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Family there to see Horlick graduate soarBy David Steinkraus, Jan. 17, 2003

Space shuttle launches are impressive on television, but there's nothing like being there, said Dan Salton.

He watched his sister, Horlick High School graduate Laurel Blair Salton Clark, blast off on space shuttle Columbia on Thursday morning.

Salton, who grew up in Racine and lives with his family on Milwaukee's south side, was joined by most of Clark's family at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Her mother, stepfather and siblings were there. Only her father, Bob, couldn't make it, Salton said.

"The family viewing area ... was at a spot about 3 1/2 miles from the launch site," he said.

"You don't actually hear it and feel it for about ... I don't know, we were thinking maybe 20 to 30 seconds. And then it starts rumbling and it hits you a little bit, but then it really hits, and it just builds and grows and grows. When that thing gets up about a mile, a half-mile, up in the sky it's burning like a blowtorch."

Salton was even closer to the space shuttle before the launch. One NASA tradition is a launch pad tour for spouses, Salton said, but Clark's husband also works for NASA. She picked Dan.

They walked around the base of the shuttle as it sat on the launch pad on Tuesday.

"We looked at the bolts," he said. "There's these huge, probably 10-inch-in-diameter, bolts. And there's four of them per SRB (solid rocket booster). So there's eight total, and those are all that hold the shuttle to the ground."

They went up the tower that the astronauts ascended on Thursday morning. They weren't permitted in the clean room where the shuttle's hatch is, but they could move around elsewhere.

"I got to go inside (the service spaces) and actually close enough so that I could have touched the shuttle if they'd let me. They said, 'Don't. Don't touch it, but there it is' -- close enough to read the serial numbers on the individual tiles that are on the shuttle." Those are the ceramic tiles that sheathe the spaceship.

On Tuesday night there was a barbecue, Salton said, where all the astronauts' families had a chance to meet all the other astronauts' families, including the family of Ilan Ramon, Israel's first shuttle astronaut.

And on Wednesday night there was a reception for the astronauts' guests. Clark's included her siblings, parents and cousins.

"She had about 236 guests," Salton said. Clark couldn't attend, however.

"She was basically in quarantine since last Thursday," Salton said, a hardship for her 6-year-old son. People who wanted to have contact with the astronauts had to pass a physical exam -- which Salton did before his launch pad tour -- and wear a badge signifying that they had been cleared by a doctor, he said.

Columbia is scheduled to land on Feb. 1. Salton said he would like to be on hand for the landing, but may not be able to make it. Other members of Clark's family, he said, are hoping to watch their explorer return to Earth.