STS-1… I SAW IT,
Part 1
What Led Up To STS-1
Over the years I’ve encountered scores of folks who are interested in spaceflight. Yet many of them only know the Space Shuttle and many of those folks only have recall of the program post-Challenger. They were either too young to pay much attention before then, or they simply had yet to be born. For that reason I have composed this series of stories to give them my personal perspective on the first Space Shuttle mission as I witnessed it. Being a person who sat as a pre-schooler, legs crossed, on the floor of my grandma’s house and watched Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 launch and later sat, legs crossed on the hallway floor of Nelle Haley Elementary School along with all of the other students and watched Gemini 3 launch on TV, I later became a rabid space-buff. I think because of that I can offer an interesting perspective. For those of you who are of my same generation, I hope I can offer another angle to your own memories. A good yardstick to use in measuring public interest in the space program is the news media. Prior to wide-spread cable TV, the three major networks directed most of the public’s attention toward current events. After Apollo 11, people who- sadly- were born without the aviation and aerospace gene began to lose interest in the space program and that included the producers of national TV news. Those of us who were farther evolved, however, simply did our best to follow the program through any source we could find. My parents let me stay home from school to watch the televised critical events of Apollos 12, 13, 14,16, and 17 as well as Skylab 1, 2 and 4. My mom said I was learning more in those few hours than I was in school anyhow. I also tried to do my best to help those who had been born without the spaceflight gene. As a sixth grader I spent every single one of my opportunities at classroom “show-N-tell” holding a model of a Saturn V or an Apollo CSM or LEM in front of my class and explaining assorted aspects of the vehicle and program until my teacher Mrs. Rosure said “That will be enough now Wes.” I never caught on to the glazed eyes of my classmates who had no idea as to what I was talking about. By the spring of 1970, my classmates would groan when it was my turn at the front of the class. They later got even with me on the dodge ball field.
Skylab was the hardest program for any space-buff to follow. In the shadow of Watergate, most of the news media had other things to cover and we were left with occasional radio reports by folks like Jay Barbree. In fact, so indifferent had the news media become about manned spaceflight that the reentry and splashdown of Skylab 4, on February 8, 1974, was the only return to earth of United States astronauts on a US spacecraft that was not covered on national television. I was left in my parent’s living room frantically spinning the tuner on the TV between the three major channels and mumbling “What the…?” The media came back for the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission in July of 1975. Although the coverage was pretty good, we space-buffs were struck by one single, cold fact- as far as manned spaceflight was concerned this was pretty much “it” for the next few years. Unlike today’s situation where any plans for NASA’s human spaceflight efforts are quagmired in presidential disdain while the agency itself dithers leaving America’s space future adrift, in 1975 when ASTP splashed down there at least was the Space Shuttle in the future. Just a year and a half after ASTP, the orbiter test-bed Enterprise was flying at Edwards AFB on the back of the 747 carrier aircraft. At first, the media did not see this as much of a story, but by August 12, 1977, when the first free flight of the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) took place- at least for the moment the media came back, and so did many folks in America. The coverage began early in the morning and ABC News nearly covered the event from wheels up to wheels stop. After all, the Shuttle was new and somewhat exciting. TV rating points may be gained. For me, ALT blended both of my passions- aviation and space. The first ALT free flight took place just 16 days before I arrived at Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach to begin my aviation career. Although much of America once again rapidly lost interest in the ALT flights after that first test drop, I carried my interest with me onto the Embry-Riddle campus. Suddenly I found myself among a whole crowd of people who were just as crazy about flying and space as I was. As my younger brother put it, “It’s like he’s finally been institutionalized.”
Being that Daytona was so close to “The Cape” meant a lot of trouble for a space-nut as it easily distract from required my studies. So, I decided to put my space-nutdom on the back burner and focus on becoming a professional aviator. Still, it was not easy- in the late 70s a lot of work leading toward the shuttle was going on. The 15,000 foot long Shuttle Runway had been constructed and actually had an active tower. Unfortunately, the guys in the tower had almost nothing to do. Thus, in those days, you could call them up on the tower frequency listed on the sectional chart and request a touch-and-go. They were always more than happy to grant that request. So it was that as a student pilot on one of my dual flights I landed a Cessna 172 on the Shuttle runway. Just a couple of years later, such a thing would have been unthinkable. On the 24th day of March, 1979 the Shuttle runway received its first orbiter as the Columbia arrived from Palmdale, California. Three of us drove down together and parked across the river to watch the 747 land with the orbiter aboard. From across the river, they looked great- like a majestic preface to the future in space. Later, on the evening news, the story appeared quite different. Of the 38,000 tiles in the vehicle’s thermal protection system, only 60% had been installed and of those nearly a thousand had come off on the flight to KSC. The up-close images looked far worse than what we saw from Titusville. Two months later the Enterprise herself came to Florida and a lot of us made the pilgrimage to the Kennedy Space Center to take the bus tour and see her being test-fitted on Pad 39A. Meanwhile, along the crawlerway and over by the VAB, the number 2 and 3 Apollo launch towers as well as the mobile service structure were being cut up. Large sections of the launch towers had already been re-planted at pads 39 A and B to act as shuttle Fixed Service Structures, but the portions not serving as such were sold for scrap. The number 1 launch tower was sitting behind the VAB, un-used. For the next year and a half the work on the shuttle would be intense and completely behind the scenes. Even the most rabid of space-buffs would hear very little about the shuttle and at KSC the bus tours would see a lot of weeds growing where fantastic things once happened. The vast majority of Americans would focus on much more important things… like disco, The Dukes of Hazard and the growing tally of days that the hostages had been held in Iran.
