Most of the people watching were many miles away from the landing site, but with binoculars they could see Atlantis enter the heading alignment circle before final approach and landing. For the truly seasoned viewers, though, it would not be anything they would see straining through binoculars that would get them cheering. Instead, it would be the distinct twin sonic booms heard as an orbiter crossed over the Indian River. More than anything else, diehard space fans tuned into the orbiter’s signature sound that announced her arrival.
MCC Commentator: Atlantis just five minutes twenty-seven seconds away from touchdown. Air-speed is sixteen-hundred miles per hour. Winds out of the northeast at three miles per hour, altitude eighty-thousand feet. Less than sixty miles now from the Kennedy Space Center.
On the mid-deck of Atlantis, the seven astronauts of Columbia had all but given up their fight with gravity. They lay motionless, helpless really, in their rescue seats.
MCC Commentator: You’re looking at a view from the flight deck of Atlantis, a heads-up display camera view as Commander Dana Avery flies Atlantis into the heading alignment circle. Avery will be flying Atlantis around a two-hundred-ninety-degree right-hand turn.
A fraction of a second apart, twin sonic booms bounced across central Florida. She was home and right on time.
MCC Commentator: Atlantis now subsonic after crossing over the Indian River.
Currently John Stangley’s skin was alive with gooseflesh and his cheeks were streaming with tears of pride. When he tried to form words, his lips merely trembled. He likely wouldn’t be much use as a news anchor until well after Atlantis landed. Seeing this, CNN’s producer just stayed with the audio and video feed from NASA.
Only once before could Stangley remember feeling this way—like his central nervous system had been bumped off line. It was New Year’s Day 1969, in Pasadena, California. He remembered the screaming crowds, a strangely warm Santa Ana wind, and the blindingly white clouds in motion against a bright-blue January sky.
He was a seasoned trombone player in Ohio State’s marching band, and his team was only minutes away from defeating USC in the Rose Bowl.
He clearly pictured himself and his band mates, marching like disciplined soldiers across the 50-yard line. Precisely executing right and left turns, drums echoing in staccato, hats dipping and tilting together, trombone slides pointing to the sky in unison. The band was playing “Hang On Sloopy” at the Rose Bowl, and his Buckeyes were winning. Consumed by the moment, he could barely play his instrument, his lips trembling then, too.
“Atlantis, Houston. On at the one-eighty,” CapCom said.
“Roger, on at the one-eighty,” Commander Avery acknowledged.
MCC Commentator: Again we see the pilot’s point of view as Atlantis continues on around the heading alignment circle. Past the one-eighty mark now. Just a little more than a quarter turn remaining. Two minutes until touchdown. The crosshairs of the heads-up display about to converge on the entry point to the fifteen-thousand-foot concrete runway of the Kennedy Space Center.
CapCom cut in again. “Atlantis, Houston. On at the ninety.”
“Roger, on at the ninety,” Avery said.
Atlantis floated through its final bank in the pale blue sky, then leveled out, nose down low in an 18-degree glide slope.
MCC Commentator: Atlantis continuing to glide in without power now. Winds steady out of the northeast at three knots. Nose now flaring up. Pilot Edward Rivas deploying the landing gear.
The downrange runway camera captured Atlantis in a post-flare pose, showing off her satin-finish underbelly. Instantly, the plane of her belly broke as the nose gear and the left and right main landing gear doors sprang open. Hydraulic actuators moved all three landing gear into position.
MCC Commentator: Instrument talk-backs aboard Atlantis confirm landing gear is down and locked. Airspeed just over two-hundred miles per hour now. We have main gear touchdown.
White spirals of smoke burst from the Michelins upon contact.
MCC Commentator: Rivas deploying the drag chute. Nose rotating to the deck. Nose gear touchdown. Atlantis rolling out on runway three-three at the Kennedy Space Center, bringing home Columbia’s marooned seven-person crew. Stranded for thirty days in space—the crew has been successfully rescued by Columbia’s sister ship Atlantis, all eleven astronauts now safely back on Earth.
On televisions throughout the world, Atlantis could be seen rolling along the runway centerline; her remaining journey now could be measured in feet. When Atlantis finally came to rest, NASA’s announcer waited for Commander Avery’s final words—the words that would signal the end of the rescue mission.
“Houston, Atlantis. Wheel stop.”
Chapter 79
Johnson Space Center, Houston
Mission Control
BROWN TURNED AND LOOKED UP at the monitors while leaning back against the flight director’s console. His eyes scanned the familiar room, stopping first at the American flag and then at the illuminated royal-blue letters at the front of the room that read: “Mission Control Center.”
He was aware of the fact that he had split from all the conversations in the room. He suddenly felt alone and out of place. A sickening pang of sadness shuddered through him as he realized he had worked his final day at NASA, that NASA would go on without him, without his worrying. That the agency would go on to do great things. He hoped he had left his mark.
The images on the monitors at Mission Control had long gone stale, essentially unchanged over the past hour. Ground crews and their vehicles occasionally moved in and out of the video frame, but mostly it was the same shot of Atlantis stopped on the tarmac at the Kennedy Space Center.
Brown had given more high-fives that morning than he had given in his whole lifetime, but today’s high-fives were given as a send-off, and were not meant to be congratulatory. He was merely passing the baton.
The parties and all-night celebrations, the
