February 2009 Cover Story:
Shuttle Launch

Story by Pete Trabucco

It all started a few years back at my brother’s annual New Year’s Eve party.

No big deal… Been there, done that several times before. Something happened at this particular New Year’s Eve party… something that would make that New Year’s Eve, and an event that was to occur two years later, moments to savor and remember.

My sister-in-law Maria makes a living arranging hotel conference space and rooms to Fortune 500 companies. She promoted a five-star hotel in Houston at the time and one of her clients was NASA’s Johnson Space Center. At the last minute I was informed that some pretty special people would be attending this family festivity.

As both a general aviation and CAP pilot for the last 20 years, I have been lucky enough to fly several different types of aircraft from Cessnas and Pipers all the way to the aerobatic Extra 300 (with the military T-34 Mentor somewhere in the middle).

I am no stranger to aviation and its heroes. Sure, I followed baseball and football but my heroes from the start have always been astronauts who challenged both gravity and our imaginations by doing the nearly impossible. They might not be able to hit a fastball into the bleachers of Yankee Stadium but they could let loose our imagination and set a new bar to what man can do. My early years consisted of making and launching rockets, radio-controlled aircraft and following the space program as closely as I could. The first flights I remember were from the Gemini program and I had a bigger scrapbook for NASA than the ones I had put together for my favorite baseball players at the time: Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.

If you asked me who the original seven Mercury astronauts were, I can easily list them without hesitation. Ask me about the Gemini program and I can tell you who the “new” nine astronauts were! And then the Apollo program — if you had a week, I can give you the personal bios of the 12 astronauts who took me to the moon with them. I would eventually meet two of the original seven astronauts (Alan Shepard and John Glenn) and to this day meeting them was a thrill of a lifetime.

You can imagine my excitement when I was told that a NASA astronaut would be at the party and I would get to spend the evening with him, not just a mere 10 or 15 minutes but the entire night! The poor guy was locked in a room with a NASA fanatic who would be shooting question after question regarding the Space Shuttle program at him. Try as I might to be cool (after all, I was a pilot myself and no stranger to high-G environments and to aerobatic flying) there was still the little kid in me who wanted to come out and say, “Hey mister…are you really, really, really an astronaut?”

Astronauts have a certain air about them. When they walk into a room, you know it. When they speak, people listen. When I first met Ken Ham, I was amazed how unassuming and down-to-earth he was. He was an astronaut, a Shuttle pilot, yet he could have easily been mistaken for the average Joe next door. At that time he hadn’t yet gotten his ride (or his gold pin). Still, Ken was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, an F-18 pilot, and a graduate of the prestigious Naval Test Pilot School. I knew the moment I sat down with him that the evening would be a very special one… and it was!

In conversation I found out that Ken was actually a local boy whose parents lived just a few towns away from where I lived. He went to the same high school where I had taught and coached baseball (Johnson Regional High School in Clark, New Jersey). The night was incredible. I again learned the valuable lesson that at any age, dreams were still indeed possible. Ken was living proof of that fact.

February 2008
In February (over two years after the New Year’s party) I received the news that Ken was going to finally get his ride. After ten years in the space program he would be the Shuttle Pilot on STS 124. This was good news but that wasn’t all. I was invited to his launch party the night before, would get to tour Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and experience the launch in person.

So what’s it like to be in a room of astronauts, military pilots, rocket scientists, high-level military personnel, NASA staff and their families? It is a humbling experience to say the least. It is customary that every astronaut has a launch party and that he invites those who have helped him get to this day. I felt privileged to be around Ken’s family and all the people that knew and worked with him. All of the folks at NASA are some of the nicest and most respectful people I have ever met.

It takes a truly courageous individual to do what these NASA astronauts do. Yes, they are excited about their mission (and mindful of all the work and luck that it takes to get them into the rotation) but at the same time, the pressure of doing their jobs right while also knowing that they might never see their loved ones again has to be pretty gut-wrenching. One might argue that the luster of Apollo, Gemini and Mercury has faded from manned spaceflight, but there are those who believe that the dream is still alive and well. Everybody at Ken’s launch party certainly believed in the dream. It was an amazing experience for me to be among them.

The next day was even more incredible. I wore my special STS 124 shirt along with my yellow VIP ribbon indicating I was a “special guest of Ken Ham” and proceeded to Kennedy Space Center. All seven prime crewmembers gave ribbons out to family and friends that week. All were color-coded differently so you could tell who was with whom. With my special KSC parking pass, I entered the facility and waited for a bus to the viewing area. The viewing area is about five miles from Pad 39A, the same pad used for launch of the Apollo moon missions. Discovery was waiting to be lit. The launch had a few holds but the day was beautiful and launch proceeded mostly without a hitch.

Anyone who has witnessed a launch from Kennedy Space Center will tell you that when the solid rocket boosters are lit they can be compared to two small bright suns rising slowly into the sky. The sound of the rocket engines travels more slowly so it took several seconds for the thunderous roar to reach us. As the vehicle cleared the tower, it picked up speed and left an awesome smoke trail! The crowd on the causeway cheered as if they had just witnessed a game-winning home run in the World Series. I could hear myself and everyone around me yelling the age-old space launch yell… “Go-Go-Go,” as the magnificent bird headed skyward. The atmosphere was electric! Discovery would start its roll and be out of sight in just a few moments but right then it was a truly spectacular sight to behold. The last thing I was able to see from my vantage point was the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) split away from the spacecraft. Most people I talked to after the launch felt as I did…a little sad that it was all over.

As the rocket disappeared into the upper atmosphere all that was left was the smoke trail that winded to the right and straight towards the heavens. The roar of the engines was gone; all was quiet and back to normal on the central Florida coast. As we entered our bus,

I noticed my eleven-year-old daughter was as excited and energized as I had ever seen her. She was talking about the launch and of how awesome it was and how she couldn’t wait to tell everyone she knew how fantastic it was to be a part of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. As we entered the gates of KSC, my formerly somewhat uninterested daughter was taking pictures of everything — the static rockets, the capsules, the permanently frozen time launch display (May 31st 5:02PM) that showed the exact time STS-124 had left the launch pad. She even took pictures of the bus driver and of cloud formations along the way. Watching my daughter, I can only imagine how many other children were positively influenced by similar launches and would now dream dreams of space flight and the great unknown.

Ken and the other intrepid six on board Discovery STS 124 (who flew a perfect mission and who came home two weeks later as heroes) demonstrated that dreams can come true. To these kids, it must have seemed that nothing was impossible if only they believed it could happen. In the end the feeling that the impossible may only be difficult may be the best legacy the space program has given to all of us, young and old alike!

As for me, I felt energized by the experience and I thank Ken, Michelle, and their entire family for including my family in one of the most memorable events that we have shared together.

Just in case you were wondering, Ken and his family are welcome to celebrate New Year’s Eve with us anytime. I won’t bother them with space flight questions… well maybe just a few.