Jake thought it was surprisingly cool in the New Mexico desert. Of course, the sun was barely peeking above the dunes on the horizon and a chill dry wind was blowing across the sands from the distant mountains.
Slightly more than a mile from the grandstand where Jake waited with the other bystanders, the Space Tours rocket launcher stood tall and straight, sunlight glinting off its silver skin. Six tourists were strapped into the passenger module at the top of the rocket, Jake knew. The ground crew was leaving the launchpad in minivans painted sky blue, each van kicking up a rooster tail of dust as it drove across the desert.
“FIVE MINUTES AND COUNTING,” came the announcement from the loudspeakers at the rear of the grandstand. “ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO.”
Jake turned his head from the rocket on its launchpad and looked at Isaiah Knowles. The former astronaut was standing rigidly at attention, his eyes riveted on the rocket launcher. It always surprised Jake that Knowles was several inches shorter than he; the man gave the impression of being bigger, more impressive. But now Jake saw that he was nervously rubbing his thumb against his forefinger. He’s just as tightened up as I am, Jake realized.
“How many launches have you seen?” Jake asked.
Knowles stirred, as if coming out of a trance. “This is the worst part,” he said, his voice low. “If anything goes wrong this is where it’d most likely happen.”
“FOUR MINUTES AND COUNTING. ALL SYSTEMS GO.”
“Man, I’d rather be in the bird instead of out here watching,” Knowles said fervently. “I’d be working, active, instead of just standing here doing nothing.”
The grandstand was sparsely filled with onlookers. Families of the half dozen paying customers aboard the rocket, a few Space Tours employees, tourists with little kids, teenagers from the nearby town come to see the launch and pretend they were going into space.
“TWO MINUTES AND COUNTING,” the loudspeakers blared.
Behind the grandstand rose a curved modernistic building, all deeply tinted glass and stainless steel gleaming in the rising sun: headquarters of the Space Tours Corporation that was carrying half a dozen sightseers into space for three orbits around the world.
They’re going to see sights they’ve never seen before, Jake told himself.
Raising the binoculars that Space Tours had loaned him, Jake could see a thin whiff of white seeping from the upper level of the slim rocket. Liquid oxygen boiling away, he knew.
Then the umbilical lines carrying the LOX and electrical power dropped away from the launcher.
“THE LAUNCH VEHICLE IS NOW ON INTERNAL POWER,” blared the loudspeakers. “ALL SYSTEMS ARE NOMINAL. LAUNCH IN ONE MINUTE AND COUNTING.”
Jake could hear his pulse thudding in his ears. It was starting to feel warmer, with the sun climbing into the cloudless turquoise-blue sky. Everyone in the grandstand seemed to be holding their breath. Even the children fell silent.
“FIFTEEN SECONDS … FOURTEEN…”
Jake mentally counted down the seconds with the announcer. At T minus five seconds a cloud of steam billowed from underneath the rocket. Before Jake could ask Knowles if that was normal, the rocket began to rise slowly, majestically, out of the steam and up, straight, straight up into the crystal sky.
No noise. No sound at all. But then the crowd in the grandstand seemed to take in a collective breath, to stir, sighing as they watched the rocket rising higher, higher.
At last the sound reached them. A bellowing howl, like a thousand demons roaring all at once, like an overpowering ocean wave pouring over them, the rocket’s thunder beat down, pulsing, shaking every nerve in Jake’s body, throbbing, pounding with a power that Jake had never felt before.
Jake trembled, awestruck.
Someone behind him was chanting, “Go, go, go…”
The rocket was hurtling across the sky now, its pulsating roar of power dwindling. Some people cheered and waved their hands in the air. Jake saw a woman crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Go! Go! Go!” Several of the teenagers took up the chant.
A bright flare from the rocket shocked Jake. An explosion?
“First stage separation,” Knowles said tightly before Jake could ask. The astronaut was visibly puffing, short of breath.
The rocket dwindled until at last they could see it no longer. The sky was empty, the launchpad emptier. The crowd began to filter grudgingly out of the grandstand, but Knowles didn’t move.
With a slightly bewildered shake of his head, the former astronaut told Jake, “No matter how many launches I’ve seen, it always gets to me.”
“It certainly got to me,” Jake confessed.
Knowles started to edge toward the stairs. “I think it’s the subsonics in the noise from the rocket. Jangles your nervous system.”
Jake thought that trying to explain the emotions he had just been put through was like trying to explain the Mona Lisa.
“Come on,” Knowles said, with a reluctant glance at the now-empty launchpad. “Harry’s waiting to see us.”