Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [144]
Although the space shuttle would fly again following the Columbia disaster, NASA’s position regarding the future use of the shuttles has not changed. I have suggested stretching the existing schedule to retire the shuttles by one-year intervals, and flying at least one of our shuttles back to the International Space Station and docking it there as a permanent part of the structure, but so far these ideas have not been well received.
We have experienced hiatuses in human space launch capability in the past, following Apollo and Skylab, before the new shuttle fleet was developed. It was a fallow period in which we could not venture into space. After the Mercury program, NASA might have faced a gap before fully developing Apollo, but instead, we filled it with the Gemini program. We have existing technology today to prevent another pause in exploration, but only if NASA partners with commercial aerospace companies currently developing such spacecraft. Furthermore, it would indicate true progress if after almost thirty years of landing the shuttle fleet on the runway, NASA were to adopt a gap-filling technology of a heavy-lifting spacecraft with wings that could land on the runway, rather than the simpler, nonprogressive way of landing space capsules in the ocean to be recovered as we did in the early days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Development of such a spacecraft is still barely possible to bridge the gap, but time is running out.
PARTIALLY TO TAKE my mind off the Columbia disaster, and partly because it was something that I had never previously done, I accepted an invitation to be a celebrity participant in the Twenty-seventh Annual Toyota Grand Prix, held in Long Beach on the first weekend of April 2003. The event pits celebrities against professional drivers in a high-speed race for charity, with proceeds benefiting children’s hospitals in Long Beach and Orange County, California. I’ve always loved cars, and I love speed, and I love driving fast. But I had never really raced cars, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, even though I was seventy-three years of age. I was assured of having at least one distinction: being the oldest driver on the course.
Lois didn’t really want me to drive in the race, because it was not a staged event; it was a real speed race and it was dangerous. The race circuit was nearly two miles long, winding through the streets surrounding the Long Beach Convention Center. On the straight stretches, a driver could reach speeds of close to 100 miles per hour. But the course is especially noted for its last section, in which it runs through a dangerous hairpin turn followed by a slightly curved section that follows the length of the Long Beach waterfront and is lined with palm trees, making for quite a challenging and scenic track. More than 200,000 race fans turn out annually for a weekend of racing, food, and music. Professional drivers who have won the Toyota Grand Prix include Mario Andretti and Al Unser Jr. Past celebrity participants have included Hollywood actors and actresses such as Cameron Diaz, Queen Latifah, Gene Hackman, William Shatner, Dennis Franz, Tony Danza, and Kim Alexis, and athletes such as Bruce Jenner, Lynn Swann, Walter Payton, Mary Lou Retton, Joe Montana, and rocker Ted Nugent.
For two weekends prior to the race, the celebrity drivers practiced on a makeshift track out in the Mojave Desert. The sponsors always invited both male and female celebrities to race, so it was quite a rowdy bunch. It was fun to hook up again with Olympic skiing gold medalist, Picabo Street, whom Lois and I had come to know in Sun Valley, Idaho, and whom I saw at a number of ski celebrity events. For the Toyota race, professional drivers Shawna Robinson and Jeremy McGrath, as well as actor Josh Brolin, were breathing down our necks. It was an exhilarating but humbling experience;