June 8, 2007—Well, launch day is here, and if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to cover a Space Shuttle launch—the adage "all things come to he who waits" comes to mind. And, believe me, the Kennedy Space Center press corp does its share of waiting. NASA locks the gates to KSC three hours prior to liftoff, and reporters, including me, get there earlier than that to avoid getting hung up in traffic. That means around six hours of sitting. Even little technical glitches leading to nowhere are a welcome respite. Earlier, remote cameras spotted what looked like a loose 6" by 12" metal clamp on the mobile launch platform at the pad where Atlantis sat ready for launch. That sent veteran reporters and rookies alike scurrying to public affairs officials for updates.

The usual suspects are all out here and, we’re "elbow to elbow" at long rows of desk space at the Kennedy Space Center’s Press Center. It’s a jumble of laptops, telephones, microphones, and cameras. It’s been an uneventful week leading up to today, with the labor impasse between United Space Alliance and nearly six hundred of its union workers overshadowing everything else.

I don’t mean to be macabre, but it reminds me of the morning of the Challenger accident. It was a quiet news day that day as well. The big story on January 28, 1986 was a removable handle that the launch pad crew used to lock the spacecraft hatch for blastoff. It got stuck, and had to be cut out with power tools. That got a lot of coverage on a similarly slow news day--prior to NASA’s first shuttle disaster. Of course, that’s just a thought on my part. I’m going to check on that launch pad clamp to take my mind off it.