My focus was on my critical job of stocking shelves and ringing up prescriptions in the cosmetics department of the Daytona Kmart store in a effort to not only get back into college, but to also somehow feed myself… where is Sally Struthers when you need her? It was a bitter cold Monday across Florida on the 29th of December, 1980 as the first operational Space Shuttle stack rolled out of the VAB. I was rolling a big metal cart of shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories out of the stockroom at the Kmart at the same time. In the store’s appliance department, the TVs showed clips of the rollout on the local central Florida networks. Oddly, they completely ignored my rollout of shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories. It seemed, however, that the rest of America ignored both events alike. The stack for STS-1 (Shuttle Transportation System- 1) resided on pad 39A for nearly two more months until February 20, 1981 when the Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) took place. In that test the Shuttle’s main engines were fired for 20 seconds at 100% thrust while the stack remained held to the pad. The noise not only woke up central Florida, but it woke up the nation- the vehicle was alive! A month a seven days following the FRF NASA announced officially that the launch date for the first Space Shuttle would be April 10th. Standing there in the Kmart cosmetics department I decided that I was not going to miss it. I told Andy the pharmacist that I was gonna be down there to see it. Andy asked what I was going to do if I couldn’t get the day off? I replied “I’ll quit the job.” Knowing I only had a bicycle he asked, “How’re you gonna get down there?” I replied that if I could not get a ride, I would ride my bike and get as far south as I could. He just shook his head and snickered. The fact was that I had spent my whole life passionately following spaceflight and nearly every bit of that had been sitting in front of a TV set. There was no way I was going to be this close to that piece of spaceflight history and again have to watch it on TV. I was going to be THERE to witness it first hand- even if I had to ride my bicycle.
Part 2
We’re Gonna Swim Across That River and Strangle Jules Bergman.
Thirty years ago I was a young college student trying to work my way through Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach and being a life-long space-buff I had seen every US manned spaceflight launch on TV. As such, I was determined to be down at “The Cape” to witness, first-hand, the launch of the first Space Shuttle. The only problem was I did not own a car and the best eye witness location for the launch was almost 50 miles away- a bit longer than the distance that I usually rode my bicycle.
A day before the launch I ventured to the Avion student newspaper office on Embry-Riddle’s campus was told that AIAA was chartering a bus to go from the campus to KSC for the launch of STS-1. I hustled down to buy a ticket, but found that the tickets had sold out almost immediately. Dejected I returned to the newspaper office and began to plot my bicycle ride down US1 to Titusville. I figured it would take me most of the night to get down there and although riding a bicycle down US1 in the middle of the night to see a space launch may seem a bit nuts, the term “*A bit nuts” is denoted on my birth certificate.
Just as I was about to head out and start peddling, a friend of mine stopped me and said that she knew of two guys in the dorm who were driving down. She suggested that we should go and she could introduce me to them. If they had an extra seat, it may keep me from becoming a road pizza on US1. As it turned out the two guys were happy to have me ride along. They were in fact both space-buffs just like me and we instantly became friends. Jennings, who owned the land-boat of a car that we drove down in, was from Michigan just like me and to this day I consider him to be a friend. Brian, the other guy, was an expert in everything that flies and would go on to not only work at the National Air and Space Museum as a photo archivist, but would also serve as the best man in my wedding seven years later. Together the three of us headed out that Thursday evening to witness aviation history… or so we thought.
On the trip down toward the launch site we chattered about spaceflight history. As we came within a dozen miles of Titusville, we suddenly saw spaceflight history. Above the trees the darkness was slashed by the crossed white beams of the pad spotlights. Although we could not yet see the shuttle, it was an image that we had always seen in books, magazines and on television. It made your heart stop and your jaw drop in spite of yourself. Entering the town of Titusville we suddenly discovered that we had no idea where the hell we were going. Where would we park? What about private property? Collectively we decided just to turn toward the river. Driving down Grace Street we hit Riverview and the riverbank itself. For a few minutes we cruised up and down Riverview calculating a good place to park. I spotted a county pumping station and suggested we should park near it. That way if any of the locals gave us a hard time, we could just go onto county property. We pulled in and bailed out of the car and just stood there frozen by the sight of the white shuttle bathed in those crossed spotlight beams. For a moment, all three of us were 15 years old again.
Snapping out of the shuttle’s spell for a moment, I saw that it was just after 10 pm and I decided to hike up Grace Street to the Mister Doughnut shop up on US1. There I found a pay phone and I called my folks up in Michigan to ask “Guess where I am tonight?” Being the parents of a rabid space-buff, it was an easy guess for them. When I returned to the car I was amazed to see that in the past 20 minutes, nearly every parking spot along the riverbank near us had been taken, and there were more cars coming. Clearly, there would be no problems with the local residents.
