A Quiet Town Awakens

By: Brandt Secosh
April 24, 2000

On most days of the year, Titusville, Florida, is a quiet little town to its residents, and is home to many people that work at Kennedy Space Center. All of this dramatically changes during launch activities. The scheduled launch of STS-101 was no exception, drawing a crowd of space enthusiasts from around the state, nation and indeed the world! To capture some of the launch festivities, I left Kennedy Space Center to mingle with the crowds of people in Titusville. As I left the center, people were jammed into to every imaginable location along the Indian River on US1. They filled mall parking lots and restaurants – They were everywhere! I thought I would go to one of the best spots in town, Veteran’s Park, to meet the people waiting to see the launch. In this picture, I am standing on one of the docks looking back toward the crowd. Throughout the city, every other place looked just like this! Many of the people were veteran viewers of shuttle launches and had brought umbrellas and coolers of their favorite beverages. The launch was scheduled at 4:15 Eastern Standard Time. Many of the viewers had selected their locations well before noon and had made themselves at home!

One of the first people I met was Eric. Eric is from France and had a planned trip to Orlando, Florida, to attend a technology conference. Eric had checked the launch schedule before leaving France and was very excited that he would have the opportunity to view a launch during his visit. This was Eric's first time to see a launch. We talked for a bit about his country and I wished him well as I went to meet other people.

The next couple that I met was Ken and Audrey Killer from Toronto, Canada. Audrey and Ken were quite excited to be here in Titusville to view the launch. I had met Audrey walking back to where her husband, Ken, was. Now, Ken had the right idea. He was in a lawn chair under the protective shade of an umbrella with a set of binoculars. Audrey and Ken had arrived at 12:00 noon and selected a choice piece of real estate from which they would watch the launch. We also spent a few moments finding out about each other, and I then moved on to meet others in this enthusiastic crowd.

The next couple that I met was Scott and Carrie Zerkle from Daytona Beach, Florida. Although, the Zerkles have viewed many launches from Daytona Beach, this was the first time that they would view a launch from Titusville. We talked a lot about the sound that they would experience during this launch. Scott and Carrie kind of brought their son for the event. Kind of - Yes! Carrie is four months pregnant. Congratulations Scott and Carrie! Isn’t it cool that their child will experience a launch even before birth!

The crowd at Veterans Park was well aware of the events happening at Kennedy Space Center. The city of Titusville had installed a public address system which monitored communications from the Launch Control Center. Everyone knew that the strong winds might cause a scrub but hung in there hoping for the best. Finally, the word came that the launch would be scrubbed due to the strong winds and an attempt to launch would be made on Tuesday.

Now for the tough part of a launch – dealing with the traffic in and out of the city. No matter which way you turned there was the inevitable traffic jam. Lucky for me that I was riding my motorcycle!

Best wishes to all of the people that I had the good fortune to meet today. I hope you all can make it back for the launch.