Published: March 12, 2008 11:31 pm      

Family thrilled to see shuttle launch

Will Starks almost missed one of the most exciting events in his seven years on Earth: the early Tuesday launch of the shuttle Endeavor into space.

“I slept on the bus,” he admitted.

A day at Disney World will do that to a kid. But fortunately for Will, grandfather and Dalton resident Lloyd Starks awakened his grandson about five minutes before the 2:28 a.m. takeoff. They watched in awe from a special VIP section about three miles from the launch site, which was the closest spectators are allowed, while Endeavor rumbled toward the heavens and electrified the night sky.

Lloyd Starks, his wife Lynn and their three young grandchildren — Aubrey Catlett, Chandler Starks and Will Starks — traveled to Kennedy Space Flight Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. They took extensive tours of the Kennedy Space Flight Center, participated in interactive exhibits and attended a lunch featuring former astronaut John Fabian, who took two space flights and logged 316 hours in space.

Lloyd Starks works out of a home office in Dalton as president of Chemco Technologies. He’s a technology development contractor for NASA dealing mainly with the Marshall Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. One of his experiments, which tests the impact of space on coatings used on the outside of shuttles, is among the many of Endeavor’s Materials International Space Station Experiments. Through his work with NASA, he was able to score the VIP passes.

The family was also part of history. Shuttle Endeavor and its seven-member, multinational flight crew are taking part in what is expected to be the longest space station mission ever. The 16-day voyage will include five spacewalks, the most ever during a shuttle visit to space. Endeavor was the second of six scheduled U.S. shuttle launches this year.

This was the first launch Lloyd Starks had seen in person, despite all the years he has spent working in the space industry. He wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. The biggest surprise was the crowd singing “The Star Spangled Banner” about five minutes before the launch. From the family’s vantage point — “If you get too close to it, the sound alone would kill you,” Lloyd Starks said — they watched in awe as the shuttle took off among a peachy cloud of fire and smoke.

“It was kind of inspiring, looking across at the shuttle ready to launch,” he said. “They made it totally dim by turning the lights off and you’re in total darkness in the stands. When it launched, the engines lit up, and the solid rockets lit up, and it turned daylight. It was unbelievably bright. It was louder than I anticipated. It was a real deep, rumbling cracking. The shuttle weighs about four million pounds. How quickly it leaves the launch pad is rather astonishing.”

The buzz in the crowd of about 500 wasn’t frightening to the kids.

“It was exciting during the launch,” said Chandler Starks, an 8-year-old Westwood Elementary student. “When it launched off, it turned completely daylight.”

The kids — and the grandparents — learned how astronauts exercise in space. The astronauts use bungee cords to strap themselves to exercise bikes. They also found out how astronauts like to play with their food, taking advantage of no gravity. Will Starks, a student at Hopewell Elementary in Cleveland, Tenn., learned, “It takes eight seconds to get to Disney World in a rocket, it takes eight minutes to get to Disneyland (California) in a rocket.” Catlett, a 9-year-old student at North LaFayette Elementary, said NASA officials give different terms “fancy names.” One is “space adaptation syndrome,” “but astronauts call it vomiting,” she said.

“They really learned a lot,” Lynn Starks said.

A side benefit of the trip, the children coyly admit, was missing two days of school. But they will prepare presentations to share their experiences with classmates.

And the children may have to dispel some rumors floating around school.

“Somebody thought I was getting on the space shuttle,” Chandler Starks said, laughing.