biddi-biddi-biddi

In May 1987, Captain William Anthony "Buck" Rogers, a NASA pilot who commands Ranger 3, launched a space shuttle.  The story goes on to say that due to a life support malfunction, he's suspended in space for 504 years. He's later awaken to find Earth in the year 2481. 

Oh Buck Rogers, how I loved that show.  It ran from 1979 - 1981, short lived, but it was the most extreme story telling my 10 year old mind had seen.

On March 8, 1979, we woke to another sunny day in southern California.  There was an electricity in the air though. Excitement could be felt as we sat and ate our breakfast cereal. 

At 6:30 Grandma Spaid grabbed the camera and said to me, "Let's go!" in a way only Grandma Spaid could. (God I miss her.) She grabbed he Polaroid camera - (which was all the rage in 1979. I mean photos that developed right in front of your eyes. So cool! So we thought.) We walked pass a house next to us and stood on the corner of J-3 and 10th Street East.

At 6:45 we saw this:

According to my grandmother's impeccable documentation on any photo, we saw this at 6:55:

Then at 7am, we stood and looked up in wonder at the sight that was before us.  I remember it being quiet and a whole lot of "ooo's" and "ahhhh's" going on.

Once it passed, we walked the short distance to our house.  We sat at the table and looked at the pictures and talked about how totally rad it was to see something so space agey in front of us.  We speculated on whether it'd actually make it to space. 

I don't remember how long after, this viewing, but I was in school.  We were all gathered in the cafeteria to witness it via television the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery at Edward's AFB.  The principle was standing by the very small TV and he was saying, "Any minute we should hear the sonic boom."  He no sooner said "boom" and the cafeteria was rattled with a sonic boom so loud it scared the pee out of most of us.  Living by the AFB we were used to hearing sonic booms, but we weren't expecting that thunderous sound. 

As everyone knows, it landed safely and the Space Shuttle program went on to build several more. Some were lost to tragedy, but all of them helped to further our mission in space.  Buck Rogers would be proud!