october-2010

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might be for a kid raised in New York City.
So when I learned the shuttle program was
ending, with its final two flights targeted
for Nov. 1 and Feb. 26, 2011, I felt a pang. I
knew I’d be saying goodbye to an old friend.
The first shuttle launch in 1981
preceded my arrival into the world by two
years. But the space program began shaping
the identity of Central Florida long before,
with the first rocket launch from thenremote
Cape Canaveral in 1950.
The subsequent space boom flooded
the area with transplanted scientists and
engineers. My father, a kid in nearby
Melbourne during the ’50s and early ’60s,
recalls that at least half of his classmates’
parents worked for the space program. He
watched as Alan Shepard lifted off in 1961
to become the first American in space, and
as John Glenn followed suit the next year to
become the first human in orbit. Thousands
welcomed astronauts home in parades down
the coast.
“This whole area’s called the Space Coast
for a reason,” says Mike Leinbach, shuttle
launch director and a NASA employee since
1984. “We all take pride in being a part of
the American manned space program.”
To this day, almost everyone on the
Space Coast knows someone associated with
the space program, says Laurilee Thompson,
a Brevard County tourism official and a
fourth-generation native of Titusville, a
town close enough to KSC that the blasts
of the massive Apollo moon launches
broke windows there. The space program
maintains a constant, visible presence, from
the names of local businesses and city streets
to the wilderness of Merritt Island National
Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National
Seashore, both spared from development as
buffers for KSC. Without the space program,
Thompson says, “The whole character of
our town would be very different.”
CHALL3NG3R’S PAYL0AD BAY doors
opened slowly, bit by bit unveiling Jon
McBride’s first glimpse of Australia, just 45
minutes after liftoff from KSC. For McBride,
viewing the Earth from above on that 1984
shuttle mission revealed a beauty he hasn’t
forgotten nearly three decades later.
A member of the first class of shuttle
pilots, McBride also remembers well the
shuttle’s early days, when it seemed it
might not even get off the ground. Now, as
one of several astronauts who meet with
the public at the KSC Visitor Complex, a
hybrid museum-science center-theme park,
GO MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2010
McBride considers the shuttle like a part of
his family and looks toward its final launch
with a heavy heart. “It’s going to be very
nostalgic,” he says. “It really is sad for me
that it’s going away.”
The shuttle was the world’s first reusable
spacecraft, coordinating more than 2.5
million parts to send astronauts into 17,000mile-per-hour
orbit in just more than eight
minutes. Former astronaut Bill Gregory
says he didn’t fully appreciate the shuttle’s
capabilities until his 16-day Endeavour
mission in 1995. “It goes up like a rocket
and lands like a plane,” he says. “It’s a
glorious vehicle.”
Leinbach’s feelings echo Gregory’s.
“When the shuttle flies, it is absolutely the
most amazing machine the world has ever
built. It’s been the showpiece of NASA for
the last 30 years,” he says. “It is, in part, the
pride of America.”
With an unprecedented ability to
transport payload—about 50,000 pounds
per mission—it has toted satellites to and
from space, delivered the Hubble Space
Telescope into orbit and was integral in
the football-field-sized International Space
Station’s construction. Back on Earth,
technologies developed for the shuttle have
led to new heart pumps for cardiac patients,
better pads for football players and safer
runways for airplanes.
Given its accomplishments and
capability, Leinbach and others question
the wisdom of ending the shuttle program
before its replacement is ready. Gregory is
troubled to lose the shuttle’s unique ability
to bring massive amounts of equipment
(called downmass) from the space station
back to Earth. And on the Space Coast,
there’s concern for the 9,000 shuttle-related
jobs that may be lost at KSC and how that
could impact the area economy.
These practical issues make my
personal nostalgia for the shuttle seem
rather trivial, but it’s the combination of
these elements—the shuttle’s importance
to science and the economy as well as our
emotional connection to it—that will make
its final launch such a milestone.
REMAINING
SHUTTLE LAUNCH
SCHEDULE
NOV. 1:
SPACE SHUTTLE
DISCOVERY,
MISSION STS-133
FEB. 26, 2011:
SPACE SHUTTLE
ENDEAVOUR,
MISSION STS-134
Shuttle launches are visible
along the Space Coast; Jetty
Park in Port Canaveral and the
Cocoa Beach Pier are among
the most popular viewing
spots. For others, visit
nasa.gov. Note that launch
dates may change.
0N A TR1P to the visitor complex, I turn
a corner and see a vision of my 10-year-old
self squinting back at me. The salty breeze
blows her long blond hair in a scatter. She
STARRY EYED
ASPIRING ASTRONAUTS CAN GET A TASTE OF THE REAL THING.
In addition to Camp Kennedy, a summer-only space camp, the Kennedy Space Center offers the half-day
Astronaut Training Experience, during which fledgling spacemen and women 14 years and older participate in
simulated missions, hear from former NASA astronauts and experience g-forces. The family program will have
the whole crew (ages 7 and older) working together on a space shuttle mission. kennedyspacecenter.com