As the gravity-laden minutes passed, Columbia’s rescued seven tried to lift their leaden arms from their laps, tried to contract their quadriceps to straighten their knees. They even attempted the now seemingly impossible task of lifting their helmeted heads from the headrests. In doing so, they found that their heads moved inside their helmets, but the helmets themselves stayed fixed, as if fastened down by heavy steel chains.
Up on the flight deck, the “g-meter” on instrument panel F7 showed the true force of gravity the astronauts were experiencing. The needle currently registered only .73g, not even the normal oneg experienced on Earth. To Columbia’s seven, though, their weakness was real. Gravity had crept in all around them, smothering them, making the g-meter seem off by a factor of ten.
The great day had finally arrived: rescue mission landing day at the Kennedy Space Center. Never before had the center and the surrounding areas been this busy with spectators. Today’s numbers broke all previous records, including those for any of the Apollo missions and even the most recent attendance record set when Atlantis launched with the rescue crew. Formal observation areas were not just busy; they were congested, clogged, packed. It was a large-scale invasion.
For older spectators who remembered the Apollo program and the “glory days” at NASA, the success of the Columbia rescue mission gave them a chance to relive their special time in history. For younger viewers who had heard about the moon landing for as long as they could remember, this rescue mission represented an important event in their own history. It was their Apollo 11, their moon landing, their great day.
Some spectators were so avid, so entrenched, they had never left after the launch of Atlantis. They were camping out for the duration of the rescue mission, eating delivery pizza, waiting patiently for the landing and the return of their heroes.
Every major road and highway even remotely near the Kennedy Space Center was jammed with unmoving cars. The Brevard County sheriff, assisted by tow-truck crews, had managed to tow enough cars to allow emergency vehicle access through the otherwise blocked roads. Beyond that, the number of violators was so staggering, there were not enough resources to restore normal traffic flow. The good news was that no one had any desire to leave.
It was difficult to find a car that didn’t display some reference to the rescue mission. There were bumper stickers everywhere, magnetic STS-300 mission-patch logos that had been slapped on the sides of vehicles, and astronaut tributes painted on side and rear windows of SUVs and cars.
Nearly everyone walking around the well-known viewing areas wore a shuttle-related hat or shirt. Mission patches for STS-107 and STS-300 had been sewn to the fronts of kids’ denim jackets. Reporters and their camera crews roamed the crowds for interviews and found devoted fans wearing jackets or sweatshirts decorated with every Shuttle patch ever made—all 114 of them.
One man removed his shirt for the cameras, revealing his most recent tattoo. In the center of his back was a 1-foot-square replica of the STS-300 rescue mission patch.
“Okay, we’re out of the blackout period now. Atlantis has just made it through the communications blackout period,” Stangley said with obvious excitement. CNN’s coverage of the landing was now focused on Stangley and his comments. The producer had agreed to not break away to “on the ground” correspondents until after Atlantis had landed. It was what Stangley had always asked for but not yet received. His argument was that most networks talked far too much during their launch and landing coverage, often talking over the NASA announcer and the communications between Mission Control and crew. “There’s a certain exactness to what the announcer is saying,” Stangley had told the production team at their last meeting, “that compliments what the audience is watching on their TV screens. Anything the anchorperson says usually sounds watered down, dummied down, and is often more annoying than helpful,” he had pleaded.
“The blackout typically lasts for sixteen minutes,” Stangley continued now, “which is what we saw for Atlantis today. Always a long sixteen minutes for the engineers at Mission Control. On your screen now is a live shot from Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There is certainly a serious expression on the faces at Mission Control today. Now, if you turn your attention to the center-most monitor, the large screen at the front of the room, you can see Atlantis superimposed on a map of the western world. That is where Atlantis is in relation to the landing site here at the Kennedy Space Center.
“Everything is in place now. Just a few moments ago we showed you the president and first lady arriving via Marine-one. They landed on a specially prepared area at the shuttle landing facility. What a day it’s been, the tension and excitement building by the minute. We’ve seen fighter jets, helicopter gunships and SWAT teams. And now we’re just a few minutes away from the big moment as Atlantis prepares to touch down here at the Kennedy Space Center. Let’s listen in.”
MCC Commentator: Pilot Edward Rivas confirming for us that Atlantis is indeed through the communications blackout period. Rivas, reestablishing communications with Mission Control less than a minute ago.
Atlantis is now five-hundred fifty-three miles from the Kennedy Space Center, velocity just less than eighty-three hundred miles per hour. Twelve minutes thirty-seven seconds from touchdown.
Atlantis will be arriving from the northwest today. The weather officer confirming Atlantis is “Go” for runway three-three here at the Kennedy Space Center.
Before its final approach to the runway, Atlantis will cross over nearly perpendicular to the runway, then enter the heading alignment circle, which today will require a right hand turn out over the Atlantic before aligning with runway thirty-three.
Atlantis currently completing a series of “S-turns,” bleeding off excess speed—banking as much as eighty degrees at times. Coming up on terminal area energy management
