My alarm vibrated, unseaming me from sleep. I swayed up, like Bela Lugosi rising from his catafalque, and immediately my head was beset by a savage cocktail of sleep deprivation and jetlag. For a moment I didn’t know where I was, or even what I was. Then it struck me, like a shaft of heavenly light rending dark storm clouds – I was Harry Chapman, peripatetic scribe for culture and travel rag The Arbuturian and I was on the Florida Space Coast to investigate all things astronautical. More to the point it was 4:45 am on my first morning following a hefty eight-and-a-half-hour flight and in exactly seven minutes’ time I would be witness to the first and only live rocket launch of the four-day trip from the roof terrace of the hotel.
I threw on just enough clothing to be seemly and, without buttoning my shirt, ran barefoot into the hallway. Not knowing where the stairs were, I waited an inordinately long time for the lift. I assumed I’d be one of only a handful of lunatics up there, so I was disconcerted to find the elevator, when it arrived, two thirds full of guests as bright eyed and well turned out as if they had just imbibed a fruit smoothie and taken a turn around the gardens. They looked at me aghast. I pulled my shirt ends together and attempted a smile but realised this probably just confirmed their suspicions that I was a hobo living out by the pool house who had crept in to finish off discarded drinks at the bar.
“Ping!” Top floor. The elevator doors rolled back, and the guests disgorged. I was met, not by the sight of a few earnest rocket spotters, but a mass of spectators lining the balustrade, phones aloft. I stepped out into a unison of mid “Ahhhhs!” followed by a delayed sonic boom ringing out like the downward blow of Thor’s hammer. I thought I saw an orange glow hanging in the heavens from the receding tail fire of the rocket after it had burst through the blanket of black clouds curtaining the impossibly wide India River. Yes, I had missed the whole damned thing.
I found myself standing next to a group of my fellow journalists. Ben, reeling and hungover from multiple deadlines, reared up from his hands and knees. “Bugger!” He gasped. “I dropped my phone and now it’s died.” He turned to me, a flicker of hope behind the mask of despair – “Did I miss it?” “Yes, you did,” I crowed. “One of the most amazing things I ever saw.”
On the face of it I wasn’t the obvious candidate for this job. Of the two things I wanted to be as a boy, an astronaut wasn’t one of them. One was a fireman on account of the poles they got to slide down (the playground had one just as serviceable, but you weren’t paid to shimmy down it) – the other was a scientist (notwithstanding my dyslexic grasp on science) because they got to mix up garishly coloured potions. I preferred fantasy to science fiction and real astronauts seemed to spend much of their time bobbing about outside their craft in cumbersome outfits, fixing things very slowly with oven gloves.
And then there was Florida. In my mind it was either gangsters from Scarface chain-sawing each other in half, or, in the world of Seinfeld, retirees from New York wearing pastel jumpsuits with elasticated waists and orthopaedic shoes. But perhaps, like a staunch atheist invited into a church for the first time, I was exactly where I needed to be for a dramatic conversion.
The Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Complex, which we were ferried to a few hours later, is a sort of huge space theme park with an educational slant. Although privately owned, it represents the public face of NASA’s Florida operations and has strong NASA connections and involvement. The actual Kennedy Space Centre, which is America’s primary launch site, is only a few miles away, with astronauts regularly stopping by to give talks and demonstrations. The complex is spread over a large area and the attractions, many interactive, are mostly housed in purpose-built hangars. There is too much to see in a single day and our explorations were sensibly spread over two.
First up was a wander through the Rocket Garden which is exactly that, a tangible, tactile outdoor display of rockets, from the first ballistic missile inspired versions from the late 1950s, all standing together proudly like phalluses in a fertility cult. One perhaps for Dr Freud?
