Muses

Musing on Saying Goodbye NASA. Or could it be hello?

Can’t get this image out of my mind.

I saw this picture in a post on Momo Fali’s blog.

Father and Son: STS-1 and STS-135

Take by Chris Bray, it’s a father and son at the first shuttle launch — and the last.

As a girl growing up in Central Florida in the 60s it was the Space Program and oranges. (Then a Mouse moved to town in 1971.)

I am a girl of the Saturn rockets.

Those long white beautiful creatures. Stripped as zebras.

A picture exists of my sister and I under a marquee of the Titusville Holiday Inn heralding, “Good Luck Apollo 13.”

I collected all the mission patches. Apollo 13 was my favorite.

Hope it's still in my parent's attic.

Apollo 13. As a child I didn’t realize what danger they were in.

There are memories of riding at night in the back of my parents’ car as a voice on the radio wondered if they were going to make it home.

I looked up at the moon, thinking they’re up there somewhere. Circling.

Make it back home?

That was silly. NASA and astronauts always made it back to plop in the Pacific Ocean in those battered, baked capsules. Bobbing along, waiting to be picked up by the USS Ticonderoga.

Oh, yeah. Later on..some didn’t make it back home.

I was there that first Shuttle launch in April 1981. A few months before graduating from high school. In Central Florida this April, I almost got to see one more liftoff. But Endeavor’s was scrubbed.

Many years ago, when John and I were newly dating, he was riding to Florida to spend Thanksgiving with us.

Heading into Orlando on I-4 (just past OBT) cars started putting on their hazards and pulling over. First a few. Then dozens lining the interstate.

Right about the time we got to downtown — up went the flame. The little flame roaring skyward.

“Look John, there’s the shuttle.” I half watched, half drove, comforted by the sight of that little flicker against the black just as seeing Lake Ivanhoe again makes me smile on the inside.

When it disappeared, John said, “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” (This of course was way before our wedding night.)

Weird. The most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

That’s when it hit me…those launches were special. Hearing the roar rolling and bounding down the beach well after the bird was gone.

Light travelling faster than sound.

Good-bye beautiful rockets.

I don’t know what to say” hello” to ~ but I’m sure there’s something.

And I don’t want to feel sad.

What do you remember?

           

           

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