4-Feb-2003
Most anyone reading this page at this time is likely to be aware of the accident that destroyed Columbia and her crew as they passed over Texas on their way home. I have not modified the body of this page, created before the fateful February 1, to retain the joy we felt during that time.
It is my sincere belief that Kalpana and her companions have fallen to a fate which has taken many explorers over the centuries.
It will always be risky to be on the edge of what we humans know, understand, and control. It was that way in the days of Christopher Columbus, and later with Lewis and Clark, and then with the Wright brothers, and many other who came before and after. It is that way with manned space exploration today. I hope that one day we reach the point that we have to worry about it while exploring the stars.
I hope you will agree that there is a certain honor in meeting fate while stretching to make dreams become reality. Indeed, how much more comforting for those of us left to carry on to know that our loved ones spent the last 16 days of their lives as undoubtedly some of the happiest they knew, doing wonderous things, many of which had never been performed by mankind before.
For Kalpana, the words she wrote on the photograph she gave to Amy and me sum her up: "In spirit of adventure". She was always seeking new knowledge, new experience, and new wonder. She wrote to David, "Reach for the stars!". That is a message she would want all the children of the world to hear. Only by reaching beyond what we believe possible can we achieve the impossible.
Finally, I would like to share Kalpana's view of the world (literally). You can find the original quote in the "Our Place in the Universe" exhibit at Chabot Space & Science Center:
"On one of the night passes I dimmed the lights on the flight deck and saw the stars. When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not from any particular piece of land but from the solar system.... Maybe one day people will go to other galaxies and then what would we say? Where did we come from? I am a resident of the Milky Way."
This is the story of our second journey to Florida to watch the launch of STS-107 in January 2003. We'd been out in July for the launch attempt that didn't go off due to technical concerns, but we had a nice vacation (check it out). Our friend Kalpana Chawla is flying on STS-107 as Mission Specialist 2 (Flight Engineer). She is responsible for many important scientific experiments during the 16 day flight, as well as helping to keep the ship in shape. We're all very excited to invited to watch the launch with her family. Kalpana's first mission was STS-87.
We grabbed a car from Budget (right in the terminal area; no bus to ride; works great!) and hopped onto the Bee Line Expressway (528) for an easy run over to Cocoa. (We used Orbitz for the bookings and it once again worked well for us.)
Ilan Ramon, a Payload Specialist on STS-107, will be the first Israeli in space. Sadly there is substantial concern that anti-Israeli terrorists will try to disrupt the launch, and security is super tight, so the actual liftoff time wasn't available until hours before the launch. I called to find out that 10:39 is the target time. Since STS-107 doesn't have to rendezvous with anything else, the launch window is pretty open.
My father had recently sold his house and RV trailer, bought a larger RV trailer (Montana Big Sky) and moved into it full time. They'll be parking it at their church in Cocoa during the cool months, and heading out to other parts of the country when the mercury rises.
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| David snoozing in the early pre-launch morning |
As we pass through a security checkpoint heading onto the NASA
causeway, Amy turns to me with big eyes, "That guy had a machine gun!
I've never seen one that close before." More of the super tight
security.
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| Flat Tegan with our passes |
During the bus ride, we have to wait for the immediate family and VIPs to come by. There are first about 20 police cars, the a set of private cars, a few busses, and then 30 or so more police, from all over the state. Yep, serious security.
There's still an hour and a half to liftoff (T minus 1:30:00), so we set up the cameras, and explore the Apollo Center some more, as well as watching the machine-gun toting helicopters and airboats patrolling the area.
At the 9-minute countdown hold we all take our seats, and, with helpful commentary from astronaut Julie Payette, we enjoy the incomparable spectacle of seven million pounds of thrust lifting a quarter of a million pounds of spaceship (along with four plus million pounds of fuel) off the ground and majestically into the sky, arcing gracefully out over the Atlantic and into space. Incredibly, it takes only eight minutes to get from earth to the final frontier, where all that's between you and immediate death is the loving labor of a collection of space-nut engineers and technicians from the 1970s.
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| Liftoff of Columbia on STS-107!!! | The incredibly beautiful curved trail of Columbia's ascent. |
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| David and Flat Tegan in the Rocket Garden |
The afternoon reception for Kalpana's friends (unofficially, the KC "Booster" Club) at Lori Wilson park was great, even with the large number of police there with us, and the snipers on the roof the hotel next door (it was being used by several Israeli VIPs).
After the party we had a lovely dinner at "Taste of Goa" with
J.P. (Kalpana's husband and my first flight instructor), and several
other friends and family members.
Instead, we met up with my father and Louise at the Brevard Natural History Museum and checked out the King Tut exhibit and the local history displays.
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| J.P. teaching David bad habits. |
Then we hung out with Scott and Shing at their hotel. I used a pack of
souvenir playing cards I'd bought at KSC to make up a trivia contest
for us. Amy got her share of questions, and even David scored by
being the first to name the "Red Planet". Scott's long-time interest
in the space program showed in the large number of questions he got,
but nobody was in the same league as Shing, who accurately responded to
questions like "What years did the Mercury program run?" and "How long
is a Saturn V" (he had the exact figure of 363 feet). He knows his
stuff!
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| Check out the horns on this Safari resident! |
Thanks to Amy's tour guide books we found Havana restaurant and had
wonderful cuban food for dinner before heading to the Parkview Motel
for the night.
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| Amy enjoying the lovely ride on the Scuba Club dive boat. |
Amy and Rich geared up and, after a brief checkout dive in the training tank, boarded the dive boat at Scuba Club and motored out to a reef in the Atlantic. Though the locals were complaining of cold temps and poor visibility we found 70 degrees far preferable to 56 we've often seen, and the 30 foot vis would have counted as the best we've seen in Monterey Bay. We spent 30 minutes at about 80 feet, viewing a wonderful variety of fish, sponges, coral, and other sea life. I think we'll be diving in that area again!
After getting clean and dry, we tried to check out some of the
exclusive shopping in Palm Beach, but it was already too late, so we
found a public beach (Phipps Park) and enjoyed a nice stroll in the
sand before heading to Aleyda's tex-mex restaurant.
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| A well camouflaged denizen of the Everglades. |
We had to dash out of the zoo a bit early to head down to Boca Raton and Loxachappee Airboat Tours to see a bit of the Everglades. Like on most of the trip, the weather was fabulous, and we had a wonderful tour. Unfortunately there weren't a great deal of animals around; only one alligator, some birds, and snails, but it was beautiful none the less.
Then it was the long drive back to Cocoa.
Finally, packing up, a little BB gun practice with Grampa, and it was on the road for home.
A fun trip, and an incredible experience.
The background is a small section of a photo of Discovery's rudder.