Prelaunch Interviews

Allowing for built-in holds to the count, we are around three hours before launch.

We wasted little time getting back into the buses and were driven back to the News Center, where we arrived at 3:25 am. After taking a few photos of the countdown clock, I went back into the News Center to conduct more interviews.

One of these was at 5:45 am with British born astronaut Mike Foale. He had flown six space missions, including ones to the Mir and international Space Stations. Just after 6 am, as I hurriedly wrapped up the interview, we dashed outside together to see the International Space Station pass overhead. Someone called out: "Mike, you don't need to look at this - you’ve seen the inside," to which Mike and I laughed.

I had had an interview booked with Kay Hire for 5:30 am, but I had to wave her off because she was late and the KSC PAO asked to reschedule to after 6 am. Had I done that interview I would not have been set up to watch the Shuttle launch. Kay was one of the astronauts on the February flight of STS 130, and had previously flown on the STS 90 Neurolab mission in 1998. Before becoming an astronaut she had been a naval aviator flying oceanographic research missions, and I had wanted in my interview to draw a link with Australian oceanographer Paul Scully-Power, who flew on the space shuttle in the 1980s. I did get to say hello to Kay as she arrived at the News Center.

Whilst interviewing Mike Foale my mobile phone rang, which was the good folks at Southern FM calling for our pre-arranged live-to-air commentary of the Shuttle launch, but out of courtesy to Mike I didn't take the call.

After seeing the ISS flyover I quickly bade Mike goodbye then desperately tried several times to call Southern FM but there was no answer. At the same time I walked in the dark down from the News Center towards the famous lawn and its countdown clock. With about half a minute left on the countdown I realised that my planned live-to-air commentary was not going to happen. I put the phone away and picked up my camera, switching my view between direct eyeballing the event and looking through the camera viewfinder (which also doubled as a monocular offering a magnified view.)

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