Saturday, February 8, 2003
Pilots´ parents reflect on tragedy
By SANDRA FREDERICK
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
FLAGLER BEACH — Having their twin sons in the middle of danger is nothing new for Richard and Patricia Kelly.
The Flagler Beach couple not only persevered when their son dropped bombs on Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, they also witnessed two liftoffs of space shuttles with their only children in the pilot´s seat.
“My boys have looked danger in the face from the time they were little kids,” said Patricia Kelly shortly after the explosion of Columbia on Saturday. “Mark was a fighter pilot in the Gulf War and the first night he went out, they thought he was shot down. They said, ‘Zippy (his nickname) bought it.’ I found that out after the fact. Scott also flew jets from carriers in the middle of the ocean.”
Although her sons were not on the Columbia, she said it could have easily been their mission.
“It struck me immediately that it could have been my son had it been a year earlier,” she said. “I feel guilt like many people do after a catastrophe, like a person who survives a plane crash but the person next to him died. I say thank God it wasn´t my son, but what hurts, is it was someone else´s son.” She found inner peace by lighting seven candles surrounding a miniature replica of a space shuttle under a blanket of stars to honor Columbia´s fallen astronauts.
“It made me feel part of it, like I was doing something,” she said Monday. “I laid there on Sunday night on my wooden deck bundled in a blanket and looked up at the sky. I thought to myself, ‘They were up there in pieces.’ That makes me deeply sad.”
Scott Kelly was scheduled to be Columbia´s commander on a mission in November, a flight taking teacher/civilian astronaut Barbara Morgan to space. Mark Kelly was scheduled for a January 2004 mission to the International Space Station.
Those missions are now on hold pending the investigation into what went wrong with Columbia on Feb. 1.
Both have been to space once before, Scott on a 1999 mission to fix the ailing Hubble Space Telescope and Mark in June 2001 to resupply the International Space Station.
“I realized at that moment, when I heard the news, how dangerous space travel is,” Patricia Kelly said. “In my heart I know that my sons´ commitment to the space program will not waver because of this. It is their calling, and it is what they want to do.”
As his sons continue to be part of the recovery team in rural Texas, Richard Kelly said he is not surprised they are involved with such a difficult task.
“They were junior first-aiders and then EMTs during college,” he said. “When other kids their age were hanging out on street corners, they would be on the roof of a building in Jersey City giving emergency medical care to a shooting victim. It was a natural thing for them to be in the middle of it.”
The couple said their prayers go out to the families of the astronauts. They too remember a time when they sat on metal bleachers with the other crew member´s families in a grassy area near the runway at Kennedy Space Center waiting for children, fathers and husbands to touch down.
“To be honest, I never thought much about the landing,” the father said. “Once the launch was over, in my mind, I thought they would be safe. Once they were in space, they were trained to handle just about any situation.”
Richard Kelly said both of his sons talked about the spectacular view from their seats in the front row of the shuttle as they reentered the Earth´s atmosphere. “They said is was amazing to see the red glow of the heat coming off the shuttle during re-entry,” he said. “They said it was a beautiful sight.”
As the nation watches the investigation unfold, the father said he also will watch with keen interest. He said there is trust between NASA engineers, the administration and astronauts. And he´s confident that if something is wrong, it will be fixed before another mission goes to space.
“This might be a setback for NASA, but the space program will go on,” Richard Kelly said. “And my boys will be ready to go. When the engines light, the rumble starts, for the next 8 1/2 minutes I will watch with apprehension, but then I will know they will be OK. They will be in space.”
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