The Northward Contrail

41 years ago

I didn't get to add this link yesterday, when I would have liked to, but: My friend Professor Mondo posted this wonderful essay yesterday, looking back at a night 41 years ago.  Nerd Girl says check it out.

Getting there

So I got up Tuesday morning of last week.  The usual "here I go" stuff was already chewing on me, all the angst and a little bit of guilt about leaving the boys at home, being so far away for so long.  I did my morning stuff and took my leave a little before noon.  Traffic was calm, at least until I got near the city.  I drove to the airport, found a place for my car, secured everything, and went on in.

Things went easily enough at first.  I had checked in online and printed my boarding passes from home, so I could just go on through security. The TSA folks were very friendly that day, unlike the last time I went through there so many years ago.  I stopped off at a newsstand for a couple cold drinks and a snack.

That's when the "goofy" started.  The appointed time came and went; no airplane.  I started to get concerned, and could see the itinerary unraveling in a string of missed connections.  Finally, it arrived about half an hour late.  There had been weather problems.  Thankfully, they were able to hustle the turnaround and get us aboard quickly.

This was a weird departure for me.  The last time I'd gone down this runway, it was in an airplane I was piloting.  But that was three years ago.  This time, someone else was driving.  Anyway, we screamed aloft with no hiccups.  Once we were at altitude, I started giving the iPod and the Bose headset a good workout.  They worked very well indeed.  On we flew, over the Gulf of Mexico.  I could see fellow passengers craning their necks, trying to see if they could see oil down below us.  (What I did see at one point was a close-up view of one of JetBlue's more recent color schemes, as an A320 whizzed past just below us.)

Houston looked to be coming out of some weather.  We came on in and toddled to our gate.  We'd only lost about 20 minutes in total.  Be that as it may, I thought it would be wise to hustle on over to my next departure's concourse, so it was up the stairs, onto the shuttle train, and off.  Turns out that was wise.  As I was sprinting to the gate, they'd just commenced boarding.  I rapidly bought a bottle of Diet Coke for the flight (not helped, of course, by a slightly leisurely transaction in front of me) and waited.  Finally, it was time.

Continental's seat selection system threw me a curveball at first; if you want an "extra legroom" or exit row seat, those are held until 24 hours before the flight, and you buy that extra legroom when you check in.  I didn't like the idea, but I remembered the last time I'd been on a 757-300, I'd been crammed into a space for four hours, and hated it.  I popped for the very first row in coach, and it was money well spent.  No stowage in front of me, but that was no hassle, and I liked the lack of claustrophobia.  I had two very nice seatmates, too.  It wasn't a bad way to spend four hours.  I had my tunes, I had a good headset, I had something to drink (and they supplied us with something to eat on the plane), and I'd brought some things to work on.  It's four hours from Houston to Seattle, and last year it felt like a sentence.  This year, it wasn't bad at all.

We landed at Seattle, and the nice thing was, this flight continued on to Anchorage.  We had about an hour's layover, and we had the option of getting off the plane for a bit.  This was my immediate seatmate's destination, but the guy sitting in the aisle seat stayed in his seat and we talked for a minute.  I told him I was going to get out and stretch my legs, and asked him if he wanted anything while I was out. He said he didn't need anything, but thanks.  So I took my bag with me, went landside, used the bathroom and stopped off for a quick bite, and got a quick picture or two.

Then it was time to get back on board.  When I got back, the guy was gone.  I figured he'd gone out to do what I did.  A few minutes later, they closed the door and we were pushing back.  I had no seatmates.  I had the entire side of the plane to myself.  Better than first class!

We soon screamed aloft once again.  Climbout took us directly over Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.  I looked down and cooed at Queenie, who's still as lovely as ever, as we flew over.

I'd brought a copy of John Henry Faulk's Fear on Trial to read on the flight.  I'd had it forever, but had never had time to read it.  It turned out to be an excellent traveling companion, and I finished it on this leg.  Most of the flight, I just stretched out and let the scenery crawl past, knowing that we were headed to a place I loved but had let lapse.  A couple hours into the flight, though, I started to get those old feelings back.  The wonder of it all started to get to me.  I punched up the song beloved by astronauts, "Southern Cross," on my iPod.  (The line "When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you'll understand now why you came this way" -- always gets me.)  I could look out at our wing, at the big Rolls-Royce turbofan working away out there, at all the beauty beneath us, at the lovely evening sky, and it was perfect somehow.  The flight was great, the cabin was quiet, and life was indeed good.

