Many travel for first-hand view

                                                             KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — To say Isaac Mensah and Troy Hedman grew up with NASA’s space shuttle program wouldn’t be too far off.

Mensah was 2 months old when Space Shuttle Columbia launched for the shuttle program’s maiden voyage in April 1981. Friendswood native Hedman was born Jan. 24, 1985, the same day that the Space Shuttle Discovery launched for the program’s 15th shuttle mission. 

Both took to math and science in school and eventually went to work in the space industry. So, their trip to Cape Canaveral, Fla., this week was a lot more than the curiosity of seeing a shuttle launch.

“It was really good to see the fruit of my labor while I was working with NASA launch,” Hedman, 26, said. For two years, Hedman worked for a NASA contractor that tested how best to keep the shuttle from space debris damage. He — like thousands of others — was laid off earlier this year as the shuttle program neared its end. 

Friday was the first launch experience for Hedman, who now works for a non-space-related engineering firm. The trip came with some excitement, but as he watched Atlantis lift into orbit from his position among a cluster of mangroves on the Florida Coast, Hedman became emotional.

“I was just shaken a bit by the gravity of the situation,” he said. “It’s the end of an era of space flight that started before I was even born, and I was lucky enough to work on (the program),” he said. “It was historic.” 

Mensah, 30, who trains NASA astronauts how to work the robotic systems aboard the space station, was making his fifth in-person shuttle launch visit to Kennedy Space Center. 

“Seeing the last one was like a final goodbye to an old friend you will not see again,” said Mensah, a Clear Lake area resident. “It’s got kind of a bittersweet feel to it. Sweet because you know all the people who worked so hard behind the scenes to make the launch go off flawlessly and bitter because when the vehicle lands 12 days from now, that’s all for the shuttle program.”

Trey Boring, of League City, returned to Florida, 26 years after he saw his first shuttle launch. This time he brought his son Clay, 17, and friend Jake Schuman, 16, of Oregon.

Part of the trip was to visit the same coastal haunts Boring did 26 years ago. The trip was almost a waste when Boring found out the hard way he had to pick up his access pass to the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.

Still, he made do and paid $40 to get a view of the launch from the same cluster of trees where Hedman was watching the launch. Turns out they were not alone, hundreds were in the same area.

“It was cool,” Boring said. “Everyone (in the same area watching the launch) was cheering. By in large, though, they were asking, what’s next? There were a lot of people standing around after the launch asking themselves, ‘Really, are we really done?’”

The space shuttle is done for sure, but Mensah said the United States is far from being out of the space game.

“Change is one of those things that happens,” he said. “You have to put one thing to bed and now we are searching for that next thing.

“We still are manning the (space) station with a six-man crew until 2020, so we have to still do end-to-end training,” Mensah said. 

And until the United States develops the next generation of space vehicle, NASA will rely on Russia for trips to the space station. 

“It’s something we got to do to keep America’s foothold in space,” Mensah said. “It’s not like manned space flight is completely dead. It’s transitioning.”

Hedman said NASA has the ability to capture the nation’s attention again, just as it did at the start of the Apollo missions.

“If NASA was given proper funding, a goal and a deadline, (it) would captivate the nation again,” he said.