Another shuttle shoots into space. No big deal. Happens all the time.
Well, not for long. The launch scheduled for early Monday morning marks NASA’s final four. After Discovery lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., just three shuttle missions remain.
And it’s a really big deal if you are the mother of astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, her former teacher (there are lots of them in Loveland and Fort Collins) or even (in my case) a neighbor.
When astro-mom Joyce Metcalf called to arrange her own shuttle-bus ride from her home in Fort Collins to the airport Thursday, she had to assure the reservation agent that it was not an April Fool’s prank. “I finally had to say, ‘It’s very important that I get to Florida — my daughter is flying on the space shuttle.’ ” (Which sounds even more like a prank.)
Fretting over the shuttle ride is just one way Metcalf is dealing with the anticipation of watching her oldest daughter’s dream take flight. When she gets too stressed out, she tells herself “a lot of work has been done in preparation, and I appreciate that. I just have to let it go and relax. This will be one of those flights that goes smoothly.”
“Our faith is very strong. God’s in control, and she’s in his hands,” said Metcalf from her Fort Collins home before she left for Florida, where she will join 200 of her daughter’s friends, relatives and former teachers for the launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
It’s hard to separate memory from the movies when it comes to space imagery. Remember watching the Apollo missions? I have a clear image of a boxy TV rolling into our fifth-grade classroom on a tall audio-video cart so we could watch Apollo 17, the last manned moon mission. Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt left the lunar module Challenger and cruised around the rocky landscape in the lunar rover, the last people to touch its surface.
Challenger raises yet another image. Prior to 9/11, it was the “I remember where I was when . . . ” event of our generation.
“I can’t lie, there’s a little bit of apprehension there,” said Keith Metcalf, who taught rocket science when his daughters were young. He has spent the past couple of weeks babysitting Metcalf-Lindenburger’s daughter while her dad teaches and her mom “rests up” for the flight. Actually, the astronauts have been in quarantine, shifting their sleeping hours and shielding themselves from germs.
Along with photos, T-shirts and a peace pole from local schools, Metcalf-Lindenburger has packed one item that’s got to be a first, both for NASA and for Fort Collins High School. She requested a small version of the school’s Lambkin mascot, Clyde, so staffers outfitted a stuffed lamb in a gold spacesuit for the first Lambkin in space.
“Everyone here likes to make fun of them,” said Metcalf-Lindenburger.
“I wanted to honor all the teachers that I’ve had and say thanks to all my schools,” the astronaut said when I talked to her on the phone in November. She also acknowledged that with 32 shuttle flights, “people kind of take it for granted.”
But the marvel of space travel becomes new again when one of the astronauts is a hometown girl.
Retired Fort Collins science teacher Jack Lundt has spent the past 20 years coaching Science Olympiad and cross-country teams (including the ones Metcalf-Lindenburger was on in the early ’90s), but he’s never been to Florida. He’s a little giddy.
“It’s way cool!” he said of the prospect of seeing his former chemistry student and state track champion again this weekend.
Even current students, who can be blase about shuttle launches, feel it.
“You can get kids as excited as you want to,” Lundt said. “There’s just as many nerds around now as there were 20 years ago. If you make a niche for them, they will show up. It’s like the ‘Field of Dreams.’ I always remind them, someday the nerds will run things.”
Or fly on the space shuttle.
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com