Soon I looked out and the scenery was becoming familiar.  Then there was Turnagain Arm out there, the familiar esses of the Seward Highway I've traveled so many times.  The runways at Merrill Field out in the distance.  And then, out on its own corner, Anchorage International.  We descended, turned a dramatic base past Fire Island, and then came on in.  The 757-300 has seriously good brakes, as I was reminded after we landed.

So, there we were.  I was back in Alaska after three years.  I'd been told by my friend to call him once I was there, because the parking situation was goofy.  But, sure enough, there he was, standing in the terminal waiting for me.  There was some comedy as we struggled with a balky parking garage pre-pay unit that tried to eat my friend's ticket and cash, a situation that required the intervention of a couple of people and the completion of some paperwork.  (Isn't automation great at reducing the amount of human intervention and paperwork?  I didn't think so, either.)  Finally, we could depart.

Midnight had passed already, but, with it being summer in Alaska, it was still sort of bright out.  It's a measure of my innate sense for the place that it didn't disturb me any.  The midnight sun let me get a good look at everything I'd missed seeing for so long as we drove out of town.

Adventure was coming tomorrow.  For now, though, it was time to get rest.  This traveler was joyous, but weary, and a comfortable bed with warm blankets awaited.  Adventure could wait.

Contact lost

Seven years ago today, we lost the good ship Columbia and her gallant crew.  If the loss of Challenger was a punch in the guts, the loss of Columbia was a shot to the heart.

Ad astra, per aspera.

No downlink

For spaceflight enthusiasts, this is a tough time of year.  The three big accidents in American spaceflight history -- Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia -- all happened either at the end of January or the start of February.  (To add to the eerie nature, Columbia's final crew paid an on-orbit tribute to those astronauts a few days before they themselves joined their fallen comrades.) 

The Apollo fire happened a few years before I was born, so that was already the stuff of yesteryear when I became aware of the space program and got interested in space and aviation.  I remember the run-up to STS-1 fairly well and remained interested until Shuttle flights became more or less routine.  I lost interest and went on to other things.  Then, one cold January day, I was at school and the rumors started to fly around the lunchroom.  We didn't have televisions in all our classrooms (and we could only get piped-in instructional television over the closed circuit system, anyway), so we weren't able to see anything.  In my next class, the teacher said there had been an accident with the Space Shuttle, the one the teacher was going up on.  Then, at the end of the day, the assistant principal confirmed it during the end-of-day announcements. 

My brother picked me up from school and we listened to the news coverage during the drive home, and then spent the rest of the day watching the coverage on television.  We must have seen the replay of the explosion a dozen times or more.  We watched President Reagan give his famous speech, as it happened.  And after the coverage ended, life kind of went on.  There were special reports later in the evening, of course, but it was surreal to have been watching all this coverage of this horrific thing, only to be sitting there hours later watching Moonlighting.  I remember having trouble trying to reconcile that.  

And that's where my life changed, though I didn't know it.  Challenger had the perverse effect of rekindling my interest in spaceflight and aviation.  In some way, every turn my life has taken since was because of that awful thing.  The trajectory of my life -- and it's a wonderful life -- but that trajectory changed because of this terrible occurrence. 

I've never been sure how to feel about that.  I know about how big things have tiny starts, the whole "a butterfly flaps its wings" thing, and I know the world turns and things happen, but it's still weird.  And I wish this trajectory, which has brought me a wonderful life with great joy and discovery, hadn't been instigated by the deaths of seven space travelers.

Abandon in peace

Forty-three years ago tonight, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed in the fire aboard the Apollo 1 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral's Pad 34.  There's not much left of Launch Complex 34 these days, and what's left has been abandoned. 

This is how 34 looked two years ago.  It's hallowed ground, and its eerie silence speaks volumes.  Now, as nature reclaims it, the floral tributes come on their own.  Rest in peace, 34.

In the beginning

In lieu of new content today, I'd rather you revisit a great moment from 41 years ago tonight.  Time will not diminish its situational eloquence.

Tomorrowland

A few weeks ago I treated myself to the "Tomorrowland" DVD set.  I'm slowly working my way through it, and am I enjoying it.

