As regular readers may know, I attended the launch of the shuttle Columbia a little over two weeks ago. I didn't write about it because it didn't have much to do about baseball, but since this tragedy happened I'd like to get some thoughts down.

My sister's best friend has worked on the shuttle project for well over a decade. A little over three years ago, she ran into an astronaut named Dave Brown, and they began dating. I met Dave at my sister's house during Christmas, 1999. He was a doctor and navy pilot. He had trained in medicine on his own, then joined the navy, and since the navy will teach you one thing, he wanted to learn how to fly. He became a flight surgeon and also flew planes off aircraft carriers. He autographed business cards for all the children, and we all thought if he ever launched, we'd go down to watch.

As far as I can tell, he was what you would think of as a typical astronaut; calm, cool, ready for every emergency. He was flying our friend back from California one day when his engine lost power. We asked her later if she had been afraid, and she said she took her cues from him. He was in control of the situation, found an emergency place to land and put the plane down without incident. Just what you would expect from a navy pilot.

This flight had been delayed a number of times. We had plane tickets and hotel reservations last summer when the fuel line cracks pushed everything back. We finally headed down on Wednesday, Jan. 15th, and got to NASA in time for the pre-flight reception for family and friends. Dave held his in conjuction with Laurel Clark. Dave and Laurel had come into the program together, both were M.D.s, and had become very good friends. Each had a videotaped presentation thanking every one for their support and telling how excited they were to be going into space to conduct science. Laurel's husband addressed the crowd, and he spoke of how proud they were of Laurel.

In the same buidling as the party was an exhibit on the early space missions, from Goddard to Apollo-Soyuz. One thing that particulary struck me was the Gemini capsule on display. I don't remember which mission it was from, but two things jumped out at me:

1. How small it was. I don't know how Lovell and Borman survived two weeks crammed in like that.


2. How little protection they had against the heat of re-entry. The heat shield appeared to be an asbestos blanket. You could see where it had been burned during the fall to earth, and I thought to myself how much scarier it must be to come down than go up.

We got to the hotel later that night, and as we pulled in our van was stopped and searched by bomb sniffing dogs. At first we thought it was just shuttle security, but as we saw that Jersey barriers were set up to prevent any cars getting close to the hotel, I figured we had the Israelies staying there. Sure enough, the members of the consulate were in our hotel, and we later found out there were snipers on the roof. At least we were in the safest place in Cocoa Beach!

We got up at 5 AM the next morning and made our way to the Kennedy Space Center. From the visitors center we were bused to a spot 3 to 5 miles from the pad. NASA had guides on each bus, friendly folks who answered all our questions, and knew the space program inside out. As a person who's been watching launches since I was 4 years old and am a space geek, I was in heaven. From on observation area, we could see the top of the shuttle. The countdown went off without a hitch. At 10:39, we saw smoke (steam, actually) engulf the shuttle. A few seconds later, we saw the shuttle rise above this cloud and make it's way into space. We were all nervous that something bad would happen, but incredibly excited as the flight wore on. I've always wanted to see a rocket launch, and I had gotten to see a great one.

So this morning I woke up and blogged a little and watched the NASA channel. A little before 9 AM eastern I woke my wife and daughter so they could see the landing. I wasn't paying that much attention as we all talked, but I heard something about losing signal, but thought it was from the heat. But then I noticed it was 9:15, and we weren't seeing anything. I flipped over to CNN, and they started showing the film of the shuttle breaking up. I knew they hadn't made it.

My sister has talked to our friend, and she's numb. Our friend talked to Dave Brown's parents, and they hadn't realized the seriousness of the problem yet, so she had to tell them. However, she had talked to Dave quite a bit during the flight, and he was having the time of his life. She's glad he got to fulfill his dream of working in space. Here's a picture Dave took and e-mailed to our friend. It's a picture of her floating in the space shuttle. As she said when she forwarded it, "This is the closest I'm going to get to being in space."

My thoughts go out to all who suffered from this loss. I hope your thoughts will be with them, also.

Update: Our friend sent an e-mail last night. Some of the contents are in the next post, above.