Props to the Discovery. I wrote this after Columbia, two years ago. Thought it could use drudging up.
"My earliest memory was standing in the Johnson Space Center, looking up at this thing. They had most of it suspended in clear...what is that stuff? Lucite? I don't know. Anyway, the bulk of it was in lucite, especially the tiny stuff, the ceramic flaking and the wings, but the crew compartment was open. They had big swooping staircases, and you'd shuffle up the line and then squeeze through the clear plastic bulkhead. It was crazy, little pieces of wall or seat or whatever suspended in plastic reproductions of the original piece, so you could see how it was, ya know, supposed to look. I remember running my finger down the pilot's harness, the control yoke. I can't imagine, you know. And I was thinking 'That's where McCool's hands were, that's where he sat. What the fuck was he thinking. What was going through his head.' Shit."
Metzer put his hands in his pocket and stared up at the stories tall skeleton, the air clear ghost of spaceship held in place by polymer and memory. The carbon-arc light shining through the fractured superstructure was soft and warm, like summer sun.
"Anyway. I got it at auction and had it installed here, at the bottom of the 'vator. Last thing people see before they hitch a $500 ride out of the well. Pretty cool, huh?"
"My earliest memory was standing in the Johnson Space Center, looking up at this thing. They had most of it suspended in clear...what is that stuff? Lucite? I don't know. Anyway, the bulk of it was in lucite, especially the tiny stuff, the ceramic flaking and the wings, but the crew compartment was open. They had big swooping staircases, and you'd shuffle up the line and then squeeze through the clear plastic bulkhead. It was crazy, little pieces of wall or seat or whatever suspended in plastic reproductions of the original piece, so you could see how it was, ya know, supposed to look. I remember running my finger down the pilot's harness, the control yoke. I can't imagine, you know. And I was thinking 'That's where McCool's hands were, that's where he sat. What the fuck was he thinking. What was going through his head.' Shit."
Metzer put his hands in his pocket and stared up at the stories tall skeleton, the air clear ghost of spaceship held in place by polymer and memory. The carbon-arc light shining through the fractured superstructure was soft and warm, like summer sun.
"Anyway. I got it at auction and had it installed here, at the bottom of the 'vator. Last thing people see before they hitch a $500 ride out of the well. Pretty cool, huh?"