It was February of 1962. This giant console black and white tv set that was as much furniture as entertainment occupied the corner of our living room. I was not quite four years old and I had been playing in my room. My mother yelled to me to come watch television. I remember being frustrated because whatever I was doing was much more important than whatever my mother wanted me to see. Being the obedient first born daughter, I did as I was told. “Sit down and watch this. It is going to define your generation.” She made it sound like a pretty big deal. “You belonged to the space age,” she said. So I sat there with my legs crossed, staring intently as Walter Cronkite talked about John Glenn’s orbit of the earth. We had never put a man into orbit for the United States. This was a big deal. I remember him having a model of the rocket and showing how the stages of the rocket were going to fall off. Glenn’s little Mercury Friendship 7 was going to travel around Earth three times and then land back the Pacific Ocean. We watched as it took off safely to cheers of the watching crowd. My mom was excited was excited as well so I knew this must be a big deal. Maybe it was more important than whatever I was doing in my room. Thus began my fascination with space exploration.
I diligently watched future liftoffs as we did space walks, and orbited the moon and then on July 20, 1969, put two men on the moon. By then I knew a little more about geography – like where the Pacific Ocean was, and that John Glenn and Neil Armstrong were both Ohioans. I watched with the rest of the country during the scares and worries over Apollo 13. My family visited Cape Canaveral area with my aunt and uncle were living nearby and we visited as close to the Cape as we could get in those days. I didn’t return to this area until 1998 my husband and I ventured from the ICMA conference in Orlando to the Cape to watch Senator John Glenn go up a second time in the Space Shuttle at the age of 77. At that time, he was the oldest man to ever go into space.
So, it is not at all surprising that I made a point spending several days in the Cape Canaveral area on my adventure. What I didn’t know was that there were Rockets being launched from Canaveral on a semi-regular basis. I had picked a campground right on Port Canaveral and directly across from the Cape. When I checked in on first night there was a sign hanging out that said that the earlier scheduled launch had been rescheduled for 5:15 a.m. Now people that know me will know that I am not an early riser but the opportunity to witness the nighttime launch was a siren song. I set my alarm for 4:00 a.m. I dutifully got up and drove half a mile to the most optimal viewing location for the event. I was somewhat surprised to see the number of people who are already there when I arrived about 4:30. There were men and women my age and older but they were also a number of young people who are obviously enthusiast.
There was no warning. There was no broadcast coverage. It was a relatively low-key event, but all of a sudden, someone yelled, “There it goes!” It was a couple of minutes early and not quite in the direction that I thought it was going to go. It was nighttime. it was awesome and my photography sucked as the rocket launched her fire into the sky. Soon we heard a sonic boom, which was expected by the serious launch watchers. My camera phone finally caught up with the Rocket. It soon disappeared from view and it was over. Everyone got back into their vehicles went home. I, for one, went back to bed.
I later found website for the launches and behold there was one again the next day – this time it was mid-morning. Again, I left my camping spot to drive the half mile only to find the parking lot completely crowded. Almost every inch of parking lot, pier, and grass was taken at Jetty Park. It was crammed with spectators. This was a Sirius XM rocket and was going up between 11:40 and noon. I found a spot on a picnic table where a guy moved some stuff around to give me room. This time I knew where to look and I had my camera already and I decided to do a video instead of photos. Just a couple minutes after 11:40 again with no fanfare, the rocket carrying the satellite lifted off into space.
As I left with the throng of others, I realized that what was still an amazing feat to me was part of everyday life around the world for my children, grandchildren and beyond. Dear ole Mom was right, I did belong to the Space Age generation.
In the afternoon of the following day, while listening to music on Sirius XM, I heard them announce that they were coming to their listeners beaming from a new satellite that had just been put into orbit. I smiled and said, “Yep, I watched it fly!”