Opening the trunk of his car, the guy who had parked right next to us revealed a sort of mobile Space Shuttle flight following station. Attached to the underside of the trunk lid he had a poster depicting each phase of the STS-1 flight profile. He had charts and table that listed each mission event as well as assorted abort profiles and abort destinations. He had shuttle cut-away diagrams that detailed ever component. Most importantly, however, he had a small portable TV that ran off of his car battery. In 1981 such TVs were not rare, but in our present location his TV was the center of attention. Several hours into the night I decided to go for a walk up US1 and see what may be happening. The streets were busy as I strolled along and every sign that could have its letters rearranged had a shuttle best wishes message. After about a mile or so I came upon the local mall. Even though it was very late at night, the parking lot was filled as if it were the day before Christmas. The doors to the mall were propped open and people were coming and going. I went inside and many of the stores were open and doing a good amount of business. Most noticeable was the local toy store which had set up a table just outside their door. Upon the table was a cash register and stacks of Space Shuttle models which were apparently selling like crazy. When I got back to the riverbank everyone was standing around gazing at the distant shuttle or talking spaceflight. We talked about every aspect of spaceflight past, present and future. Most of us simply agreed that we had no idea as to what STS-1 would do, or what the shuttle’s future would really be. It was like going to space-buff heaven. The only problem was access to a bathroom. On a trip up the road to buy a cup of tea I found out that the guy running the Mister Doughnut up on US1 did not mind folks using his restrooms, as long as they bought a doughnut “or somethin’.” When I got back to the riverbank I spread the word and soon folks were strolling up the road to Mister Doughnut and returning “rested” with coffee or a pastry in hand.
Shortly after dawn the countdown hit the first in a series of holds. The TV in the mobile Space Shuttle flight following station seemed to pick up the local ABC station the best, so we were glued to Jules Bergman and Gene Cernan. The issues started with a fuel cell problem and then a problem with the back-up computer. The guys on the TV knew about as much about the problems as we did, but Bergman kept down-talking the prospect of a launch today. As count recycles and holds folded up on one another, Bergman kept talking about NASA officials saying things such as their “…expectation of having to go through multiple launch attempts over several days.” Finally Jennings just growled that he was about ready to swim across the river and strangle Bergman. Of course, Jules Bergman was correct in one sense- we were not going to see the Space Shuttle fly today. Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of holds and recycles, the word came across the loop that they were going to once again recycle to T-20 and go out and remove the crew. Some two and one half hours after the scheduled launch time, the effort came to a halt. Shortly after that came the official scrub announcement- frankly, it was almost a relief. We’d all been awake for more than 24 hours and other than a bag of doughnuts that I’d retrieved from Mister Doughnut, none of us had eaten. Everyone up and down the riverbank agreed to meet in the same place Saturday night for Sunday morning’s attempt at a launch.
The next day at work I went into the personnel manager’s office and told her that although I was scheduled to work on Sunday, I would be at the shuttle launch and if it was late, I’d be late too. Unexpectedly, she simply smiled sweetly and said, “No problem, I understand- have fun.” It’s funny how folks who live in central Florida have a different view of spaceflight than other people around the country. Of course, most of the country had watched the whole scrub live on TV and from the White House to my parent’s house every American seemed to suffer through the recycles with us. Most of them, however, were much closer to a restroom than those of us on the riverbank.
Part 3
Go Baby GO!!
The night before the second launch attempt we got a later start out of Daytona than we had the first time. We stopped and ate and this time we were all armed with sleeping bags. Just as we had planned Friday morning, almost everyone parked where they had been for the scrub. This time, however, some of us crawled into our sleeping bags and grabbed a few hours of sleep. I have to admit that I kept waking up, looking at the shuttle in the spotlights and then covering back up thinking “Wow.”
As dawn broke folks began milling around again. This time there as a different feeling in the air- I had a sense that the shuttle was gonna go for sure. A few hucksters were walking up and down the crowd, as they had done on the day of the scrub, trying to sell assorted souvenirs. One guy had a simple white bumper-sticker that had a rough shuttle image on it and the words “I SAW IT.” Someone, I believe it may have been Jennings shouted to him “What if it blows up?” Without missing a beat the huckster reached into his pocket and pulled out a large black marker. He pointed to an open space on the right hand corner of the bumper-sticker and he said “Then you take this marker and over here you write BLOW UP.” He was apparently a huckster with the Right Stuff.
Our friend with the mobile Space Shuttle flight following station in the trunk of his car had taken his place right next to us again. Just like on scrub day, I had remembered to bring along my tape recorder. I’d been taping launch broadcasts from the TV since I was 13 years old and I got Apollo 14, so I wanted to get this one. I asked our pal with the battery powered TV if I could place my tape recorder next to his TV at launch time and pick up some of the broadcast. He happily agreed and we all waited as the countdown passed every milestone that it had stumbled upon during the first attempt. No one knew what to expect- in fact, the damned thing just might blow up. We saw nothing but a silhouette of the shuttle and pad 39A as the sun came up. It was a bit hazy and so our view remained that of a silhouette while the count ticked down. Like expectant parents we paced a bit and alternated between looking at the pad in the distance and focusing on the little TV set. I kept running through my mind the fact that this was indeed history that could be considered on the scale of witnessing Freedom 7, or Friendship 7, or Gemini 3, or Apollo 8 or perhaps even Apollo 11. Countless space firsts were about to take place right in front of our eyes. I just had to hope that I did not forget to turn on my tape recorder. As the countdown hit the two minute mark I hit the record button and set the tape recorder down next to the TV. Oddly, about that same time no one was looking at the TV set, every eye that had a view of the pad was focused toward the silhouette of the shuttle backed by the amber sky. Everything seemed to get quite still.
