My $17,000,000 Photograph

Friday morning found me wide awake at 4:45 a.m. on Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore fiddling with the fireworks feature on my camera. My son, my parents and I piled into the back of my dad's truck and headed to the edge of Metompkin Bay to watch an unmanned rocket launch from NASA's nearby Wallop's Island. These events are not uncommon, even pre-dawn launches. However, word on the Shore was that this rocket was doomed to failure. Alliant Techsystems, Inc. which has been working with NASA, was said to be under a deadline to get this bird in the air, and perhaps they overlooked some details necessary for success. The word on the Shore also had it that NASA would go ahead and attempt launch even thought its confidence was not high, and that a finger would be kept on the self-destruct button. The promise of an early morning light show, especially with the potential for explosions, brought aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and strangers together at the water's edge.

At 5:10 a.m. the horizon suddenly was aglow with the gold light of ignition. The rocket lifted off slowly at first, but quickly gained speed as it left the island heading up and over the Atlantic. Shortly after take off, and apparently to no one's surprise, the rocket was off course and at 27 seconds that self-destruct button was pressed. The explosion illuminated the water below and we could see rocket chunks hitting the water. A large section landed on Assawoman Island and continued to burn for some time. The show was over in just a few minutes and everyone went back to their homes, some back to bed and some up for the day. On Saturday local TV news and the newspaper warned against touching any rocket parts as they might contain hazardous chemicals. They also mentioned that there were $17,000,000 worth of experiments on board, most dealing with hypersonic flight and another unrelated experiment for the Navy. That figure does not include the cost of the rocket, and neither NASA or Alliant is telling what that number is.

I am at a point in my life that I worry about scraps of paper that can't be recycled, and I try real hard to decline every plastic bag given to me by store clerks. It is also with some reluctance that I apply herbicides throughout the nursery, because I know what it does to earthworms and frogs. I think about stuff like this, and then I get to witness such an incredible waste of money and resources, not to mention what may have fallen on the island or fouled the waters. However, what is most troubling was that this failure was expected and they continued regardless.