2006/12/15 22:26
Into the Wild Black Yonder
Last Saturday we were settling into watch our first ever episode of Heroes when a news crew interrupted, talking about the space shuttle launch.
Our house is in far east Orlando, barely still inside Orange County. Cape Canaveral is maybe forty miles away. It's not quite optimal viewing for a launch, but you get a pretty good view. I'd seen two shuttles go up since we moved here, but neither was at night. It was quite a spectacle -- the entire eastern horizon lit up like daybreak, then the shuttle blazed a path through the woods into the sky until, breaking the atmosphere, the yellow of the rockets winked off and it became another giant star.
But that wasn't really the amazing part. It was seeing my neighbors all standing in their driveways, watching this overgrown airplane make its way away from Mother Earth. After forty years, manned space flights are still news, they're still events, and they're still bringing a note of awe and respect to anyone who watches them.
After that, who needs Heroes?
Our house is in far east Orlando, barely still inside Orange County. Cape Canaveral is maybe forty miles away. It's not quite optimal viewing for a launch, but you get a pretty good view. I'd seen two shuttles go up since we moved here, but neither was at night. It was quite a spectacle -- the entire eastern horizon lit up like daybreak, then the shuttle blazed a path through the woods into the sky until, breaking the atmosphere, the yellow of the rockets winked off and it became another giant star.
But that wasn't really the amazing part. It was seeing my neighbors all standing in their driveways, watching this overgrown airplane make its way away from Mother Earth. After forty years, manned space flights are still news, they're still events, and they're still bringing a note of awe and respect to anyone who watches them.
After that, who needs Heroes?
Very cool! We don't get as much excitement about the shuttle up here. Yes, it's in the news but I don't think you'll find people skipping Heroes to watch the launch on tv; it's just not the same effect.
I like the spectacle they made of it in the 60s through the 80s. Today people just don't care as much anymore, it seems. I was noticing there was almost excitement creeping into the voices of the news people when NASA was indecisive of where to land the shuttle. The media doesn't care unless there's a chance that there'll be unforecast shower like a few years ago over east Texas. :(
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