Rocket Man

I was born in the late 50s, a child of the Space Age.   When my father graduated from college with a degree in engineering, he took a job at a tech company on the mid-Florida coast as a hardware geek.  I could not tell you the specific technologies he worked with, but it was a time when things like semiconductors and integrated circuits were all the rage.  The company where my father worked was steeped in government contracts.  His circuitry work was used on Project Mercury—leading to the first manned space mission.

I have very few memories of the short time my family lived outside Melbourne, Florida near Cape Canaveral.  In fact, it is hard to know whether my memories are real, or images kept alive by old photos and movie reels.  I remember a beach where the sand was so packed you could drive a car on it.  I remember watching a missile launch in the distance, its tracers lifting from a flash and a blast of smoke.  And I remember a screened porch at the back of a small house where I used to play.

I was not quite two when my family relocated to Miami, my father’s industry taking a sharp turn toward defense contracts.  But those short years we spent on the “Space Coast” changed my father forever.  He loved rockets and the technology that made them possible.  Space travel vastly expanded the size of Man’s immediate universe, and in so doing, it made my father a bigger man.  He instilled in us a sense that space travel was a hugely important agenda.  For years, we watched every launch together on television as a family; these were “life” events.

Like many Americans, the night that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon was a defining moment in my life.  At just ten years old, my parents woke me in time to watch the live broadcast.  Unlike other things on television, this was jarringly real to me.  My family followed every moment of the Apollo 11 mission, collecting the newspaper accounts and watching every live television report.  Because of my father’s proprietary interest in space travel, he made sure we understood the significance of the moment to all of mankind. At the same time, he also made it feel as though this was something very personal happening to our family.

I was in sixth grade when the explosion aboard the Apollo 13 mission cancelled the crew’s landing on the moon.  For four days, our family was held hostage by this crisis.  My father was barely able to focus on work, afraid to lay down his hope for a moment to conduct trivial everyday tasks.  At the same time, he could not speak of the possibilities.  It was like a silent dugout during a baseball rally.   The day the astronauts splashed down and were recovered successfully, my father came home skipping like a new man.  He hugged me especially hard and whispered in my ear, “They are safe.”

Years later, when I was married and living in California, I watched in disbelief as the space shuttle Challenger exploded 71 seconds into flight, killing its crew.  Without even thinking, I picked up the phone and called my father’s office in Ft. Lauderdale.  His voice was audibly choked up as he attempted to speak into the phone; when he heard me cry “Dad!” he said simply, “I knew it would be you!”  Together we mourned the tragedy of lost lives and hailed the heroism of those who “understood” the importance of the space mission.

I had a rush of these memories tonight watching the Space Shuttle Enterprise fly to its final retirement in New York, piggy-backed on a 747.  I remember back in the 70s when fans of Star Trek lobbied successfully—much to my father’s amazement—to name this first shuttle after the fictitious Star Fleet vessel.  I was watching with my father in 1976 as the Enterprise rolled out of its hangar for the first time.  Together we were choked up while we watched the remarkably reusable spacecraft take flight for the first time.   

Today’s events marked the end of the era.  My father is no longer among us, no longer a phone call away.   I know he would have been moved by the sight of this heroic vessel making its final voyage home, and he would understand why it would immediately conjure for me these memories of him.  He would be proud that the space program, in which he participated in its earliest humble moments, lasted well beyond his own lifetime.

Tomorrow's blog:  Give a Kid a Break