The alarm goes off, some crap radio station blasts garbage to be quickly silenced, it’s 4:30 AM. My gear is packed, the cameras are charged, checked out and ready to go. I did that last night, I’m not a morning person; I wouldn’t begin to rely on my ability to be clear and coherent in the morning, not at this hour.

I’m not the only one awake at this hour, not even close. Discovery is quietly sitting on Pad 39, undergoing the final checks for fueling. Her crew is still asleep, they won’t be up for another 2 hours, but they’re not the only ones needed for this to work as it should, not by a long shot.

The Shuttle program is making its final hurrahs. One flight left for each of the 3 Orbiters, and I had tickets to watch Discovery take off from the NASA Parkway, 6 miles away from the pad. That’s as close as you can get without having press credentials. This is the bittersweet tail, my account of the beginning of the end of an era.

The Clock is ticking

At 9, the parking lot at the KSC visitor center had already started to fill, but had a long way to go. The gate is already packed. Security is tighter than, say, Disney—metal detectors—but not as tight as an airport. Even then, they’re prepared to deal with the masses, and the mass of folding chairs and bags.

Inside the Visitor Center, it was unexpectedly busy. The gift shop is packed and there are already lines at the food stands. For the visitor center, it’s largely business as usual. The exhibits are open; the IMAX movies are playing. It’s something to do while you wait, and wait you will.

And wait I did.

I was singly focused on the one thing I came for. I do this too much. For the more than 8 hours I spent at KSC, I shot 250 frames in the 2 minutes between ignition and SRB separation, and that was it, nothing of the crowd, nothing of the rocket garden, or the exhibits. I was there for the Space Shuttle and the Shuttle alone.

Winter and spring in Florida are great times for a Shuttle launch; it’s the dry season, and weather is rarely an issue. This launch was no exception. Even though this has been a record setting weather in many places, Florida is already starting the slow march to 90° plus days. The one thing the Visitor Center lacks is the nice breeze on the causeway. However, it does have air-conditioned buildings.

When 12:30 rolls around, the buses to the causeway start loading. There are more than I expected, though I don’t know why. All told, there will be something like 200 buses and 200 buses worth of people would be out on the causeway. Some are chartered tour groups, the rest are the lucky few who managed to get a ticket from NASA.

T-9 Minutes and Counting

It’s more comfortable on the causeway, thanks to that Florida coastal breeze. NASA is prepared; there are even food tents out here serving barbeque, hotdogs, and hamburgers.

The final planned hold was my mark to check my gear one more time. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about the plan. To put it bluntly, the plan was reasonable; my execution was lacking.

I stuck with what I thought I’d do. The 40D on the tripod with the 10-22, the Flip clipped to a leg, the 1D in hand with the 100-400 to track the assent.

I’m biased; I don’t like the 40D. It’s not the picture quality; it’s something less tangible. It’s too light, there aren’t enough AF points, the viewfinder lacks nose relief or isn’t big enough, one of those, all of those. It doesn’t matter; I should have done the tracking shots with the 40D and the wide with the 1D. It would have given me a shuttle almost 25% larger in the frame at no cost to the wide-angle view.

Instead, I used the 40D as a second body with the 10-22. For starters, 22mm (35mm on a full frame body) is too wide, even at 6 miles. Even with the intention of trying to get the big picture, a plume in big sky, it’s too wide. The 24-70 would have been a better choice. Moreover, somehow I managed to mess up the focus, so my wide angle was just a blur.

Time flies as the countdown approaches 0. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve noticed about shuttle launches. The day always seems to drag on until that last bit of the countdown, and then it just flies.

That was when things really started looking bad. The weather was good, everything was go, until the Superintendent of Range Operations (SRO) cut in and announced that they were having a problem with the range safety computers and that they would be no-go unless they could resolve the issue.

To say it had been a long day would be an understatement, it had already been 12 hours since I woke up, and there wasn’t nearly enough sleep the night before. A scrub would, to put it mildly, suck. Though NASA is at least partially accommodating, on the way out to the causeway when I turned in my ticket, they gave me a voucher that entitled me to another ticket, if there were any left by the time I could get them, should the mission be scrubbed. Moreover, it meant doing the long day again as the chances of finding a hotel room for the nigh were practically non-existent.

Acta Est Fabula

Form this point on, it’s all downhill.

I have to give NASA a lot of credit; they kept the visitor center open until 8PM. I think it would have helped ease the traffic somewhat. At least I think that was the idea. The reality is I’ve never seen traffic like this before. Bumper to bumper for miles, at least 10, and barely moving, for hours. I’ve seen bad traffic, during hurricane evacuations, but this absolutely took the cake.

That’s it folks, the show is over.

Though I think for many, it ended a long time ago. My local newspaper carried barely a paragraph about the launch. Space isn’t worthy of headlines any more, those are reserved for the things that sell, murders, wars, and corruption. The irony is that I bet the last flight of the shuttle program will make headlines, likely to cheers of “good riddance” by most of the population.

I’ve always seen the space program as a barometer of our ability to as a country to dream and more concretely, our ability to take on tremendous problems in science and engineering and preserver.

The Apollo program and the first moon landing are singularly credited with doing more to boost interest in science and engineering than anything to date or since. Times have changed and it seems the sense of adventure has been lost.

While the Shuttle program was never quite as grand, its end is coming and with the current sociology-political climate I have to wonder if there will be a successor any time soon.

The Shuttle is my rocket, or at least the rocket of my generation. Its life has been only slightly greater than my own, and to be honest, I like it. While there are bigger, more powerful, and cheaper rockets flying, they, like every other conventional rocket, lacks a certain appeal to me. Maybe it’s just because the Shuttle has been the only American manned launch vehicle I’ve ever known, or maybe it’s that it’s not just a big rocket with a tiny capsule on the top.

Either way, they will be missed by at least me.