For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women (or any of Terry Heggy's other writing), please visit www.shyperson.com.

In April of 1981, I was assigned to be a part of Martin Marietta's "Micrographics Research Team". Our charter was to determine the best method for the Denver-based aerospace company to archive its engineering drawings. The current system consisted of making full-size blueline copies of the drawings, and locking them in a vault. But since creating these copies was expensive (closer to the old mimeograph process than to modern computer printers), the space required was immense, and retrieval was labor intensive, the company was looking for a more modern method. Our team was to review the various microfilm and microfiche vendors to decide upon the optimal method. The basic concept was that we would photographically shrink the drawings onto some sort of film (PCs, scanners, and hard drives had not yet been invented...) and then later be able to use some sort of robotic computer system to retrieve any drawing from the film archives.

I was the "engineering" representative. I was the greenest of tenderfoots (tenderfeet?), and could contribute nothing to the project...but somebody from engineering had to go, and I was the most expendable. It turned out to be a very sweet gig, indeed.

The first trip we took was to the 3M headquarters in Minnesota. We flew the 3M corporate jet, a study in luxury and pampering. The six of us had 2 flight attendants to share, and they had been instructed to keep us happy. (OK, not that happy, it wasn't "coffee, tea, or me", or anything. They were quite professional, but still very nice. They were still called "stewardesses" in those days, and physical beauty was still a job requirement. As a single 25-year-old, I was impressed.)

I sat next to a guy named Fred Korfhage. I forget what department he was with (Contracts, maybe?), and don't know much else about him, other than the fact that a couple of years later he fell out of a tree, landed on his head, and forgot everything about his life up to that point. Anyway, Fred was about my age, and was fun to talk with. The stewardess appeared with a huge tray of shrimp. She set it down in front of us and went off to fix drinks. When she returned a few minutes later, one of the guys in the row behind us asked if he could get some shrimp, too. She looked at the empty tray in front of me and her jaw dropped. "That tray was for everyone to share!" she said. Fred and I said we were sorry, but how were we supposed to know? We'd never been on a corporate jet before. Sheesh!

The 3M execs treated us very well, and we had a good time. I assumed that someone from our group absorbed some of the technical information that we'd eventually need as part of the decision making, but I didn't worry too much about it. The only thing I retained was the knowledge that I'd gotten one hell of a deal on 3M cassette tapes by buying them at the employee store instead of at K-Mart.

The next trip was to Orlando, Florida. Martin had a sister plant down there, and they'd already implemented a micrographics system for their drawing archives. Theirs used punch cards with a 35mm negative attached within a little window on the card. The giant IBM punch-card reader machine could sort and retrieve the cards with astounding speed. I assumed that it was also capable of going berserk and spewing cards at the attendants like a paper-loaded firehose -- but I never saw any evidence of this. Still, every movie that featured a punch-card sorter machine contained a scene about this type of berserker spewing, so I just knew it was possible.

At this young and innocent stage of my life, I was still too naive to look for hidden motivations behind corporate decisions. I assumed that this trip was simply the next logical step in our committee's well-planned project. It wasn't until much later that I began to suspect that the timing of the Florida trip to coincide with the very first space shuttle launch might be something other than coincidence.

We finished our business Thursday afternoon. The launch was Friday morning. We drove down to the Cape, secured some sweet beachside locations, and watched the sun rise over the sands.

I took pictures of everything. To this day, I've never been able to photographically capture a more spectacular sunrise. The orange ball on the horizon provided a fiery backdrop for the beach reeds, the gulls...and the news and security helicopters. The temperature was mild and everyone was in a good mood. We were probably 8 or 9 miles away from the launch pad, but we could see a tiny nib that we knew was the shuttle gantry. NASA had placed a giant countdown clock just down the beach from us, so we knew precisely how long it was until liftoff.

