The United States will pay Russia to launch people: $63 million per seat, at six seats a year, for five years. It adds up

July 8, 2011 10:00 AM TEXT SIZE: A . A . A
The press corps tumbled out of the bus, into a patter of rain. No matter‚ we were already soaked by a downpour as we waited to load the buses. The sky opened up just before military security officials brought in the bomb-sniffing dog; we stood in the rain as the pooch snorted at our gear.

The griping ceased as the bus lurched into motion. Dozens of journalists‚ six school buses of them‚ became children at summer camp: Wet, armed with cameras and gaping out a bus window. We were finally on our way to see the shuttle Atlantis, one day before its planned launch.

A good part of the road to pad 39A follows the loose-stone track taken by the crawler-transporter, the 2700-ton behemoth that hauls the shuttle from the Vertical Assembly Building to the launch pad. We passed the forlorn, eight-tracked machine as we drove in, it's last trip finished.

The bus pulls to a halt and we shuffle out, with a NASA media minder shouting at us: "Remember, return to bus four. BUS NUMBER 4!" We had less than a half an hour to spend next to the shuttle, and no one wanted to waste any time inside the bus. The shutterbugs were the most jumpy, eager to make every second count. Being scant feet from a 180-foot-tall spacecraft was putting us over the edge. A joyous anarchy spread across the fence. Video crews stepped into each other's shots. Grown men mugged for the camera like kids. I started shaking hands with strangers, like I was running for office.

But my eyes never strayed for long from the orbiter standing on the pad. I tried to sketch down some notes, details about the preparations being done‚ they crew had just finished moving the infrastructure used to install payloads into the shuttle‚ but I felt sentimental instead. It's hard to concentrate on in the presence of an icon, standing a few hundred yards away. It's the lament of lost lives and lost loves, I wrote. How can something so familiar simply be‚ gone?

The shuttle has been a reality my entire adult life, and then some. I remember standing with my father on a hill, watching a point of light arc by overhead as the shuttle eased past. America without the shuttle would be something new. While here at Kennedy Space Center I had a discussion with Rear Admiral Craig Steidle (Ret.), the current president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. He broke down the gap the shuttle leaves in economic terms: The United States will pay Russia to launch people: $63 million per seat, at six seats a year, for five years. It adds up.

As today's launch nears, thunderclouds loom overhead. But the trip to the pad gave me confidence. Atlantis was going to fly, and I was going to see it from just more than 3 miles away. The idea of watching the craft blaze into the sky became a trembling reality.

The half hour went past quickly, and they herded us into the buses with much yelling and waving of arms. The journalists filed away begrudgingly, lingering by the bus doors until being forced inside. But they were smiling, having just basked in glowing aerospace history.

I craned my head for one last look, knowing that I'd be doing that every available moment (by NASA TV feed or by binoculars) until Atlantis takes to the sky. I was no longer just an observer. I had a vested emotional interest in seeing this spacecraft take flight.

I missed her as soon as we started driving away.