University of Virginia Library

They Shoot Rockets To The Moon, Don't They?

By Fred Heblich
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

CAPE KENNEDY - Last Sunday
some 600,000 people congregated
on the beaches around the Cape to
witness the latest chapter in what
Tang calls "Man's Greatest
Adventure."

Tang is right. For several hours
the scene in this plain-looking part
of Florida was the greatest show on
earth.

NASA had its Apollo News
Service set up in Cocoa Beach, just
a short 18 miles from the Cape.
From the News Service the some
1800 accredited newsmen were
carted to the Cape in shuttle buses.
Quite appropriately, the News
Service was across the street from a
Holiday Inn, the landmark given to
newsmen seeking directions.

Sells Flights

Cocoa Beach sells the space
flights the way the way the South
sells the Civil War.

—Hey kid. Wanna plastic
rocket ship? Plastic replica moon
rock?

The town was in an uproar.
Families and senior citizens sat in
front yards in lawn chairs to watch
the scene. Holiday Inn, Howard
Johnson's, and the other motels and
restaurants wished the Apollo XIV
Good Luck and Godspeed on
plastic marques usually reserved for
such timely messages as Pool, Color
TV, and Continental Breakfast.

One place advertised a
post-launch party till 3 a.m. with
drinks priced at 50 cents. The bus
driver explained that the owners
were losing their liquor license the
next day and were selling the
building to religious organization
called something like the Friends of
Jesus. Conceivably the party-goers
could drink to the success of the
mission all night and then pray for
success with the friends of the
Superstar in the morning.

But the big show was up on the
Cape. For miles around the beaches
were covered with people and cars.
Many had pitched tents and had
been there for days assuring
themselves a good seat when the
show started. People were sitting on
cars waving at the cars and buses
going into the Kennedy Space
Center. It looked like a middle-age
rock festival. Station wagons filled
with kids lined the roadside and
American flags flew in the breeze.
It looked like the sea had just
opened and everyone had driven to
the promised land.

There were clouds in the sky but
it was sunny and warm. From the
beach the rocket did not appear to
be very close, but there could be no
mistake about the size of it. In the
Florida sun it stood erect, white,
and gleaming. If any Seminole
Indians had come out of the
swamps they would have probably
thought that some kind of fertility
festival was taking place.

At the gate to the Space Center
the bus was stopped and a security
guard climbed on.

I'm supposed to check
identification badges," he said.

What was he looking for? Russian
spies? Saboteurs? Chinese bandits?

Realizing how many people
were on the bus he looked around
and said, "Does everyone have a
badge?" Everyone nodded and our
confidential top security check was
over.

The press area was a jungle of
TV cables slithering along the
ground and reporters darting
around. The legitimate press sat in
a - big roofed grandstand and
everyone else walked around in
front. In back of the grandstand
were buildings and trailers housing
the networks and wire services.

Killing Time

Most of the press crew walked
around killing time until the
lift-off. Launch Control had a TV
monitor set up which switched
periodically from the rocket, which
sat on the other side of a small
body of water, to the astronauts
preparing to go into the capsule.
When the countdown was held, the
monitor focused on the cloud cover
overhead.

A great many foreign newsmen
were present, as were a great many
members of the college press. Some
of the press corps seemed to be
interested more in each other than
in the lift-off. Photographers were
taking pictures of each other and
some of the female reporters, and
newsmen interviewed each other.

At about 2 p.m. Launch
Control, which had spent most of
the day describing how the
astronauts were relaxing over
breakfast - question: do they get
the same privileges for a last meal
that a condemned prisoner does? —
announced that buses would take
newsmen over to the VIP area and
return by 3 p.m. With nothing
better to do, they went. The rest
sat on the grass and patiently
waited for the show to begin.

The weather had been nice all
day, but north in the distance the
sky was absolutely black. By 3 p.m.
the wind had picked up and the
storm clouds moved closer. At T
minus eight minutes two seconds
the gigantic electric timer stopped
counting off the seconds.

Panic. The mission had been
delayed twice already. Third time
lucky? Launch Control announced
that the countdown was being held
because of the thick cloud cover.
They had launched Apollo XII
through a heavy cloud cover and it
had been hit by lightning. Fifteen
minutes later Launch Control said
the countdown would be held for
at least another 15 and probably 30
minutes while a weather plane
flying overhead determined
whether it would be advisable or
not to proceed with lift-off.

Meanwhile the black clouds
which had been moving closer all
day finally reached the Cape. The
wind increased and the sky
darkened. Sunglasses were removed
and TV cameras and cameramen
were covered with plastic. The
weather looked worse than it had
all day.

Countdown Resumed

Then Launch Control
announced that things were
improving and the countdown
would be resumed in about seven
minutes. The weather looked so
bad no one believed it, but went
ahead and prepared for it anyway.
When the countdown resumed the
press corps cheered.

Launch Control now reported
every minute, then every 30
seconds, then through the last
minute. White smoke started
coming out of the side of the
rocket, the red lower moved away.
The rocket stood gleaming white
against the background of a black
sky.

With a minute left to go it
started raining hard. There had
been occasional light sprinkles
before, but as lift-off approached
the rain came down in torrents.

—Judgement Day? The Great
Flood? The Tower of Babel?

With ten seconds left the muggy
air became charged with the tension
felt by the spectators. No one made
a sound. Standing back in the
grandstand a radio announcer
reported the last final moments
before lift-off.

Then the lift-off. Great
billowing clouds of yellow-orange
fire surrounded the rocket which
quivered, and then given life, roared
and began slowly to move upward.
The great white clouds of smoke
became dark and silhouetted the
orange fire from the rocket. The
press corps applauded, standing
motionless and smiling.

Sky Crackled

In a few seconds the rocket
disappeared into the black clouds.
The rocket's fire illuminated the
patch of clouds below it. The sky
crackled loudly, protestingly, as
the rocket increased speed escaping
the earth's atmosphere. The press
corps cheered again. The rain
decreased to drizzle, then stopped.

A veteran newsman turned and
said, "Every time I see it it looks
more beautiful."

Within a few minutes most of
thy press corps was walking to the
shuttle buses to be carted back to
Cocoa Beach. Most were quiet;
mesmerized by the lift-off, a
miracle on the order of bread and
fishes.

It took two hours to get back to
Cocoa, which is expected when
600,000 people try to drive on the
same one-lane road. That wasn't
bad though. Driving back to the
mainland made going to the moon
seem easy.

Why did 600,000 people gather
to watch NASA shoot a big white
cylinder into the air? Why did they
sit out on a sandy beach to watch it
when they could have stayed in the
motel and watched it on Color TV
beside the pool, with a Continental
Breakfast?

It seems that as a society
becomes more complex, the sources
of amusement of the society must
increase in complexity. The
complexity of the moonshots is
overwhelming. They are fantasies,
but their appeal is based on the
desire to see man engage in the
struggle with his environment and
gamble with his life. Hopefully the
next Apollo crew will include
Buster Crabbe and Leonard
Nimoy.