Bill Capo / Eyewitness NewsCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- It was a moment in history as Atlantis blasted into the sky on a cone of flames. The roar resonated through the bodies of the thousands watching at Kennedy Space Center.
They cheered, and as the reality hit that they were watching the very last shuttle launch ever, some cried.
“I worked on the program for 30 years and this is a historic moment, but it’s a very sad moment too. I’m glad for all the enthusiasm here,” said Liz Fountain of the Johnson Space Center.
“To watch the shuttle launch is just an incredible experience,” said Wayne Hicks, a Galliano native. “I didn’t think we were going to go today. If I was betting money that we were going to launch, I’d have lost a bundle.
Hicks is hoping to help bring the future of space flight to the Michoud assembly facility in New Orleans. He works for the external tank build Lockheed Martin, which now hopes to build the new Orion capsule at Michoud.
“I said I conducted three crawfish boils with my teammates in California, and now they’re all honorary Cajuns,” Hicks said.
NASA’s clock is no longer counting down toward the launch. It is now counting up, as the astronauts are in space, Atlantis is in space, but the mission is now underway. The last mission.
Even for pilot Col. Doug Hurley, it’s a hard thing to face.
“I think for me, frankly, it’s going to happen when we stop on the runway, hopefully at Kennedy since that’s where Atlantis going to spend its retirement,” Hurley said. “I think that’s where it’s really going to hit.”
“We’ve built 135 (external tanks) and flew those things here, built them out of a shoe and did wonderful things. And people also don’t realize, they go, well the ET has been around for 30 years,” said John Karas, vice president of Lockheed Martin. “I got news for you: that ET is the most modern ET with the newest tools and materials and welding technologies.”
Lockheed Martin leaders say the competition will be stiff for the next generation of space vehicle, but they are hoping NASA will decide on the facilities and equipment and people already in place at Michoud.
“Whether it’s Lockheed Martin or somebody else, we would really to like to think that if you design a heavy launch vehicle the way NASA has defined it, and they’ll come out more in the press hopefully here shortly, that it looks like shuttle-derived aspects of it,” Karas said. “And if it does, then I think the tools and people of talent, definitely the talent, is applicable.”
But in the meantime, the uncertainty will continue for those who work in the space shuttle business.
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