From left: Jeanne Walmsley, Tracie Herron, Roger and JoAnne Miller and Karen and Bob Ramsay had a memorable trip.
“Have you ever been to an actual manned spacecraft launch?” Several of us were asking ourselves that question, when Tracie Herron announced that she never had either, but … ta da! Boeing, her employer, had offered a lottery to its employees, and she was a winner of a parking pass for a car, with as many passengers as could be individually and legitimately seat-buckled inside. Parking would be on the NASA area campus. Unfortunately, Mark, her husband, couldn’t go. Were we interested? Delirium practically set in. Uh, sorry about Mark, but just give us five minutes to throw our binoculars in a bag!
Weeks later, on April 1, 2026, four of us set off. JoAnne and Roger Miller offered their roomy Sienna. JoAnne was behind the wheel, and Tracie, with her important papers, was in the navigator’s position. Roger, who from the back seat was guiding JoAnne out of The Landings rear gate, informed us that she was an excellent driver but with absolutely no sense of direction. Oh oh! How about a quick plug into Google? I was also in the back, but kind of safely in charge of the candies. We managed to cross the state and arrive in the Titusville Cape area to find the first important stop: at the Boeing building to collect the treasured pass and parking placard. Cones were blocking the driveway; no problem, Tracie got out and set them aside. She was our Mother Duckling, and we trotted right behind her into that imposing, shiny blue building. They even had immaculate restrooms.
Tracie got the important goods, and we dutifully followed her back out to our car, replaced the cones and drove to the next stop: Fishlips Restaurant. Compass Rose’s own prized bar manager, Amelia Dunn-Thedy, hails from Cape Canaveral. She knows all things Cape, including a lifetime of hearing and seeing rocket launches. Just ask her, which we did, but our subject was an important one: dining. She did not fail. How much better to see the liftoff when we weren’t being conflicted by the visualization of a good burger while trying to look up?
Next, we checked into our hotel, and picked up our additional travel companions: Bob and Karen Ramsay. Now we were off on the final leg to Tracie’s awarded site. It was 2:15, and we had just over 17 miles to go, with the countdown of a 6:34 p.m. liftoff still on. All was well.
Until it wasn’t. No one prepared us for a sudden slowdown. Nor for the fact that we had no means of escape except to hang out in that woodsy countryside with every other vehicle before, behind, and beside us. Who turned all those cars loose? Are they all going to this same famous space party? Can anyone see what’s ahead? So, there we sat, and sat, and sat. Poor driver JoAnne, with her foot on and off the brake pedal. Tracie, checking and rechecking her information. Roger offering kind observances, while I became the candy doler. Our conversation just sort of faded into meditative silence. The clouds arrived, thickened, and darkened. Not the rains. Oh no! Would that cancel the flight? Karen offered to say a prayer to St. Jude, whom, she said, never failed her. I, not having such a good success record, worried that maybe calling out such a Top Gun for this occasion might be risky. So more of that silence. More waiting.
Suddenly a big bird flapped in front of our car and landed on a dead limb of a nearby pine tree. Tracie got out of the car into the rain and snapped a shot of it. It was a bald eagle! Well maybe that was an omen. And we like to think it and St. Jude (not in that order) pitched in, because we eventually turned a corner and could see cars in front at a sort of checkpoint. We had crept along for 210 minutes. Along with our sense of success, though, was a new issue. We saw a Hyatt Hotel off on the right, but employees said their restrooms were saved for Lockheed Martin employees. Not good. And we did not dare lose our place in this interminable mess. The lines of importance were becoming a little blurred – getting to our precious parking spot, or relief for vintage bladders. This is where good old hopefulness kicks in. Plus, the clouds and rain gave way unbelievably to blue skies and the sun. Karen has some divine connections.
In front of us we spotted a bright orange gatehouse with two guards. Tracie leaned over and flashed her badge. I think she’d have gotten through Checkpoint Charlie with that. This charming agile, ponytailed Dancing Queen is working for Boeing on a contract to NASA and the Artemis program! They didn’t waste a second in waving us on. JoAnne driving safely and within the speed limit until this point, hit the gas and we drove on until we saw this huge building sporting gigantic NASA letters, situated in a wide-open parking area and field. And bless them, long rows of port-o-lets. We were glad to get our legs back and move them in that direction. Then a NASA person, seeing our handicapped placard, directed us to an empty asphalted viewing spot. We were almost alone, after that sea of traffic en route.
It was nearing 6:15. Now what? We set up chairs and water bottles as if we were attending a tailgate party. Took out the binoculars. Our new NASA best friend said if we looked across the lot, over that line of trees and especially over the round domed one, we could see it. Would there be booms? Roars? I was even imagining trumpets announcing from those upper windows of that tall lone building in all this empty space. Kind of like Artemis would be when it stretched upward. The clusters of people we did see were as anxious as we were. It could have been Christmas Eve waiting for the first spotting of that magical sleigh. That palpable anxious excitement.
And then … there it was! Just over that round domed tree, heading to space. It was this absolutely brilliant, almost glittering white flaming oversized pencil, followed by billowing beige plumes, rising up soundlessly up over the trees. Straight up it pushed. Then we heard popping, rumblings sounds as if a dozen motorcycles were revving their engines behind us. At last, the sound of the blasting rocket reached our ears. We were mesmerized. I was torn between the binoculars and my iPhone videoing. (Why hadn’t I gotten the upgraded version last year?). We all stood staring upward at that once again silent blue sky, thinking that it wasn’t only a giant moving cannister, but one with four people inside. What were they thinking? How were they sitting? How were their stomachs? Were they afraid? I was all over the place in my thinking, and, looking at the rapt expressions on the faces of my companions, we all were. Still, we were frozen in place. Until … the sound of applause. Only lasting minutes, but memories for a lifetime.
Fortunately, we only had a 45-minute drive to the hotel. To us, we had witnessed a remarkable feat of man. Well, we did have to accompany that moment with a little sip of something perky. Roger spotted a firepit out by the pool, and it worked. We pulled up chairs and sat down reflecting. I had just met a lady in the elevator, toting her big suitcase off to her room. She said she had only been able to catch the launch from her car because she had been still stuck in that traffic. I felt guilty and sad for her. (And kind of thinking she should have had Karen in her car.)
A full moon was rising over the hotel roof. It slightly dimmed the star-studded sky but not enough to keep us from looking upward for our speeding heroes in their little capsule flinging toward the moon. They made it so far on their trek, and thankfully, so did we.
And our beloved benefactor and Mother Duck, gave us some wonderful end credits of this Artemis II flight:
The major contractors were:
• Boeing – Core storage, the section that houses the liquid oxygen and hydrogen tanks and engine section
• Lockheed Martin – Orion spacecraft (and handy employee-only restrooms)
• United Launch Alliance and Boeing – Interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS)
• Aerojet Rocketdyne – RS-25 engines
• Northrop Grumman – solid rocket boosters
• Teledyne Brown – launch vehicle stage adaptor
These teams will handle the Artemis III flight also, which is already well on its way to being completed. Boeing shipped the top 80 percent of the core stage for Artemis III to Kennedy Space Center from Michaud, LA on April 20 for final assembly. Applause! Applause!
We learned that this group, like so many people at The Landings, are bright lanterns that subtly cast a friendly little glow around our pathway, until we lift their lids and their light brightens everywhere. We need to lift more lids and appreciate how far each one’s reach really is.
I also need to call on Karen to attract good divine intervention. Or the bald eagle.
And if Greyhound or Coach USA bus lines want to hire JoAnne Miller as a driver, I’d be first in line to write her a letter of recommendation.
