Page 42 of To the Moon and Back
On the morning of Columbia ’s return to Earth, I woke early.
We all did. The fire alarm went off for no reason, and we had to wait outside, freezing, for the fire department.
When we were allowed back in the house, I went immediately to the basement and switched on NASA TV.
I wished I could share this with Brett. I missed him, and only lately had started to regret not answering his letters all freshman year.
Now it was too late. Della was through with me, and my thesis adviser found me annoying.
I had no one to share the shuttle’s return with.
But I felt sure that somewhere Brett was watching it, too.
The station broadcast two hours of mission footage taken in space over the last fourteen days. I had seen much of it before. Then the countdown to reentry. Live coverage. Mission control.
Nothing happened. The camera had been placed on a tripod in the corner of the room, looking out at rows of screens and chairs and the backs of workers in collared shirts.
The workers were still. I held my own hands tight in my lap.
The landing had been scheduled for three seconds before. The runway was clear.
I moved to the floor and sat on my knees, just under the television. I waited.
Why hadn’t I asked someone to be with me? I’d seen flyers for a community watch party with free bagels, put on by the student union, and felt like a dummy for staying home. I changed the channel to the regular news, hoping someone might talk directly to the camera.
On the screen was a bright white ball with a long white tail, falling from the sky. It looked like a shooting star. A man in a windbreaker talked over the recording, pointing out small white dots as they fell. It was the shuttle, breaking apart.
No one would say it, but Columbia was lost. Seven astronauts were dead or dying. I closed my eyes and said a prayer, my first in many years. I prayed that they were dead. That they had died instantly. Their families waited for them in a van, parked beside the runway at the Kennedy Space Center.
The recording of the streak in the sky played on a loop, repeated every two minutes. Over the zoomed-in and slowed-down breaking apart, a voice repeated that we could not confirm what had happened. We could only hope.
The white van sped away. I let out a cry and covered my face. The density of grief held in one van of people—and where could they possibly be taken? Who was behind the wheel, responsible for the spouses and children, given the order to drive on?
There must be a room for this. Somewhere set aside, decided on months or years ago. It would be comfortable and quiet. There would be long hours of waiting together in that room. This was all part of the contingency plan.
I touched the television with my hand and switched it back to NASA TV.
I knew the protocol. No one could leave the control room until the flight data had been retrieved, stored, and analyzed.
There would be a black binder at each desk, with a checklist for everything that would follow.
The flight director would make the call.
On-screen, the flight director paced back and forth. In one hand, a binder. His other hand moved between his waist, his shoulders, his head, his face. He shifted his weight like a man who had trained his whole life not to cry in this moment.
The flight director said, “FCOH contingency plan procedure; FCOH checklist page two point eight dash five.”
Around the room, the sound of the turning of pages.
The flight director said, “Lock the doors.”
I watched. The neat, straight lines of screens and numbers and maps and flight paths.
Ordinary-looking people in ordinary-looking clothes, not a glance at the television camera stationed behind them.
Whispers and leaning over desks and fast-typing fingers and coughing and throat-clearing and sniffling.
Palms pressed soft against the eyes, only for a moment.
The gestures of not-crying so loud I felt a future aching in me, a new knowledge, something I would carry.