At main engine start we saw the silhouette of the steam billowing from the engines working against the sound suppression water. Three seconds later the solids lit and we saw what looked like a second sunrise. Then the STS-1 stood up on two stilts of flame as bright as the sun. Everyone was screaming “GO!... Go Baby GO!... GO!” I heard myself screaming it and I heard it echoing up and down the riverbank. What I did not hear, was the shuttle. Then I remembered something I read in Mike Collin’s book “Carrying the Fire.” When he described watching the first Saturn V, Apollo 4, launch he said that about the time he said to himself “you can’t hear it.” the sound hit him. And just as I had that thought, the sound hit us.
Although there were certainly a few Saturn V veterans present, most folks who were there to witness STS-1 had never experienced anything like the shuttle. It reached out and took hold of you and shook the ground under our feet. My tape recorder picked up the sound of the items in the trunk of the car rattling. The only thing louder was the sound of the shouts, screams, squeals and rebel yells coming from the crowd. People were jumping up and down and punching their fists into the air as STS-1 ripped into the sky. You really had to work to hear any of the calls coming from mission control. The whole thing kept going for over two minutes and then we heard the “Go for SRB sep.” call. It was then that everything seemed to grow comparatively quiet with just a smattering of “Hoots” and “Whoooos”. A few seconds later at SRB separation we saw the translucent white plume and then saw the two solids dropping away. At that moment a spontaneous cheer went up followed by a rolling applause produced by the half million or so people who now lined the riverbank as far as the eye could see. It was as if the home team had made a fantastically great play in front of a sellout crowd. It was sudden and it was contagious- I found myself clapping as if someone in NASA could actually hear me. That applause was actually captured on my tape. Following SRB separation we turned our attention to the tiny TV set, watching and listening as STS-1 headed for its target in orbit. In the distance out over the Atlantic the vehicle looked like a very bright star hanging in the sky. As the boost continued we had the illusion that the vehicle was actually heading downward toward the horizon- because that was what it was actually doing. Soon the star simply faded into a pinpoint. A glance at the TV and then a look back toward the sky found the shuttle lost to the eye. At Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) everyone seemed to snap back to reality.
There was pure joy in the crowd and you heard a lot of “Man! Did you see that?” as if someone could have missed it. We patted one another on the back, smiled and felt great, even though we had done nothing more than be there and watch. One fellow coined it all when he grinned widely and said “Gee… I wish they had another one.” Even the ride home was conducted as a festive traffic jamb. People were filled with pride and in our car the clogged roadway simply gave us more time to chatter about the launch.
I got back to Kmart in time to start my Sunday shift on schedule. Over in the appliance department a small crowd had gathered around the TV sets. One of guys working in that department had thought ahead and set one of the VCRs to record the launch which was playing over and over again as customers stood and watched- over and over again. On that Sunday the folks that I worked with all heard that I had been there and the guys in the appliance department told their customers and pointed toward me. As I stocked my shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories, dozens of people came up to me and asked “How was it?” The best I could do was to simply reply that it was indescribable and urge them to go down and see one.
Since STS-1 I’ve been able to witness shuttle launches from the beach, from the press site, from Embry Riddle’s campus, from the grounds of the Astronaut Hall of Fame, from the Ormond Beach Bridge, from the NASA Causeway and twice from different KSC VIP sites. In all I’ve seen a total of 19 shuttle launches in person. I state that figure with regret as I, like most space-buffs, thought that the shuttle would go on and on and serve out the system’s designed life-span of 100 missions per orbiter. I fell into the trap set by NASA itself when it decided to make shuttle missions appear commonplace.
Now, the program is ending and there is no equal replacement ready to fly. I managed to take my two little girls to KSC to see the STS-125 launch. I wanted them to be able to say “I saw it” when the subject of that fantastic vehicle that launched like a rocket and flew back like an aircraft comes up in history class and the teacher tells about the days when we as a nation did amazing things that we no longer do. On the 30th anniversary of STS-1 we have come full circle as a space fairing nation. We went from having the shuttle as a drawing board concept that teetered on the funding votes of Congress, suffered the doubts of the critics and over-ran its schedule into a launch test series that led it to become operational. On that day the skyline of KSC looked much the same as it does today. The Apollo LUT number 1 sat idle near the VAB as LC-39B was under construction. Today, the Ares I LUT sits idle near the VAB while LC-39B is being demolished. The shuttle is coming out of an era of successful operation while the Obama administration defunds its replacement which, after suffering at the hands of critics, had a single test flight and the vehicle meant to replace it teeters on Congressional funding whims and remains little more than a drawing board concept. I’m happy that my kids can say “I saw it” but I hold deep regret for future kids who will not be able to say the same.
