Godspeed, Atlantis

May 12, 2009 at 12:25 am · Filed under phantasmagoria and tagged: Atlantis, godspeed, moon, night launch, shuttle launch, STS-125, transcendence, waning gibbous

a night launch, which this one was not, though it was originally scheduled to be

“Godspeed, Atlantis” — a message assembled in black letters on the sign board of a church here in Titusville. we saw it last night, out in the cool, dark breezes. we went to the water’s edge, too, last night, and looked out at Atlantis on her launch pad, flooded with spot lights. those lights were like the Aurora Borealis, slowly shifting as eerily beautiful light-shapes, only, unlike auroras, were sharpened into a cone. the quiet luminescence, the quiet anticipation of the next day’s launch, were beautiful, and there were breezes. the breezes made flags flap persistently, and it rustled the leaves of a 40-foot palm. and then the waning gibbous moon rose before our eyes above the horizon, bright, huge, and deep red. we saw it moving across the sky.

today, though, today was the launch. it was profound. it was incredibly loud. the light of the rockets was blinding. we could still see Atlantis as a small bright careening dot when she was traveling at 2,500 MPH.

this is what i wrote in my notebook half an hour before the launch:

like its namesake city, the orbiter seems a dream, a vector of the nostalgia for infinity. is a shuttle launch politicially neutral? why are these people here? to celebrate the achievements of man, not of nations, to revel in the play of excessive discovery. no one in this crowd of thousands will riot. all will be silent and awed, or else unified in exuberance, at liftoff, and all will wish Atlantis godspeed, and a safe return home to our planet.

this turned out to be true.

Godspeed, Atlantis! safe travels through the universe, and come back home to us safely, and with new knowledge!

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