Sunday, February 2, 2003
Again, space center a home to sorrow
By SANDRA FREDERICK
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Yitzak Benhorin waited for the twin sonic booms to split the atmosphere Saturday morning, but they never came.
The Israeli journalist with Maariv, a daily newspaper in Tel Aviv, said as the clock at the landing facility ticked down to zero, a hush fell over the small crowd of media assembled for the scheduled 9:17 a.m. landing of Columbia.
“The clock showed it was time for the shuttle to land. I got that feeling it wasn´t coming,” he said in a thick accent as he waited in the Press Center on Saturday afternoon for information to be released by NASA. “I looked to the sky and saw nothing. They didn´t announce anything but instead told us to get back on the bus to go back to the Press Center.”
He said he has no doubt his newspaper will be filled today with stories about the accident. After all, it is the first time in history an Israeli traveled to space.
“It was a big story before he left. Now it will be an even bigger story,” Benhorin said.
For Dorothy Faye Nick, the morning started at 4:30 a.m. It was a normal day, like any other shuttle-landing event.
“There was not even a thimble-full of people on the bus,” the retired NASA volunteer said as she traveled the 10 miles from the badging site to the press center.
But, the low turnout of press was before Columbia disappeared off Mission Control screens Saturday morning. Shortly before noon, there was a sense of urgency for media to get to the press site to cover the breaking news story.
The St. Petersburg Times chartered a plane to get reporters and photographers to Kennedy Space Center. Dozens of large television studios on wheels – from Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa and elsewhere – pulled into the small office on the NASA Causeway to cover the story. The credential office inside the press site received hundreds of calls from all over the state – and world – requesting the coveted badge.
“There will be many of them who won´t get in today,” said Linda Mullen, with NASA´s press center. “We can´t keep up with the calls.”
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, was barraged by nearly three dozen reporters who made the cut. He talked about his own flight into space in January 1986, on the Columbia.
“You can´t feel the heat when you re-enter the Earth´s atmosphere, but you can see it,” he explained. “When I re-entered, it was on the night side of the Earth, but it was like day, because of the heat on the orbiter.”
Margaret Persinger, public relations specialist at the Space Center, said the day was not good for the space program. She remembers what followed the explosion of the Challenger 17 years ago, almost to the day.
“(Titusville) became a ghost town,” she said. “We will have layoffs and the area will suffer economically.”
But what bothered her most about the accident was the loss of seven lives.
“This crew was the nicest and funniest I have worked with,” she said quietly. “It´s a sad day for us all.”
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