MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Among the several thousand people (click here) who jammed into a grassy
plaza at NASA's Ames research facility for a live telecast of an
extraordinary rocket launch to the moon was the Brady bunch, who came
all the way from Stockton.
The youngsters -- 12-year-old Kyra
Brady and her brothers, Ethan, 10 and Alex, 9 -- were driven to the
event by their grandparents more than four hours before the launch to
make sure they got a good seat. And as they waited at the sprawling
facility's Shenandoah Plaza, the kids were clearly pumped."They're going to launch from Virginia to orbit around the moon and collect dust," Kyra said. "I think it's pretty cool."
Alex wholeheartedly agreed. Acknowledging he's been a Buzz Lightyear fan for as long as he can remember, he noted solemnly: "I like space."
Dubbed the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer -- or LADEE -- it is the first spacecraft designed, built and controlled by NASA Ames. The launch from NASA's facility on Wallops Island, Va., was displayed for the Mountain View throng on a huge screen in front of a ghostly lit Hangar One, the former home of the USS Macon Airship now stripped of its contaminated outer covering. And as the last seconds to take off were counted down, the spectators fidgeted and snapped smartphone pictures....