What Led Up To STS-1
Over the years I’ve encountered scores of folks who are interested in spaceflight. Yet many of them only know the Space Shuttle and many of those folks only have recall of the program post-Challenger. They were either too young to pay much attention before then, or they simply had yet to be born. For that reason I have composed this series of stories to give them my personal perspective on the first Space Shuttle mission as I witnessed it. Being a person who sat as a pre-schooler, legs crossed, on the floor of my grandma’s house and watched Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 launch and later sat, legs crossed on the hallway floor of Nelle Haley Elementary School along with all of the other students and watched Gemini 3 launch on TV, I later became a rabid space-buff. I think because of that I can offer an interesting perspective. For those of you who are of my same generation, I hope I can offer another angle to your own memories. A good yardstick to use in measuring public interest in the space program is the news media. Prior to wide-spread cable TV, the three major networks directed most of the public’s attention toward current events. After Apollo 11, people who- sadly- were born without the aviation and aerospace gene began to lose interest in the space program and that included the producers of national TV news. Those of us who were farther evolved, however, simply did our best to follow the program through any source we could find. My parents let me stay home from school to watch the televised critical events of Apollos 12, 13, 14,16, and 17 as well as Skylab 1, 2 and 4. My mom said I was learning more in those few hours than I was in school anyhow. I also tried to do my best to help those who had been born without the spaceflight gene. As a sixth grader I spent every single one of my opportunities at classroom “show-N-tell” holding a model of a Saturn V or an Apollo CSM or LEM in front of my class and explaining assorted aspects of the vehicle and program until my teacher Mrs. Rosure said “That will be enough now Wes.” I never caught on to the glazed eyes of my classmates who had no idea as to what I was talking about. By the spring of 1970, my classmates would groan when it was my turn at the front of the class. They later got even with me on the dodge ball field.
Skylab was the hardest program for any space-buff to follow. In the shadow of Watergate, most of the news media had other things to cover and we were left with occasional radio reports by folks like Jay Barbree. In fact, so indifferent had the news media become about manned spaceflight that the reentry and splashdown of Skylab 4, on February 8, 1974, was the only return to earth of United States astronauts on a US spacecraft that was not covered on national television. I was left in my parent’s living room frantically spinning the tuner on the TV between the three major channels and mumbling “What the…?” The media came back for the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission in July of 1975. Although the coverage was pretty good, we space-buffs were struck by one single, cold fact- as far as manned spaceflight was concerned this was pretty much “it” for the next few years. Unlike today’s situation where any plans for NASA’s human spaceflight efforts are quagmired in presidential disdain while the agency itself dithers leaving America’s space future adrift, in 1975 when ASTP splashed down there at least was the Space Shuttle in the future. Just a year and a half after ASTP, the orbiter test-bed Enterprise was flying at Edwards AFB on the back of the 747 carrier aircraft. At first, the media did not see this as much of a story, but by August 12, 1977, when the first free flight of the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) took place- at least for the moment the media came back, and so did many folks in America. The coverage began early in the morning and ABC News nearly covered the event from wheels up to wheels stop. After all, the Shuttle was new and somewhat exciting. TV rating points may be gained. For me, ALT blended both of my passions- aviation and space. The first ALT free flight took place just 16 days before I arrived at Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach to begin my aviation career. Although much of America once again rapidly lost interest in the ALT flights after that first test drop, I carried my interest with me onto the Embry-Riddle campus. Suddenly I found myself among a whole crowd of people who were just as crazy about flying and space as I was. As my younger brother put it, “It’s like he’s finally been institutionalized.”
Being that Daytona was so close to “The Cape” meant a lot of trouble for a space-nut as it easily distract from required my studies. So, I decided to put my space-nutdom on the back burner and focus on becoming a professional aviator. Still, it was not easy- in the late 70s a lot of work leading toward the shuttle was going on. The 15,000 foot long Shuttle Runway had been constructed and actually had an active tower. Unfortunately, the guys in the tower had almost nothing to do. Thus, in those days, you could call them up on the tower frequency listed on the sectional chart and request a touch-and-go. They were always more than happy to grant that request. So it was that as a student pilot on one of my dual flights I landed a Cessna 172 on the Shuttle runway. Just a couple of years later, such a thing would have been unthinkable. On the 24th day of March, 1979 the Shuttle runway received its first orbiter as the Columbia arrived from Palmdale, California. Three of us drove down together and parked across the river to watch the 747 land with the orbiter aboard. From across the river, they looked great- like a majestic preface to the future in space. Later, on the evening news, the story appeared quite different. Of the 38,000 tiles in the vehicle’s thermal protection system, only 60% had been installed and of those nearly a thousand had come off on the flight to KSC. The up-close images looked far worse than what we saw from Titusville. Two months later the Enterprise herself came to Florida and a lot of us made the pilgrimage to the Kennedy Space Center to take the bus tour and see her being test-fitted on Pad 39A. Meanwhile, along the crawlerway and over by the VAB, the number 2 and 3 Apollo launch towers as well as the mobile service structure were being cut up. Large sections of the launch towers had already been re-planted at pads 39 A and B to act as shuttle Fixed Service Structures, but the portions not serving as such were sold for scrap. The number 1 launch tower was sitting behind the VAB, un-used. For the next year and a half the work on the shuttle would be intense and completely behind the scenes. Even the most rabid of space-buffs would hear very little about the shuttle and at KSC the bus tours would see a lot of weeds growing where fantastic things once happened. The vast majority of Americans would focus on much more important things… like disco, The Dukes of Hazard and the growing tally of days that the hostages had been held in Iran.
