8 The Tar Heel Thursday. August 5, 1971
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Thursday. August 5, 1971
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(Editor's note: The articles on
this page were written by Ray and
Ann Sweeney in a special
assignment for The Tar Heel. Ray
Sweeney is a doctoral candidate in
history here at UNC and his wife is
an administrative assistant to the
director of N.C Memorial Hospital.
Using press passes obtained by
The Tar Heel, the Sweeneys
magnified a personal vacation into a
journalistic triumph for The Tar
Heel-on-the-spot coverage of the
blastoff of Apollo 15.)
CAPE KENNEDY, Fla., July 26,
1971 -We arrived on Merritt Island
Sunday afternoon, July 25, after a
hot, interminable ,drive across the
Florida peninsula in a cantakerous
Volkswagen.
. With a group of other reporters
and supposed reporters, we are
staying at the home of a technical
writer at the Cape. Joe Green
generously opens his house to a
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This is a relief map of the Apollo 1 5 landing site. Taking part in what is considered
to be the most difficult mission yet, the astronauts have left the moon and are
scheduled to splash down in the Atlantic on Saturday.
Stories by Ray and
group of ten or twelve friends and
friends of friends for every launch.
This time, the first visit for us, we
get our word in late and must camp
out in a tent on the Green's green.
Food, drink, air conditioning and
bathroom facilities are open and
free to the visiting horde. The
crowd at this house is composed
mostly of professional, amateur,
and would-be science fiction
writers, so the ego concentration in
the atmosphere approaches the
saturation point. The Greens are
superhosts for inviting, feeding,
tolerating and even entertaining this
crowd. .
Immediately upon arriving, we
learned that we must leave the
Greens' home for the Press Center
to get our credentials and take a
tour. We found the Press Center in
a downtown Merritt Island motel
after a drive through a community
conspicuous for its use of plastic,
wmmmmmmmMlm
Ann Sweeny
tinsel and neon as construction
materials. The presence of NASA
was everywhere glaringly obvious:
streets, hotels, used car lots and
topless bars bore the names of
ancient myths reborn-Apollo,
Mercury, Gemini and Saturn. At the
Press Center we obtained our
credentials, colorful badges with
our names and The Daily Tar Heel
on them, and dashed out to make
the 1 :45 tour.
v On the bus we formed our first
impressions of Kennedy Space
Center (KSC), a montage of images
confused by travel fatigue, heat and
tropical sun-glare. Flat, flat land
always near sea level surrounded us,
and our view of the horizon was
obscured only when the palm
jungles approached the road. We
felt exposed under the open
expanse of sky, excited by the
sheer, open, almost weighty blue
and white dome. -
T-03:30. We arrive at the Press Site Monday morning at tee-minus-three-thirty.
Behind us are twelve hours of heated, sweaty, front-yard camping and a delightful
gourmet spread at the Greens' home.
Gritty behind the eyeballs and nearly exhausted with excitement, we had bounced
through the pre-dawn darkness in a crowded NASA bus from the Press Center. From
miles away all our eyes had been focused on the great white bird, spotlit on the near
horizon. ,
The lights crisscrossed in the mist at the top of Apollo 15, giving the ship a Statue
of Liberty crown of white beams. Again in our hearts we knew that this fixed,
immovable structure could not conceivably go skyward. '
There have been other Apollo launches, and we have seen most of them on
television but this one is somehow ours. We are here at the specified place and time,
but we just cannot grasp emotionally that what we came to see will actually take
place.
This one is our Apollo: it must succeed, it must fly, but that great white Thing-that
massive Thing cannot possibly move. Only audacity bordering on sacrilege could make
one believe that that Thing could move.
The Press Site is a security-guarded area dominated by a large bleachers-type
structure. There are chairs and long, bench-desks for the reporters, with telephone
facilities for the gilt-edged representatives of the fourth estate. The seats face the East,
toward Apollo 15 and the sunrise. A large, angled slab of a roof will provide shade, but
only after the sun is several hours high.
T-03:05. The public address system announces and the television monitors show the
astronauts leaving for their space ship.
The air is clear now and we witness a once-in-a-lifetime sunrise. The rocket stands
glistening three-and-a-half miles away, across a reflecting mirror of calm water. Behind
it the sun knifes through the dark sky with sharp, distinct shafts of vari-colored light.
All anyone can do is point and say "Look! Look at that!"