 If you're interested in the history of space flight, especially the American efforts, you really can't discount the influence of the "Tomorrowland" series on space flight, or the Collier's Magazine series that preceded it.  Both were big, beautiful expressions of a future in space.  The "Tomorrowland" programs aren't exactly like the Collier's pieces -- there were changes for technical and legal reasons, among others -- but you see the concepts brought to life on the screen, through animation and live-action footage.  There's also expert testimony on rocket science, space medicine and spacecraft design from Willy Ley, Heinz Haber and Wernher von Braun. 

Watching these programs, you think about how they'd never get on the air today.  A good bit of the introductory portions of the programs is hosted by producer/director Ward Kimball, who looks like an older Scott Adsit and speaks in plain, patient, almost teacher-like tones.  The three experts all have accents of varying thicknesses and speak haltingly at points.  Nowadays, they'd be relegated to sound bites, with their main points made by a narrator.  In these programs, they're allowed to speak at length. 

(Of course, there's also the issue of von Braun, our space program's own Faustian tale.  In the "Man in Space" feature, there's brief coverage of the German rocket program and how it culminated in the V-2.  No real mention is made, of course, on the V-2's wartime implications.  But, I digress.)

For the space historian, it's great to see these people come to life on the screen.  They're no longer names in a history book; there's Willy Ley talking about rockets, and Uncle Wernher talking about how a flight to the moon would unfold and sharing a vision of a space plane that's roughly like what became the Space Shuttle.  And from a viewing standpoint, it's a treat.  The production values are so good that it's easy to forget these were films made for television.  Yeah, you can tell they're done with models, but I prefer models anyway.  CGI bores me to tears.  Models have the virtue of being real.  There's also some gorgeous animation done with a lot of wit and style, too.
 
Then there's the dream, compared to what happened.  These films show the dreams of 1955 and 1956, and talk of space flight as something that could be achieved within the next decade.  But we know what happened in 1957 and 1958, and how people first flew in space in 1961.  Indeed, while von Braun talks of a voyage to the Moon in 1955, within a few years he'd be overseeing the development of the Saturn rockets that would propel Americans to the first real-life lunar voyages, following a flight plan that didn't differ that dramatically from those he outlined on the Disney series.

Within 15 years, Americans would have flown around the moon and landed multiple times.  The dream that electrified the viewing audience of 1955 would, by 1970, become commonplace, and by the time of Apollo 17, the television networks would devote little, if any, time to the last flight to the Moon.  The real flights to the Moon were, for the most part (and with the obvious exception of Apollo 13), mostly devoid of the tension and drama you see in the Disney versions.  It looked so dramatic and glamorous in the Disney telling; in real life, it was up to 12 days in tiny spacecraft for a group of guys, eating from tubes, pooping in plastic bags, and after splashdown, frogmen reeling when they opened the hatch and the smell from inside hit them in the face.   

I'm glad we went to the Moon, and I can't wait for our return.  The ways we actually got there worked fantastically.  But when you see the vision of tomorrow that existed yesterday, you really wish that today didn't end up being so much like yesterday.  I love that we have iPods and digital cameras and Trivection ovens and cars with built-in hard drives to hold MP3s, and it's a great time for gadgets in general.  But, man, I'd trade a lot of that in a second if the vision of 1955 could have become the reality of 2010.

Gifts to myself

I've been doing a bit of Christmas shopping the last couple weeks.  Happily, most of it's completed now.  There are a couple of gift cards I still need to get for a couple people, and one or two smaller things, but the big stuff is either in hand or on the way.  I'm a firm believer in the wonder of e-commerce, and I'd much rather wait in line at the post office or wait for the delivery truck than risk life and limb in a retail store.  (Maybe that explains why some of my clothes don't fit so well.  But, I digress.)

In the process, I've picked up an item or two for myself.  Why do I do holiday shopping for myself?  For one, my likes and wants are obscure and close-held, and I can't drop hints to save my life.  Aside from that, it makes me feel clumsy when I do.  Why ask someone else to do something I can do for myself?  The other factor is that some of the things I like are a trifle dear -- not prohibitively expensive, but I feel less guilty when I'm the one paying for them.  So here's what Santa is bringing me this year:

:: The movie poster for Four Days in November.  I've been wanting this for a long time.  My office has needed a movie poster in it, and this is nice and understated. Plus, as you remember, the film is a favorite of mine.  

:: The Disney "Tomorrowland" DVD set.  Something else I've wanted for a long time (I have some of them recorded long ago on VHS off the Disney Channel, but I couldn't find them if you gave me all day to search), and if you know anything about the history of American space exploration, you know why these are historically significant.  It's an interesting glimpse into our memories of what the future would be like, and you watch these and can't help feeling a little cheated that 2010 doesn't look too terribly different from the 1980s and 1990s.

