“And how’s that?” she asked sarcastically in her high, nasally, nerdy voice. It sure did irritate me.
She was quite pretty with her dark brown, kinky hair, green eyes, long lashes, and a body Barbie would kill for. Just by looking at her she appeared to be all the bombshell chicks guys like me always dreamed about through high school. But then she speaks, and if there was ever a voice that could turn a beautiful girl into a hideous troll only after one syllable, then hers is the voice. I couldn’t do anything but cringe in my jump suit as the countdown started to echo through the cockpit.
“T-minus five minutes and counting.”
“Hey, sweets. Can I get your number? Maybe we can get together after I get back, or better yet, I’ll just call and listen to your sexy voice over the phone.”
God, I’m so bad! But I honestly couldn’t help it. She had just tied me into the seat with such forcefulness and her dislike for me was so obvious that I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to rank on her voice.
I was already getting pretty tired of being strapped to the seat and I was more than ready to get this trip underway. I guess my anticipation and utter antsiness was mostly due to the fact that I had never done anything like this before in my life. My dream was less than five minutes away and I was as frightened as a schoolboy kissing a girl for the first time.
The shuttle began to shake and moan beneath me and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d survive the trip. My teeth rattled in my skull and my eyes were shaking like scrambled eggs.
“T-minus four minutes and counting.”
Wait a minute. What happened to five minutes? Where’d that minute go? I think I really need to go to the bathroom.
“Hey, Walt.” Walt is the pilot.
“Yo,” he said, flipping unlabeled switches and levers. I sure hope he was doing them in the right order.
“What if I got to go to the bathroom?” I sounded like one of my children in the back seat of my car. Oh, well. Four minutes was sure sounding like forever.
“T-minus three minutes and counting.”
Make that three minutes sounds like forever.
“Lower your helmet please, Jasper. It’s almost time.”
Like Walt had to remind me, a computer voice kept reminding me every minute.
“T-minus two minutes and counting.” See! There it is again.
I lifted my hand and lowered the helmet shield over my eyes. As soon as it locked shut a puff of oxygen rushed through my suit and like always I got light headed and giddy. This was the part I liked most.
“T-minus one minute and counting.”
The shuttle shook more and more with every second that passed and I was beginning to be afraid that the fillings in my teeth were beginning to loosen and would fall out any second and choke me before we were air borne. The noise was so loud and deafening that I could no longer hear the sound of the computer counting down the seconds before my death.
I watched Walt and Margaret’s (the copilot) hands dance across the console. There was a huge red button right in the middle that was the emergency shut down button. If anything happened or was suspect during the countdown or before liftoff, the emergency shutoff button would stop all systems and the launch would stop.
Of course, having the twisted mind that I do, I labeled this one special button, the emergency, self-destruct button. Some imagination, huh? I’m sitting here with a million gallons of highly explosive solid rocket fuel strapped to my ass and I’m cracking jokes to myself with a self-destructive punch line.
Riding those first minutes in a space shuttle was like riding the world’s fastest roller coaster on steroids. My body jerked and rattled in its seat, and I felt like my chair was about to vibrate loose from the floor.
It was scary, but it was the ultimate rush of a lifetime, it was the moment I had dreamed about since childhood, and it was finally here.
I was riding in an actual space shuttle.
I threw up in my helmet.
It wasn’t the most graceful thing I could have done on a space mission, but the simulators at NASA couldn’t touch the actual event of a shuttle launch. I think back now of the whole training bit and I wonder if its not just an initiation thing. I’m a rookie at space flight and had a sinking feeling that throwing up was a part of the initiation. It was entirely too loud in the cockpit, but I was pretty sure that Walt and Margaret were laughing their asses off at me.
Let them laugh. I was having the ride of my life (the smell was terrible) and I was completely enjoying the ride.
The shuttle bucked beneath us and I knew that the boosters had just been jettisoned and I found myself pushed violently back into my seat. The g-force was so great that I couldn’t even shift my eyes from the left to the right. The shuttle shook more than two rabbits getting it on.
Then, just as suddenly as it came, the shaking was gone and the entire shuttle was quiet and still. The windows were pitch black with bright pinpoints of light covering every square inch of the glass. It’s surprising how much brighter and sparkling the stars are when you’re not looking at them through the earth’s atmosphere.
I was very impressed.
The ride was over, well, the fun part of it anyway and I was more than ready to get out of this chair. I hit the safety harness release and floated off the chair.
For some reason, as I removed my helmet, I was realized that I was hungry for something to eat. The fun was over for the time being and now it’s time for work. I can’t wait to do this again sometime, but hey, I do have re-entry to look forward to in just a few days.
This is Jasper Williams signing off (I’ve got to go clean my helmet). I hope you enjoyed the ride…