As the heat of the day sets in, we notice to our left the VIP Site. The VIP's came to
the launch in air conditioned buses, but someone neglected to provide their bleachers
with shade. We will simme., but they will broil. Could the arrangements be a
commentary on NASA's public relations priorities?
We begin this journaltravelogue as we sit in the press stands, counting the minutes
and trying the ignore the increasing heat. As we attempt to record something of both
the scene around us and our own reactions, we are all too aware that our account will
be far from original. All our words will be repetitions of those scribbled by journalists
who covered the earlier missions, and we know that we cannot escape unintentional
plagiarism.
Our emotions and our observations are not-so-instant replays of those experienced
by thousands in the past two years. But this time we are here; this time the Apollo is
directly before us, not an image on a screen; this time we arc somehow more than
spectators.
Now the waiting time is upon us, the time to try to sort out the memories, the
scrambled impressions of the past hours." Articulation fights a hopeless battle against
the sweat and chatter around us.
T-02-.22. The sun is about ten degrees above the horizon, just about eye level when
we look at Apollo 15. The roof of the Press Site is gathering condensation, and it
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the press beneath."
Man-made structures of any
height at all were visible for miles,
and the tallest ones were inevitably
associated with KSC. Most of them,
were derrick-like gantries and
service towers, the erector-set
monoliths of this twentieth century
Easter Island. The true monolith,
though, was the Vehicle Assembly
Building (VAB), a 525-foot-high
white-and-black block behemouth
in which the A polios are put
together.
Our visit to this truly
overwhelming monster was the high
point of the tour. Outside it was
the great slab of "2001: A Space
Odyssey." Inside it was one giant
nursery for the moon ships. We
were microscopic Davids on the
floor of a room built for Goliaths:
the floor was littered with
spare-part alloy toys, while the
ceiling and walls loomed at
distances one normally experiences
only outdoors, at the largest
nil
to
football stadiums. One, single,
huge, huge room!
Before and after the visit to the
VAB, we toured a seemingly
endless series of missile pads, most
of which are being disassembled.
The towers and gantries are to be
torn down and sold for scrap as
NASA adjusts to the economy
moves of Congress.
Always around us was the
floor-flat land, always above us the
empty sky. The tone of our guide's
monologue alternated between
pride in what the United States had
achieved in space and nostalgit
sadness at our decreasing efforts. As
lifelong space enthusiasts, we rode
sympathetically with his feelings.
The bus stopped briefly for
picture-taking less than a mile from
Pad 39, the launch site of Apollo
15. The great white bullet was
being prepared for firing, and we
were overawed once more. Our
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NASA has been treating us members of the "working press" very well. Tours by bus
were free, and on every hand we receive, gratis, all sorts of NASA and Department of
Defense literature and press releases. These publications, comprising "The Selling of
the Space Program" for some future author, tell us more about the mission than
anyone could possibly want to know. After the launch we will get more free goodies,
including coffee and donuts, back at the Press Center.
The KSC people, or perhaps it is the government itself, seem addicted to the
formation of acronyms. Besides the more common ones like NASA and KSC, there are
the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building), the S-IVB (Saturn-IVB rocket stage), ALSEP
(Apollo lunar surface experiments package), PLSS (portable life support system), MSC
(Manned Spacecraft Center), the LRV (lunar roving vehicle), and hundreds of others.
Several of the publications we have received include back-page guides to this alphabet
soup.
The Press Site's bleachers are now nearly filled. Most of our seat mates are foreign
correspondents and domestic reporters of small town publications. The big boys of the
broadcast networks are ensconced in a semicircle of air conditioned trailers to the left
of the Press Site.
Some of the broadcast units have even engaged breakfast trucks, complete with
jacketed waiters and chafing dishes. This is conspicuous consumption witli a
vengeance! The coat and tie costume are symbols of monetary status: only those with
air conditioning can afford to be formal.
The biggest, most permanent press building is a clapboard, black and white cube
occupied by the minions of CBS. Walter and Wally are presumably behind the tinted
glass front. We miss their television accounts of the launch, but not enough to go home
to catch their show.
The secondary press in the stands is made up of a wildly varied assortment of
perspiring humanity. Dress varies from casual-we are in shorts and floppy white
hats-to hot-weather formal. Most of us are male WASPs. while perhaps one-third are
females of the same genre. A scattering of African correspondents gives us the illusion
of being integrated, for only a very few black Americans are in evidence. Probably half
of us are under thirty, the rest are trying hard to look under thirty.
Our best guess is that the combined weight of the privately owned photographic and
electronic equipment present is greater than the combined weight of the equipments"
presumed masters. Long lenses abound; glass optical guns worth fortunes are aimed at
the silver cartridge of Apollo 15.