Next was Spaceport KSC, a VR simulation of travel to Mars, Saturn, and several other known planets outside our solar system. Strapped into what resembled the carts of a roller coaster, this is a fully immersive experience with a 3D screen which had me wincing, ducking, and trying to draw in my dangling legs which felt like they were going to be ripped off by Martian mesas. Given my reluctance to devote three years holed up in a space bus, it was probably the nearest I was ever going to get to the Red Planet.
Following this, a shuttle bus took us to the Apollo/Saturn V Centre which stands next to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building. It boasts the largest hangar in the world where all the space craft since the 1960s have been made. We watched multi screened films on the various Apollo missions and marvelled at the gigantic Saturn V, the largest rocket ever flown, segmented, and held aloft in the lobby.
The Artemis I Space Launch System vehicle rolling out from the VAB at Kennedy Space Center (Image courtesy of WikiCommons)
Working in pairs we got a chance to mimic an astronaut’s repair of a space centre using kit and technology like that used in actual training. I confess my team (comprising Ben and myself) sailed in last and it rather confirmed my prejudice of astronauts being trussed up like Michelin men who played with giant Meccano sets.
Day two kicked off with Heroes and Legends featuring the US Astronauts Hall of Fame. Accompanied by swelling music designed to tug at the heartstrings and moisten the eye, this was given the full, no holds barred Spielbergian Hollywood treatment. Shots of children and adults describing who their heroes are, interspersed with interviews with astronauts, culminating with a parade of astronaut legends. For an American audience it might have had them intoning the Star-Spangled Banner whilst queuing to sign up to astronaut school. For an English audience, weaned on cynicism, I was rather hoping there might be an alternative Golden Globes inflected commentary by Ricky Gervais.
As well as the Shuttle Launch Experience which had your seat tilt back at 90 degrees and fired up at the ceiling to replicate a take-off, the Space Shuttle Atlantis hangar had the actual ship suspended from the ceiling as though frozen in flight. The side hatch was fully exposed so that one could marvel at the gubbins and ingenuity that allowed a craft of such size to be shot into space and to survive such atmospheric extremes without disintegrating. It struck me that the astronauts are the jockeys, the glory boys, and that the real stars, like the crew behind the lens on a film, were the engineers and ground crew enablers who made space flight possible.
Steve Smith’s official astronaut candidate portrait
So far, it had been interesting, but I was still a little sceptical. My Road to Damascus moment came that afternoon in an encounter with real life astronaut Steve Smith. Steve was very tall and thin and somewhat gaunt and must have been in his middle to late sixties. He was introduced to each of us by turn, shook our hands, made eye contact, and asked our names and who we worked for. Small things perhaps but it made us all feel special. In the audience that followed with half a dozen families and our group, he talked about his life as an astronaut and then threw it open to the floor. His responses were considered, eloquent and philosophical and he got to the nub of even foolish sounding questions.
I didn’t know that most astronauts are highly educated with master’s degrees or doctorates (usually in science) and are normally filched by NASA from other professions when they are in their thirties or forties. They are men and women who have had broad life experience before they are inducted and need high levels of emotional intelligence to survive being sequestered with colleagues for long periods. Steve was an idealist and immensely proud of his craft which he believed, in essence, was to make life better for those on earth. He had real presence, and with his gentleness and gravitas, was like a figure out of time, a Henry Fonda hero.
And, yes, he does believe there is life out there.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers a full day of fun, inspiration, and educational activities. Single-day admission is $75 per adult/$65 per child, plus tax. Located just 45 minutes from Orlando, Florida, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is open daily at 9am, with closing times varying by season. Chat With An Astronaut is offered twice daily at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. For more information, including details of upcoming launches, please visit www.kennedyspacecenter.com.
Harry stayed at Courtyard Titusville Kennedy Space Center. The hotel offers spectacular views from the hotel’s rooftop bar, The Space Bar, which provides a prime viewing area for rocket launches. Rooms start from $170 plus taxes per night. For more information, please visit www.marriott.co.uk.
Harry’s tour of Florida’s Space Coast continues tomorrow as he comes back down to earth and encounters the local wildlife…
