University of Virginia Library

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.