Radios, tape recorders, videotape equipment, still and moving picture cameras, and
typewriters-all are so much in evidence that the human beings who flit to and fro to
service them seem to be fleas dividing their attentions between a wealth of electronic
and mechanical dogs.
NASA has provided television monitors visible from the bleachers, and the public
address system is intermittently interrupting our literary efforts. At times the
announcements are from Launch Control regarding the count-down status, but more
often Ihey are pained requests thai the stupid s.o.b. who parked his Buick in the tire
lane move it.
T-OI
:20. The press presents some aspects of a Boy Scout Jamboree. Patches of
s launches adorn the windbroakers and camera bags ol the old hands. We
previou
entire stay at the Cape was to be
characterized by the same
manic-depressive emotions we
experienced on the first tour: brief
periods of intense elation and awe
at what man has wrought alternate
with long hours of dull, visceral
reactions to the heat, glare, and
enforced inactivity.
Perhaps the rhythm is a good
one: the lax hours give our
subconsciouses opportunities to try
to sort out our periodically
overloaded senses. The VAB, the
six million pound Transporters, and
Apollo itself all seemed too
impossibly huge and complex for
mere men to have fashioned.
In the backs of our minds we
anticipated the even more
incredible event we came to
witness; we tried in vain to picture
that great white needle actually
moving upwards. It could not
happen; such things just do not
happen.
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Astronauts Scott, Worden and Irwin
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witness the reunion of friends who apparently meet only at the Cape at launch times.
One dowager wears a red-wliite-and-blue creation -a hat?-which boasts a styrofoam
replica of the Apollo 15 emblem.
Everyone wants to know where they can pick up a decal kit put "out by RCA or a
plastic sun visor from North American Rockwell. It's a tight market for souvenirs, and
we imagine impassioned patch-swapping parties back at the Press Center. "I'll give you
two Apollo 12 and three Apollo 13 patches for one Apollo 11..."
This is our first trip here (no emblems on our shoulders) and even we are filled with
almost-nostalgia for the declining space program. We have been space boosters for
years. Now the dream-come-true is already beginning to fade: many of the old launch
facilities are being scrapped.
Hotels, once filled with VIPs. press, and technical people from the contractors, now
stand vacant. The same goes for the buildings of Merritt Island: many are being taken
over by a right-wing religious "patriot" and his followers.
The hermit crab of NASA is shifting homes here, but to smaller and smaller shells.
We hear that real estate and home values are dropping as the space establishment .
contracts. All good space nuts, ourselves included, can only feel saddened by the
increasing modesty of the program. To us. sixteenth century Spain is abandoning its
New World exploration after six brief voyages.
T-00:35. Just three-and-a-half miles away stands the shining triumph of twentieth
century daring and technology. But in the stands, the sweaty members of the press are
concerned almost solely with how fast the shade is moving down their tiered ranks.
Only two hours or so after sunrise and most of us are broiled, roasted, burned. The
VIPs must be over-done, with no shade at all. Relief from the heat is much more
crucial at this point than the steaming spaceship on the near horizon. Even the
expensive, tripod-mounting cameras are shrouded in white towels, their owners
apparently concerned with radiation sickness.
T-00:04. No worry now about the sun. shade, or heat. The press is becoming quiet,
attention and cameras focused on Apollo 15. Three men are going to the moon, and
we have little thought for anything else.
T-OO:00-T0O:08. The launch. There are no words for it. no possible words. Those
who find their voices keep repeating nonsense phrases over and over: "Omigod.
omigod. omigod!" or "Go. dammit, go. dammit, go. dammit!"
The sound breaks in clear, discernible waves over the stands: we feel our bodies
pressed-and-released. press-and-released by giant hands. The bleachers quake beneath
us. The colossus is on fire with a blast-flame far brighter than can ever be recorded on
television or film.
So loud, so bright, and then so fast! Nervous hands fumble with cameras. There is
time for five or six fast shots, and then Apollo 15 is gone, gone gone: in eight minutes
she is a thousand miles away .
The public address system is deafening with announcements and ship-to-ground
communications. Too much, just too much for the human senses to gather it all in.
Our impressions are too intense . too crowded and crammed. Excitement, adrenalin
and heartbeat . both distract and concentrate the overloaded eyes, ears and mind.
But the great white Thing did go up. The pad is vacant now; a white contrail spirals
upward in the silence. We are numb.
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