My focus was on my critical job of stocking shelves and ringing up prescriptions in the cosmetics department of the Daytona Kmart store in a effort to not only get back into college, but to also somehow feed myself… where is Sally Struthers when you need her? It was a bitter cold Monday across Florida on the 29th of December, 1980 as the first operational Space Shuttle stack rolled out of the VAB. I was rolling a big metal cart of shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories out of the stockroom at the Kmart at the same time. In the store’s appliance department, the TVs showed clips of the rollout on the local central Florida networks. Oddly, they completely ignored my rollout of shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories. It seemed, however, that the rest of America ignored both events alike. The stack for STS-1 (Shuttle Transportation System- 1) resided on pad 39A for nearly two more months until February 20, 1981 when the Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) took place. In that test the Shuttle’s main engines were fired for 20 seconds at 100% thrust while the stack remained held to the pad. The noise not only woke up central Florida, but it woke up the nation- the vehicle was alive! A month a seven days following the FRF NASA announced officially that the launch date for the first Space Shuttle would be April 10th. Standing there in the Kmart cosmetics department I decided that I was not going to miss it. I told Andy the pharmacist that I was gonna be down there to see it. Andy asked what I was going to do if I couldn’t get the day off? I replied “I’ll quit the job.” Knowing I only had a bicycle he asked, “How’re you gonna get down there?” I replied that if I could not get a ride, I would ride my bike and get as far south as I could. He just shook his head and snickered. The fact was that I had spent my whole life passionately following spaceflight and nearly every bit of that had been sitting in front of a TV set. There was no way I was going to be this close to that piece of spaceflight history and again have to watch it on TV. I was going to be THERE to witness it first hand- even if I had to ride my bicycle.
Part 2
We’re Gonna Swim Across That River and Strangle Jules Bergman.
Thirty years ago I was a young college student trying to work my way through Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach and being a life-long space-buff I had seen every US manned spaceflight launch on TV. As such, I was determined to be down at “The Cape” to witness, first-hand, the launch of the first Space Shuttle. The only problem was I did not own a car and the best eye witness location for the launch was almost 50 miles away- a bit longer than the distance that I usually rode my bicycle.
A day before the launch I ventured to the Avion student newspaper office on Embry-Riddle’s campus was told that AIAA was chartering a bus to go from the campus to KSC for the launch of STS-1. I hustled down to buy a ticket, but found that the tickets had sold out almost immediately. Dejected I returned to the newspaper office and began to plot my bicycle ride down US1 to Titusville. I figured it would take me most of the night to get down there and although riding a bicycle down US1 in the middle of the night to see a space launch may seem a bit nuts, the term “*A bit nuts” is denoted on my birth certificate.
Just as I was about to head out and start peddling, a friend of mine stopped me and said that she knew of two guys in the dorm who were driving down. She suggested that we should go and she could introduce me to them. If they had an extra seat, it may keep me from becoming a road pizza on US1. As it turned out the two guys were happy to have me ride along. They were in fact both space-buffs just like me and we instantly became friends. Jennings, who owned the land-boat of a car that we drove down in, was from Michigan just like me and to this day I consider him to be a friend. Brian, the other guy, was an expert in everything that flies and would go on to not only work at the National Air and Space Museum as a photo archivist, but would also serve as the best man in my wedding seven years later. Together the three of us headed out that Thursday evening to witness aviation history… or so we thought.
On the trip down toward the launch site we chattered about spaceflight history. As we came within a dozen miles of Titusville, we suddenly saw spaceflight history. Above the trees the darkness was slashed by the crossed white beams of the pad spotlights. Although we could not yet see the shuttle, it was an image that we had always seen in books, magazines and on television. It made your heart stop and your jaw drop in spite of yourself. Entering the town of Titusville we suddenly discovered that we had no idea where the hell we were going. Where would we park? What about private property? Collectively we decided just to turn toward the river. Driving down Grace Street we hit Riverview and the riverbank itself. For a few minutes we cruised up and down Riverview calculating a good place to park. I spotted a county pumping station and suggested we should park near it. That way if any of the locals gave us a hard time, we could just go onto county property. We pulled in and bailed out of the car and just stood there frozen by the sight of the white shuttle bathed in those crossed spotlight beams. For a moment, all three of us were 15 years old again.
Snapping out of the shuttle’s spell for a moment, I saw that it was just after 10 pm and I decided to hike up Grace Street to the Mister Doughnut shop up on US1. There I found a pay phone and I called my folks up in Michigan to ask “Guess where I am tonight?” Being the parents of a rabid space-buff, it was an easy guess for them. When I returned to the car I was amazed to see that in the past 20 minutes, nearly every parking spot along the riverbank near us had been taken, and there were more cars coming. Clearly, there would be no problems with the local residents.
