Space shuttle Atlantis is seen as it launches from pad 39A on Friday, July 8, 2011, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch of Atlantis, STS-135, is the final flight of the shuttle program, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
We had never experienced a rocket launch. It was the summer of 2011 and purely by coincidence we had flown from England to visit family in Florida in the same week STS-1351 was scheduled to launch. This was the 135th and final mission for NASA’s Space Shuttle program.2
The NASA shuttle program had been the space program of my life. The Apollo program wrapped up before I was born and there had been no manned space flight between 1972 and first shuttle mission in 1981. Our desire for knowledge in the interim was sated by the unmanned probes like Viking3 and Voyager4 delivering amazing images which became part of our school curriculum and Star Trek: The Motion Picture!
However, the image of manned rockets, specifically re-usable spacecraft, had been the promise of a generation. Arthur C Clark’s space adventures were a fixture of my youth… in addition to films like James Bond’s Moonraker, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Space Camp, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Space Cowboys, The Core, and many more5…
Jumping in our rented Ford Mustang in the early hours of the morning, we left Amelia Island top down and raced 200 miles south on I-95. Three hours of driving was completed in just over two and we arrived at the beach town of Titusville. The streets were doubled parked and every front yard repurposed as an ad hoc parking lot. We were still 12 miles as the crow flies from Cape Canaveral, however in the 21st Century, this is as close as the general public can access.
A man in an old wife beater waved us onto his front lawn, asking how much for parking, he responded “No charge. Everyone should be able to experience a Shuttle launch.”
Hiking another mile south along the Coastal Highway, we found space at the foot of Max Brewer Bridge, which gave us a distant view of the launch pad and a white dot which our fellow watchers assured us was the Space Shuttle. It was just after 11:00am, the crowds were gathering, and the countdown ticked down below 30 minutes.
Tension, excitement, and anticipation, along with the relief of arriving in time for the launch, kept us on edge as we waited… The memory of the launch was initially underwhelming and the following events are most likely out of order as try to assemble the memories into a narrative.
The mono transmission on the radio crackled with the final countdown, apparently on a time delay, as a mass of white smoke or steam erupted from the launch pad until I realized the engines had ignited ahead of lift-off. The distant white smudge was consumed in its own smoke before it appeared to lift lazily into the Floridian haze. The white smoke and steam connected the shuttle to the ground like an ever-extending leash until the vehicle rolled and released its boosters… Then the true impact of the launch was the arrival of the noise. The shuttle launch hit us like a punch in the gut as the wave of sound energy can travel up to 40 miles from the launch pad.
Unforgettable. Inspirational. I hope I have the chance to experience an Artemis8 Rocket launch in the coming years.
Almost a decade after the final shuttle launch, Brenda (forensic scientist) was called out to a crime scene in Palmdale, specifically Joe Davies Heritage Airpark. Apparently someone had been living in one of their exhibits, stripping and selling electronics, in the process. The exhibit was a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft9.
It seems fitting to keep one of the carriers on public display in Palmdale. The space shuttles were all assembled in Palmdale12 prior to being ferried by Shuttle Carrier Aircraft to the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.13
The last duties performed by the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was to deliver the retired shuttles to their respective final resting places as static museum exhibits. In fact, I stood on the rooftop of my San Francisco office in September 2012 to watch Space Shuttle Endeavour mounted to the Space Shuttle Carrier, circling the city, on it’s way to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.14
The subject of the investigation had accessed the interior of the historical vehicle via an escape hatch over the wing, having used one of the engines as a convenient step.
As an experienced fingerprint technician, Brenda had acquired prints from a range of vehicles: cars, trucks, boats, etc. A jumbo jet was a first. Luckily a stepladder was on hand to enable access to out of reach places like the engines, wings, access points, and parts of the interior where the subject had been sleeping.
The subject has not been apprehended and remains at large. Be sure to secure your jumbo jets.
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Updated article with Post Script and photos of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and photographs from Brenda Marchetti
Check out the third season of the BBC Podcast: 13 Minutes Presents. The third season is all about the origination of The Space Shuttle: A sci-fi dream that became reality and changed spaceflight forever. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0lq7254