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2005-07-26
a red letter day

17:33

I feel rather silly writing about the launch now, the launch that happened oh, 8 hours ago. Especially now that everyone has already written, read, and/or at least heard about it and I'm behind the curve to be only talking about it now. Ah well. This is a long entry. Not surprising, I have lots to say.

Even before the first launch attempt - and by first, I mean, crew-in-vehicle type deal - I wasn't nervous. It didn't go. But this one...I was nervous since the new date was announced sometime last week. I started watching today about 9 a.m., and we were still go, less than half an hour to go. What? Really? It wasn't until we broke the L - 9-minute hold that I actually started to believe that we might actually do this. I'm talking to Kelly online, giving her updates. Explaining some of the calls to my friend, Shane, who was visiting.

No optional 5-minute hold. They're gimbling the engines (goose bumps!), there's the handover to orbiter systems, the gas venting from the engine release valves, the sparklers (NOT to light the engines, mind you, as many seem to think, but to burn off extranneous gasses). L - 6 seconds: main engines on, shock cones appear, stack rocks foward, back...liftoff!! Yay!!! The shuttle rises majestically through the erupting fire and rolling waves of smoke. Eight-and-a-half white-knuckled minutes later, we're in orbit. I am jumping up and down, Kelly is cheering excitedly in Winnipeg, receiving strange looks from her coworkers; even Bennet and Apache catch the excitement and are eargerly prancing around. We're back!!

And now I've come into work. The hallways in my office, where I went first, are deserted, in direct contrast to the buzz of activity which currently defines Mission Control. It's not like I haven't worked in the contol center since Columbia, but that was on the ISS side, Increment Ops, as ISO. It is so good to see it so busy again! And knowing that it's NOT a sim, but an actual mission! There are more people in the backroom than ever before. Seating is at a premium. It was hard, on the way over from my office, to not jump up and down like I was five and excitedly exclaim "We did it!" to every person I saw. It is quite a weird feeling - disbelief mingled with "business-as-usual" mentality, which returned with surprising swiftness. Business as usual, yes, but it's nice that it's the business of flying space shuttles, which we haven't done for far too long.

Years ago, when I first started co-oping, I met someone who was willing to talk about the downtime after Challenger. I was fascinated, convinced that I'd never experience such a thing. Little did I know. Interestingly enough, we are only two months short of equalling that break between shuttle flights; if we'd launched in September, it'd be within days of each other. And now! Now we are flying again!!!

I am working the mission. ME. Becca talks about her first stint as a flight controller. This will be, um, my fifth shuttle mission, one of which I was actually a prime operator and not a trainee. Incidentally, I think that I am one of the select few flight controllers who has the dubious distinction of being a backroom trainee, working a flight, and then being demoted back to backroom trainee. ;) I understand why - I only worked one flight as the actual operator, then Columbia happened, I left for a year, and I worked the flight as Transfer and not Systems, what I'm currently being trained in. True, I did certify as a Systems, but I'm perfectly happy for the refresher course before STS-121. I've even voluntarily put myself back in the training flow. It is funny; my coworkers sometimes forget that I've worked a flight before, and other times, think that I've been here for ages.

Anyway, despite being a trainee, I *am* important. At least today. I have actual displays and systems to watch. It's going to be interesting - for the first half of the mission, I am a trainee on the shuttle side; for the second half, I slide to the other side of the room, the ISS backroom, and work ISO. It is very exciting, to think that I am necessary for the flight.

Thank you, Discovery; brought us back to flight after Challenger, and again now. Fly Nasa Fly. We are!!

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