Opening the trunk of his car, the guy who had parked right next to us revealed a sort of mobile Space Shuttle flight following station. Attached to the underside of the trunk lid he had a poster depicting each phase of the STS-1 flight profile. He had charts and table that listed each mission event as well as assorted abort profiles and abort destinations. He had shuttle cut-away diagrams that detailed ever component. Most importantly, however, he had a small portable TV that ran off of his car battery. In 1981 such TVs were not rare, but in our present location his TV was the center of attention. Several hours into the night I decided to go for a walk up US1 and see what may be happening. The streets were busy as I strolled along and every sign that could have its letters rearranged had a shuttle best wishes message. After about a mile or so I came upon the local mall. Even though it was very late at night, the parking lot was filled as if it were the day before Christmas. The doors to the mall were propped open and people were coming and going. I went inside and many of the stores were open and doing a good amount of business. Most noticeable was the local toy store which had set up a table just outside their door. Upon the table was a cash register and stacks of Space Shuttle models which were apparently selling like crazy. When I got back to the riverbank everyone was standing around gazing at the distant shuttle or talking spaceflight. We talked about every aspect of spaceflight past, present and future. Most of us simply agreed that we had no idea as to what STS-1 would do, or what the shuttle’s future would really be. It was like going to space-buff heaven. The only problem was access to a bathroom. On a trip up the road to buy a cup of tea I found out that the guy running the Mister Doughnut up on US1 did not mind folks using his restrooms, as long as they bought a doughnut “or somethin’.” When I got back to the riverbank I spread the word and soon folks were strolling up the road to Mister Doughnut and returning “rested” with coffee or a pastry in hand.
Shortly after dawn the countdown hit the first in a series of holds. The TV in the mobile Space Shuttle flight following station seemed to pick up the local ABC station the best, so we were glued to Jules Bergman and Gene Cernan. The issues started with a fuel cell problem and then a problem with the back-up computer. The guys on the TV knew about as much about the problems as we did, but Bergman kept down-talking the prospect of a launch today. As count recycles and holds folded up on one another, Bergman kept talking about NASA officials saying things such as their “…expectation of having to go through multiple launch attempts over several days.” Finally Jennings just growled that he was about ready to swim across the river and strangle Bergman. Of course, Jules Bergman was correct in one sense- we were not going to see the Space Shuttle fly today. Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of holds and recycles, the word came across the loop that they were going to once again recycle to T-20 and go out and remove the crew. Some two and one half hours after the scheduled launch time, the effort came to a halt. Shortly after that came the official scrub announcement- frankly, it was almost a relief. We’d all been awake for more than 24 hours and other than a bag of doughnuts that I’d retrieved from Mister Doughnut, none of us had eaten. Everyone up and down the riverbank agreed to meet in the same place Saturday night for Sunday morning’s attempt at a launch.
The next day at work I went into the personnel manager’s office and told her that although I was scheduled to work on Sunday, I would be at the shuttle launch and if it was late, I’d be late too. Unexpectedly, she simply smiled sweetly and said, “No problem, I understand- have fun.” It’s funny how folks who live in central Florida have a different view of spaceflight than other people around the country. Of course, most of the country had watched the whole scrub live on TV and from the White House to my parent’s house every American seemed to suffer through the recycles with us. Most of them, however, were much closer to a restroom than those of us on the riverbank.
Part 3
Go Baby GO!!
The night before the second launch attempt we got a later start out of Daytona than we had the first time. We stopped and ate and this time we were all armed with sleeping bags. Just as we had planned Friday morning, almost everyone parked where they had been for the scrub. This time, however, some of us crawled into our sleeping bags and grabbed a few hours of sleep. I have to admit that I kept waking up, looking at the shuttle in the spotlights and then covering back up thinking “Wow.”
As dawn broke folks began milling around again. This time there as a different feeling in the air- I had a sense that the shuttle was gonna go for sure. A few hucksters were walking up and down the crowd, as they had done on the day of the scrub, trying to sell assorted souvenirs. One guy had a simple white bumper-sticker that had a rough shuttle image on it and the words “I SAW IT.” Someone, I believe it may have been Jennings shouted to him “What if it blows up?” Without missing a beat the huckster reached into his pocket and pulled out a large black marker. He pointed to an open space on the right hand corner of the bumper-sticker and he said “Then you take this marker and over here you write BLOW UP.” He was apparently a huckster with the Right Stuff.
Our friend with the mobile Space Shuttle flight following station in the trunk of his car had taken his place right next to us again. Just like on scrub day, I had remembered to bring along my tape recorder. I’d been taping launch broadcasts from the TV since I was 13 years old and I got Apollo 14, so I wanted to get this one. I asked our pal with the battery powered TV if I could place my tape recorder next to his TV at launch time and pick up some of the broadcast. He happily agreed and we all waited as the countdown passed every milestone that it had stumbled upon during the first attempt. No one knew what to expect- in fact, the damned thing just might blow up. We saw nothing but a silhouette of the shuttle and pad 39A as the sun came up. It was a bit hazy and so our view remained that of a silhouette while the count ticked down. Like expectant parents we paced a bit and alternated between looking at the pad in the distance and focusing on the little TV set. I kept running through my mind the fact that this was indeed history that could be considered on the scale of witnessing Freedom 7, or Friendship 7, or Gemini 3, or Apollo 8 or perhaps even Apollo 11. Countless space firsts were about to take place right in front of our eyes. I just had to hope that I did not forget to turn on my tape recorder. As the countdown hit the two minute mark I hit the record button and set the tape recorder down next to the TV. Oddly, about that same time no one was looking at the TV set, every eye that had a view of the pad was focused toward the silhouette of the shuttle backed by the amber sky. Everything seemed to get quite still.
