Launch day!

STS-106 got off the ground safely this morning around 8:45 am, Eastern Daylight Time. I and several hundred other people - maybe as many as a thousand - witnessed the event from the Banana River viewing site at the Kennedy Space Center. I've seen, as most of us have, a number of Shuttle liftoffs on TV, but that footage cannot begin to compare to the real thing.

But I am getting well ahead of myself.

How I got up at 3:30 am this morning is one of life's little mysteries. That's the way it turned out, however, and I'm not kicking about it. After a quick shower and breakfast, I went out to the hotel parking lot to wait for our Russian delegation to assemble and board the NASA-provided bus. There were some other people up and about as well. They, too, were going to view the launch.

The bus arrived, everyone boarded, and we were taken to the KSC visitor's center. Upon arrival, our bus took its place at the end of a seemingly endless row of other such vehicles. As we disembarked, we were told not to forget our bus number, which happened to be 571.

The crowd filed into the center's IMAX theater, where we spent half and hour sitting quietly as the rest of the seats filled up with other guests, including a number of Very Important People (the head of the French Space Agency, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, a couple of Assistant- and Under-level Cabinet Secretaries, the Secretary of the Navy, some folks from the Coast Guard, including the Chief of Staff, some fellow from the Office of Management and Budget, the Florida Lieutenant Governor, the Florida Governor's wife ... you get the idea). Among others of those present singled out for mention were members of a women's organization that is actively promoting interest in math and science among girls.

After a few words from the Director of KSC and NASA Director Goldin, veteran astronaut Janice Voss narrated a brief slide show that introduced the crew, showed them at various training activities, and summarized the purpose of this particular flight, which is to get the Station ready for the first station crew, which is set to launch aboard a Soyuz from Kazakhstan at the end of October.

After the briefing, everyone filed out back to the bus for the trip to the Banana River viewing site. We arrived about one hour prior to liftoff. There is a museum on the premises and I went in for a look-see. The place was filled with people darting everywhere. The two biggest crowds were at the souvenir stand and the cafeteria. Prices were of ballpark caliber ($2 for a 20-oz bottle of soda).

Another knot of people lined up at a couple of tables where you could buy envelopes imprinted with the STS-106 mission patch - stamp collectors call such an imprint a "cachet" - along with a 33-cent stamp for postage. The idea is to send the stamped envelope via U.S. Mail, and when the recipient gets it, the Postal Service will have cancelled the stamp with a special postmark commemorating the launch of STS-106.

Back out at the reviewing stand, I tracked down our group and waited for things to develop. The spectre of locally bad weather had hovered over the launch for days. During the MMT a couple of days ago, the meteorologists assessed the chance of a launch today at 40%. Between then and this morning, the chances had improved to 60%. Shortly after arriving at the Banana River site, I heard a "wahoo-oo" rise from the crowd and found out it was in response to an announcement that the weather people have given their "Go!" for the launch.

We finally get down to the last few seconds before liftoff. Seven ... six ... five ... the PAO commentator confirms a "Go for main engine start," and about five seconds later, we see a spurt of gray smoke off to one side of the pad, which evokes a cry of enthusiasm from the crowd. A few seconds later, PAO announces "We have booster ignition," which is confirmed by a dot of flame that becomes visible to our eyeballs. There is another, louder cry from the crowd. Two seconds later, there is applause, which slowly fades away.

Out there, in front of my eyeballs, Shuttle Atlantis is rising atop a gout of flame maybe twice as long as the vehicle itself. It's hard to judge just how fast the Shuttle is going because of the distances involved. Goldin had noted during the morning's briefing at the IMAX theater that, by the time the Shuttle stack clears the launch tower, the people inside were traveling at better than 100 miles per hour. As the Shuttle continues to rise, a small part of me notices that I am trying - perhaps too hard - to take it all in.

The flame beneath the Shuttle is orange, but so intensely bright that I find it's like looking at the sun. For a second or two after the applause dies down, there is a surreal and nearly total silence.

Then the laws of physics assert themselves and the sound of the main engines finishes its 3.2-mile journey from the pad to our ears. Now there is a "sound track" to go with the "video." A few seconds later, the solid rocket boosters lend their voices to the mix. The noise physically assaults me, shaking me, and I stop trying to focus on anything in particular and simply let my senses go on automatic. I note that the roar is not continuous, as that of an airplane's jet engine, but has something of a crackly sound to it.

Shortly after the one minute mark, PAO's voice confirms "Go at throttle-up," which means that the Shuttle has passed the point of maximum dynamic loading and that the main engines will be ramped up to 104% of rated power for the rest of the ride into space. The crowd emits another roar.

For a moment, I feel my chest seize and my breathing stops. It was at about this point that Challenger and every soul aboard her bought the farm in January 1986. Perhaps I would not have remembered Challenger so vividly had Goldin not told us the odds for loss of life this morning (one in several hundred for a Shuttle launch, one in about 20,000 for an infantryman in a combat zone, one in about 2,000,000 for an airplane passenger).

Soon, the Shuttle is a dot of flame atop a graceful column of backlit smoke, and I feel as if I am returning to normal. At two minutes into the flight, just as the solid boosters are to separate, the dot disappears from sight behind a high cloud.

We all spend the next few minutes milling around, finding our buses. Once loaded we leave, joining a huge traffic jam. We finally arrive back at the hotel at a few minutes after 10 am.

I am still jazzed.

Cheers...