Scouting, Volume 70, Number 4, September 1982 Page: E22
82, E1-E24, [16] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Just four miles away from launch pad 39-A, the
Explorers had one of the best viewing sites
on the cape to watch the fiery lift-off of
Columbia's fourth mission into space.
Thomas Mattingly and pilot Henry
Hartsfield were already aboard and
also waiting for the big moment.
There were other ways to pass the
time, too. Some of the cape's native
inhabitants were quickly pointed out
by Sgt. Carroll Baker, the group's bus
driver.
"In case some of you have never
seen a real live Florida alligator," Sgt.
Baker advised, "there are three or
four of them right over here."
Some of the gators sliding around
in the swamps just below the viewing
site were up to eight feet long. Others
were mere "babies" measuring only
two or three feet. They watched the
hundreds of intruders with baleful,
marble-like black eyes, then slithered
off into the undergrowth again.
But as the time for the launch ap-
proached, even the gators were ig-
nored. All eyes were firmly fixed on
the Columbia and her towering rocket
silhouetted in the distance against the
bright azure sky.
"T-minus 10 seconds and count-
ing," the voice on the loudspeaker
said. "Nine . . . eight. . . seven . . . six
Suddenly, there was total silence.
The crowd seemed to hold its breath
in unison. Then, a brilliant spark of
light flickered on the far horizon, and
the Columbia rose slowly and majes-
tically atop a column of smoke and
bright orange flame in a picture-per-
fect beginning for its fourth and final
training mission.
It was a spectacle visible to the
naked eye for up to 200 miles in all
directions, and it was seen by an
estimated 2.5 million pairs of eyes, not
counting the tens of millions more
who watched on television. Florida
tourism officials calculated that near-
ly a million people made special efforts
to obtain a relatively close-up view of
the launch.
But of all who witnessed the his-
toric spectacle, none probably had a
better or more unrestricted view of it
than the POSTAR Explorers, NA-
SA's special guests for the event.
"This is as good a spot as there is
E22
Mike Newell, top, of Post 509, Pasadena, Calif.,
focuses his camera on the Columbia launch pad. Above, Ex-
plorers shield their eyes as they follow the lift-off
into the bright Florida sky. Right, a rocket booster
engine on display outside the Vehicle Assembly Building.
on the entire space center for catching
the full drama of the launch," said
John Wolfgang, a member of PO-
ST AR's experiment selection com-
mittee, an Advisor to Post 1275, and
himself a NASA official attached to
Maryland's Goddard Space Flight
Center.
Although the flawless blast-off was
the biggest moment of all for every-
body, it was far from being the only
highlight of the POSTAR finalists'
Florida excursion.
The night before the Sunday
launch, for example, the Explorers
got a chance to meet former Astro-
naut Jim Lovell and hear his thrilling
first-hand account of his adventures
on two Gemini and two Apollo space
missions.
Lovell, now vice-president of
Chicago-based Centel Business Sys-
tems and chairman of the National
POSTAR Judging Committee, has
been actively involved in the Explorer
project since its beginning in 1977.
"I'm very pleased with the work
you've done," Lovell told the PO-
STAR finalists. "This project has
given young people an insight back
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 70, Number 4, September 1982, periodical, September 1982; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353590/m1/72/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.