At main engine start we saw the silhouette of the steam billowing from the engines working against the sound suppression water. Three seconds later the solids lit and we saw what looked like a second sunrise. Then the STS-1 stood up on two stilts of flame as bright as the sun. Everyone was screaming “GO!... Go Baby GO!... GO!” I heard myself screaming it and I heard it echoing up and down the riverbank. What I did not hear, was the shuttle. Then I remembered something I read in Mike Collin’s book “Carrying the Fire.” When he described watching the first Saturn V, Apollo 4, launch he said that about the time he said to himself “you can’t hear it.” the sound hit him. And just as I had that thought, the sound hit us.
Although there were certainly a few Saturn V veterans present, most folks who were there to witness STS-1 had never experienced anything like the shuttle. It reached out and took hold of you and shook the ground under our feet. My tape recorder picked up the sound of the items in the trunk of the car rattling. The only thing louder was the sound of the shouts, screams, squeals and rebel yells coming from the crowd. People were jumping up and down and punching their fists into the air as STS-1 ripped into the sky. You really had to work to hear any of the calls coming from mission control. The whole thing kept going for over two minutes and then we heard the “Go for SRB sep.” call. It was then that everything seemed to grow comparatively quiet with just a smattering of “Hoots” and “Whoooos”. A few seconds later at SRB separation we saw the translucent white plume and then saw the two solids dropping away. At that moment a spontaneous cheer went up followed by a rolling applause produced by the half million or so people who now lined the riverbank as far as the eye could see. It was as if the home team had made a fantastically great play in front of a sellout crowd. It was sudden and it was contagious- I found myself clapping as if someone in NASA could actually hear me. That applause was actually captured on my tape. Following SRB separation we turned our attention to the tiny TV set, watching and listening as STS-1 headed for its target in orbit. In the distance out over the Atlantic the vehicle looked like a very bright star hanging in the sky. As the boost continued we had the illusion that the vehicle was actually heading downward toward the horizon- because that was what it was actually doing. Soon the star simply faded into a pinpoint. A glance at the TV and then a look back toward the sky found the shuttle lost to the eye. At Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) everyone seemed to snap back to reality.
There was pure joy in the crowd and you heard a lot of “Man! Did you see that?” as if someone could have missed it. We patted one another on the back, smiled and felt great, even though we had done nothing more than be there and watch. One fellow coined it all when he grinned widely and said “Gee… I wish they had another one.” Even the ride home was conducted as a festive traffic jamb. People were filled with pride and in our car the clogged roadway simply gave us more time to chatter about the launch.
I got back to Kmart in time to start my Sunday shift on schedule. Over in the appliance department a small crowd had gathered around the TV sets. One of guys working in that department had thought ahead and set one of the VCRs to record the launch which was playing over and over again as customers stood and watched- over and over again. On that Sunday the folks that I worked with all heard that I had been there and the guys in the appliance department told their customers and pointed toward me. As I stocked my shampoo, denture cream and glycerin suppositories, dozens of people came up to me and asked “How was it?” The best I could do was to simply reply that it was indescribable and urge them to go down and see one.
Since STS-1 I’ve been able to witness shuttle launches from the beach, from the press site, from Embry Riddle’s campus, from the grounds of the Astronaut Hall of Fame, from the Ormond Beach Bridge, from the NASA Causeway and twice from different KSC VIP sites. In all I’ve seen a total of 19 shuttle launches in person. I state that figure with regret as I, like most space-buffs, thought that the shuttle would go on and on and serve out the system’s designed life-span of 100 missions per orbiter. I fell into the trap set by NASA itself when it decided to make shuttle missions appear commonplace.
Now, the program is ending and there is no equal replacement ready to fly. I managed to take my two little girls to KSC to see the STS-125 launch. I wanted them to be able to say “I saw it” when the subject of that fantastic vehicle that launched like a rocket and flew back like an aircraft comes up in history class and the teacher tells about the days when we as a nation did amazing things that we no longer do. On the 30th anniversary of STS-1 we have come full circle as a space fairing nation. We went from having the shuttle as a drawing board concept that teetered on the funding votes of Congress, suffered the doubts of the critics and over-ran its schedule into a launch test series that led it to become operational. On that day the skyline of KSC looked much the same as it does today. The Apollo LUT number 1 sat idle near the VAB as LC-39B was under construction. Today, the Ares I LUT sits idle near the VAB while LC-39B is being demolished. The shuttle is coming out of an era of successful operation while the Obama administration defunds its replacement which, after suffering at the hands of critics, had a single test flight and the vehicle meant to replace it teeters on Congressional funding whims and remains little more than a drawing board concept. I’m happy that my kids can say “I saw it” but I hold deep regret for future kids who will not be able to say the same.
Posts
Thank you Wes for writing this. I remember seeing STS-1 launch as well. Unfortunately for me living 1000 miles away in Canada I will probably never see a real launch, especially with only two left. However, it is nice to know that my private feelings when I watch a launch have been mirrored by yourself and thousands of others.
ReplyDeleteDoes no one in the US government realize that they are now dependent on the Russian program only to get crew up to the ISS and back?
Michael
Thanks for this, Wes. I'm another Michigander in Florida. My wife and I watched STS-127 launch from the Kennedy Space Center, and I'm hoping to watch this launch from the causeway. I'm saddened by feeling like my generation is in a "gap" in spaceflight - I applied to the last NASA astronaut selection pool, but still need to lose more weight. I'm not sure when the next group will be picked, and that depresses me.
ReplyDeleteHopefully folks will realize that we need to get to other planets before we use all our resources up on this one and we're stuck!