When I'd worked at Boeing, I'd been allowed to go aboard the 747 that piggybacked the shuttles around the country. It was a vast, empty space, since everything that wasn't flight-essential had been removed to reduce weight. And, since Martin built the shuttle's huge external tank, I had been exposed to a lot of information about the shuttle during my current job. You may not remember, but for the first couple of launches, the tank was painted white, making the vehicle gleam like some sort of pristine alien obelisk. (They later discovered that the paint provided no benefit, and added a buttload of weight to the craft, so they simply stopped painting the tanks. That's why they're reddish-brown today.) We knew the details of the two astronauts' mini-bios, and we knew how many heat-resistant tiles were glued onto each stubby-looking wing. We were hardcore fans of the space program, just about to witness the Space Program's greatest moment since the Apollo program had ended so many years before.

Alas, it was not to be. One of the sensors indicated a problem with the fuel cells, leading to launch postponement.

Well, since we couldn't watch a spectacular performance by man's latest technological achievement, we did the next best thing; Disney World.

Fred and I decided to take a guided tour, since tour participants got to cut in some of the lines and hear the real "behind-the-scenes" scoop. Sounded like fun. Plus, we could probably find a way to charge it to our company expense accounts...

Our guide was a delicious young lady named Janice. Though forced by the job to wear an unfortunately bulbous drum-major-type hat, Janice managed to charm everyone with her sweetness, quick wit, and vast knowledge of all things Disney. Fred and I sometimes had to shove the family types aside in order to maintain our proximity to our charming guide, but we were smooth enough to do it so that Janice was unaware of our maneuvering. By the time we'd seen haunted houses, animatronic pirates, and all those annoying small world singing dolls, we'd managed to get ourselves noticed. Janice confided that her father was the Art Director for the entire complex and was quite well-off. In fact, her whole family was having a fabulous water-ski day at the family's private lake on Sunday, and she'd be delighted if we'd attend as her guests.

Hmmm. An all-expenses-paid day of water skiing at a private lake with an incredibly cute rich girl...should we do it? Hmmm.

I'm not sure I've ever been more tempted in my life. But, if you came right down to it, there might come a time in the future where such an opportunity might re-appear. But there will NEVER be another first launch of the space shuttle. Sadly, we declined.

Years later, I ran into Fred at another company function. I said, "Freddy Baby, do you remember the hot babe who invited us to her lake for some private water skiing?" Fred said, "Dude, I fell out of a tree," and then wandered off.

Anyway, the launch wasn't until Sunday, so we decided to head to the beach on Saturday. Another member of our task force had grown up at the ocean, and enthusiastically volunteered to teach us to surf. His name was Gary, and he started the day with an impressive demonstration of Frankie Alalon-like skills among the waves. Cowabunga!

With my extensive swimming background, I figured that I'd have a pretty good head start on any type of aquatic activity. "Gimme the board, man," I said, and then paddled out beyond the breakers.

I was pleased to see that I could out-paddle the native surfers, which gave me confidence for the upcoming trial of my ability to hang ten. As soon as I got out to the right distance, I stood up on the board, shot underneath the curl of the gigantic wave, zipped back and forth just in front of the blue crush, and skimmed to the shore amid cheers from thousands of spectators.

OK, I'm lying. I unceremoniously fell off the board on my first attempt. I took a watery face plant on my second. I also spilled my third, fourth, fifth, and... well, you get the idea. To this day, I have absolutely no idea how anybody could ever stand up on one of those slippery bastards. I have the utmost respect for the amazing balance that surfers must possess, and I completely understand why Frankie was able to seduce a babe like Annette.

I spent the rest of the day body surfing, building sand castles, and attempting to flirt with the beach bunnies.

About mid-afternoon, I began to suspect that I had missed a few spots when I'd applied my sunscreen. Being a young, macho guy, I wasn't about to ask Fred or Gary to slather sunscreen on my back, and since I didn't know anyone else there, I did the best I could in self-application. And sure enough, there were telltale signs of pink starting to form on the unreachable Bermuda triangle in the middle of my back. Strangely enough, I was also getting pink on portions of my belly. Hmmm, I could swear I got that spot...

