
hours a day to watch the astronauts walk on the moon while skipping school.
Watching astronauts drive across the moon on their rovers and discovering
the strange geologic formations fired up my imagination that one day I
too may be doing the same thing by the year 2001. Of course, there is
no Clavius Base or large rotating space stations for tourists. We've just
only begun to leave our planet once again through robotic missions and
building the first International space station or ISS, in Earth orbit.
But getting the opportunity to see a live liftoff reaffirmed my imagination
and hope that humankind still has a desire and a destiny to reach the
stars to explore other worlds and perhaps meet other life forms.
The day I received email from Buddy Nelson from Lockheed-Martin (our sponsor),
he'd reviewed the Tech Museum's "2001: Destination Space" exhibit
and ask them who devised the concept? They pointed my way and we talked
for hours about how the exhibit was facilitated and how the project started.
Buddy was very happy to write his review for Lockheed-Martin since he
is a big 2001 fan and working for our sponsor. His admiration and appreciation
offered me a live shuttle launch through NASA Headquarters was a dream
come true, if only I can make travel arrangements and target a date. I
invited the very first volunteer, Helene Seefred that helped me construct
my first 2001 exhibit over 2 years ago and her husband, Ron Seefred and
cousin, Pete from Florida. The following excerpts is from the my up and
coming book:
Targeting a safe date for the week was tricky because of the technical
problems on the International Space Station (ISS) or Alpha which
is the stations official name, had delayed the launch. The 58-foot robotic
station arm was giving the crew trouble as they encounter start-up problems
that kept the crew in orbit an extra month. And then one-week before launch,
cracks were found in the booster rockets. I cancelled twice before finalizing
a date but when we finally arrived at Kennedy, the weather delayed STS-105
launch. Luckily, we had an extra day to see the second attempt. The irony
to see my first manned space launch was the name of the Orbiter Discovery,
being the year in which Kubrick and Clarke came up with the name of the
USS Discovery spacecraft. Another interesting fact is that, it was a strange
feeling to see up close the Kennedy runway from the Orbiter is suppose
to use incase of an emergency landing after lift off. This is where the
Pan Am Orion III space clipper is launched as describes in Clarke's novel,
2001: A Space Odyssey. And another tie-in to 2001 was the Kennedy's
Visitor Complex's slogan for the year, "2001: Your Odyssey Awaits" and
blasting out from the sound system at the main entrance, a contemporary
Jazz version of "Also Sprach Zarathustra."
After a 5-hour flight to Melbourne, Florida from San Jose, we get our bags and rental car. But we end up getting lost on the freeway but manage to find our motel while greeting the 76-degree weather and high humidity at 12-midnight. It was just nice to get a cold shower and good night rest after a long flight from San Jose.
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