As I have mentioned before on the blog, I am a huge space fan. Especially Apollo era space stories.
While on my recent boat trip up the Atlantic coast I had a chance to both see an important Apollo artifact, and also have some interesting time near Kennedy Space Center to reflect. With the Atlantis space shuttle coming home today or tomorrow, I think now is the time for this post. Click on the continue link to read more and see the pictures.
I like ALL my time on the boat Oasis. But over the trips I have done now, I find that my favorite time is at night, when I am by myself. The first night of this particular trip is now my very favorite. Here is what I wrote about that experience, the morning after:
Once I got settled in last night with the midnight shift, I was in for a real treat. You see, I was off Cape Canaveral - the Cape, in NASA parlance. I'm a space buff. I think I have read nearly every book there is to read on Apollo. Each astronaut for sure. But I have read books from the flight controllers, various administrators, even the book by the chief engineer for Grumman, building the LEM.
So about three miles ashore from my position is pad 39A, where Apollos were launched, and where the shuttle is launched to this day. And a few miles away is the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building), one of the largest buildings in the world. Our space ships are stacked together there, then moved out at their full height and transported to the pad.
The building itself is not lit at night, but there are lights on the corners and I can sense the enormity, even across a few miles of ocean. The doors, larger than football fields, are open, and inside is one of the space shuttles, being prepared for an upcoming launch. My view through powerful, image stabilizing binoculars is not perfect, but that almost adds to the experience. It's in there.
If you read books by astronauts, you'll find that a much loved tradition is heading to a building known as the "beach house." This is an old, informal place where astronauts and their wives escape from the "crush" of pre-launch. There is no one around, and they are free to wander the dunes and the beach.
From the beach house and surrounding area, they can clearly see their spacecraft on the pad. The astronauts often describe it as their white bird, gleaming in the intense artificial lighting, because they loved to visit this area at night.
Somewhere just a few miles off to my port (left) lies the beach house, those memories, the dreams of brave men and women. My own journey tonight of course does not compare in most ways to theirs, but I am in control of a powerful vessel, and I push on through the night the best I know how. Their risks were and are infinitely greater, as are their rewards.
I feel for the souls that have been lost, although everyone in the space community knows the risks are worth it. These people were born to do this job. And I know that upcoming space explorers will sometimes feel as I do tonight, alone, pushing through darkness, on their way to the adventure that awaits them. This area is so large that I'll have the view and my connection to the place for at least an hour while pushing north. It's a fine night.
I didn't attempt any pictures - it was just too far away and the boat was of course rocking (maybe if I had the lens from yesterday's post?). Through the 10x binoculars though there was no mistaking the space shuttle inside the VAB.
(Not my picture obviously, and the next several aren't either.) This was the scene I imagined as Oasis pushed northward off the Cape Canaveral coast. This view must be similar to what the astronauts out at the beach house saw, back in the Apollo days. This is Apollo 12.
Here is the VAB, along with a shuttle being moved out to the pad.
This is approximately what I saw that night, through the VAB doors, but I didn't have nearly this clear of a view! Now I know that the shuttle I saw that night was the Atlantis, and it was headed for a very historic mission to Hubble.
This is what the building looked like to me, although this view is from the land side, not the water side. My view was a bit fuzzier. So it was quite a special night, and I figured that was the end of Space Talkin' and Thinkin' for that trip, but another surprise awaited me.
As mentioned in this post I visited the Virginia Air and Space Center, basically because we happened to be docked in the same town where it was. I didn't know I would be treated to viewing the actual Apollo 12 capsule. It is a phenomenal piece of 1960's era engineering. Apollo 12 astronauts were Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon and Alan Bean. This is one of my favorite Apollo crews because Pete was such a joker and much loved guy. (He tragically died in a motorcycle crash in 1999.) Alan Bean is now quite a famous painter of Apollo scenes, and I'd love to have one of his paintings.
Here is a NASA photo of the very same Apollo 12 capsule as it landed in the Pacific. The three astronauts are in the raft, while a frogman seals up the capsule.
Once again I found myself (relatively) alone, and thinking about these incredible adventurers. My trip was coming to a close, the next day I would fly home, and in a heckuva lot more comfort, lemme tell ya! I reflected on that great night off the Cape, and how much I enjoyed my boating journey, something like 900 miles total. At the speed Apollo travels to the moon, they cover that distance in two seconds. They had started their trip near where I started mine, and now I as standing next to the capsule that was their vessel, and the end of their journey.
A very nice way to end my trip, I must say.