By evening, I was in full-blown agony. In addition to my back and belly (you could see the finger outlines showing exactly how far I rubbed the sunscreen), the tops of my feet were flaming red. I couldn't lie down (either front or back). I couldn't wear socks. And I was beginning to suspect that there was something wrong with my eyes, as well.

Trust me, you DO NOT ever want to suffer from sunburned retinas. ALWAYS wear sunglasses when you're at the beach. (Or skiing for that matter.)

I did not sleep well that night. I took pain killers, and soaked myself in various lotions. I couldn't open my eyes, but tears continually poured forth from under closed lids. If my whimpering kept the others awake, they were too polite to comment. But I felt absolutely miserable when it was time to head back to the beach to set up for the launch.

Fred led me around like a blind man (though I've never seen a real blind person who was as helpless and dazed as I was). He more-or-less dragged me to the beach, and pointed my head in the general direction of the launch pad. I had my 35mm camera, which I blindly held aloft in hopes of accidentally capturing the Columbia's leap from the bounds of Earth.

We weren't able to get as close as we'd been on Friday; Fred said it was probably about 10 miles away. But we'd still be able to see the flames and hear the roar...we hoped.

And so did over a million other people. The beaches were jammed with humanity for miles. By launch time, there was not a single spot along the road that didn't contain a spectator's car. There was not a square centimeter of beach that didn't contain a hopeful American who'd gotten out of bed early to be a part of history. Over a million excited souls all waited shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers who felt like brothers. All those eyes were pointing in the same direction, and all those hearts beat with the same emotion. All those lips were uttering the same prayers to whatever gods they believed in.

And you could feel it. The collaborative emotion became a focused, tangible thing. Perhaps my other senses were heightened by the temporary loss of my sight -- but I don't think so. I truly believe that each of us felt the same powerful thing. Perhaps we couldn't describe it (either then or now), but it was so strong that the mere memory of it continues to bring tears to our eyes decades later. "Godspeed, Columbia, " we whispered. "Go, baby, go!"

We saw the light before we heard the roar. Seeming to happen in slow motion, the barely visible craft rose majestically off its throne and levitated on a plume of gorgeous white smoke. Even at 10 miles away, the sound reached us with physical force. As we were slapped with the crackling snarl of the blast, we added to the volume with our own involuntary cheers. Over a million voices raised in a gleeful shout from the very depths of humanity -- no one who was there could ever forget it.

Peering through barely slit eyelids, I could see the Columbia climb skyward. I snapped photo after photo through the tears that poured from my injured eyes. Tears of pain, yes, but far more tears of joy. It was as if the entire million were joined in one thought, using the sheer force of our collective will to lift the shuttle toward the heavens.

I have no idea what I was shouting, but I know that my throat was hoarse for days afterward. As I squinted, I noticed that the ship was too far away to see, and then I couldn't even see the flames. The column of smoke dispersed slowly, a ghostly reminder of the spectacle we'd just witnessed. As the plume lost its shape, I gradually became aware of thousands of jabbering voices as people returned to individual consciousness.

The feeling of consolidated human thought was gone. But I remember thinking about how powerful that prolonged moment had been. It felt as if the force of human will could accomplish anything...if it was all concentrated on the same effort to bring about collective good. It felt as if there really was a God, and His power could be focused by people who believed in reaching for the stars. The tears I had cried represented the purest joy from the heart of humanity.

I cried again when Columbia died.

The brave souls killed by its disintegration deserve to be mourned by the entire planet. I am greatly saddened by their loss.

And I think of what Columbia represents to me. As the world sits on the brink of war, I think back to that soaring elation I felt as Columbia leapt into the skies for its maiden voyage. I think of how, for that one glorious moment, a million humans forgot about our troubles and united our minds to support the concepts of exploration, bravery, knowledge, and accomplishment. For one moment, I was bonded to each of those other souls in the light of love and joy, looking upward toward a future full of hope.

Bless you, Columbia. May your spirit live on.