::  And, I've been a good girl, I guess.  (Or tried to be, at least.)  So I threw caution to the winds and treated myself to the Model Factory Hiro/Barchetta kit of the VJM02.  It's pretty in that orange and green, isn't it?  Tip of the hat to the always dependable folks at Strada Sports for their wonderful service on that one.  (Don't miss the adorable picture at the bottom of that page, by the way.)

More incredibly wonderful time killers

While stuck in my office between meetings and obligations last week, I came across a few wonderful websites that were amazing consumers of what little free time I had.  I pass them along to you for sharing and enjoyment.

First, there's this site, full of interesting stuff from all over the brain.  Two areas in particular really ate up my time: the section on astronaut health and the huge section about Presidential health.  In some instances, it'll be more than you ever wanted to know, but it's all fascinating.

Then this link, which I may have given you before but still bears repeating: the Johnson Space Center's Oral History Project.  Read about space history firsthand, not just from the words of those who flew in space, but also from the folks on the ground who helped them get there and who brought them back home. 

Finally, have you ever wondered what the real-world consequences would be of the goings-on at Dunder Mifflin?  Then check out this blog, which looks at The Office from an employment law point of view.  It's a little too interesting.

Man on the Moon

 

For their coverage of the Apollo 11 mission, the three television networks pulled out all the stops.  During the buildup to the mission, the networks commissioned musical pieces, poetry, special effects, you name it.  Hours of bank pieces, some of them pretty elaborate, were put together for broadcast during lulls in the continuous coverage of this epic achievement.

CBS spared no effort, and commissioned a dramatic main title sequence for its coverage.  What you see above comes from the start of the launch broadcast at 8 a.m. EDT on July 16, 1969.  If I recall correctly, this sequence was created by former Disney animator Richard Spies and his associates at Reel III Animation.  This is a beautiful sequence, alternating the moon in its phases, historic artistic views of the Moon, and map views of the lunar terrain.  This is done with a lot of dissolves, pans and zooms, accompanied by eerie atmospheric music; the pictures and music bring together the scientific, artistic and romantic views of the Moon.  Then we pan and zoom in on a map showing the crater Archimedes with a dark shadow around it.  The music starts to fade out, replaced by a sound like that of an empty desert and some eerie atmospherics. Archimedes and its shadow dissolve into an astronaut slowly taking that first look around.  The Moon and Earth are reflected in his visor.  We zoom in on the Earth. 

Then, in the only slightly awkward moment of this beautiful sequence, that dissolves into another view of the Earth.  Some quietly triumphant music starts to play.  The Earth heads to the top of the screen, the first words of the title sequence appear, and the Moon rises into the picture.  As the titles appear, there's Harry Kramer's quietly majestic voice: "This is CBS News color coverage of Man on the Moon...the epic journey of Apollo 11.  This morning: the launch of astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins.  The start of the trip to the Moon!"  Even though Harry Kramer was a cool professional, there's a little bit of excitement in his voice as he says it, and as you watch it 40 years later, even if you weren't around when this happen, it kind of hits you about just how big this was, and especially at that particular moment.  Then when the title sequence ends, we roll into a nifty animated billboard for the International Paper Company ("where good ideas grow on trees"), Western Electric ("manufacturing and supply unit of the Bell System") and Kellogg's (which "puts more in your morning," and whose billboard seems eerily like something out of a sci-fi movie in the 1950s).  With the billboards complete, Kramer throws it to Uncle Walter at the CBS headquarters at the Kennedy Space Center, where he and Wally Schirra narrate as history unfolds on live television.

All told, inclusive of the sponsor billboards, this is about a 90-second opening sequence, and it would be an eternity in modern television.  Modern television wouldn't do anything this beautiful, nor would it have the same artistic feel.  There's something about this opening sequence that's beautiful, haunting, classy, and befitting the moment it represents.  I've heard about it, and I'd seen bits and pieces of it, but I wasn't prepared for the power of the whole thing when I saw it.  Wow.

(By the way, there's an excellent, huge master's thesis on CBS News and its coverage of the space program available here.  I've learned a ton from it.  You'll also read about some of the real movers behind the scenes during the coverage of these missions, people like producer Robert Wussler and director Joel Banow.  It's well worth the download.)