Ford and his friend, Revan, study the model with anxious eyes, and eager fingers tap the glass and track the belts. Revan’s father is about to take us for a ride on the VFS, Vertical Flight Simulator, and five astronauts were in the sim only hours before.
The building smells like a well-oiled metal shop and the hi-gloss waxed terrazzo recalls the set of 2001; the interior hasn’t changed in thirty years. But it feels oddly comfortable to me; like the industrial white and ochre interiors of Texas A&M, where I hung out afterschool with dad, about that many years ago.
We’re in the shuttle cockpit. The boys land it at night onto an airstrip. During our visit, the mechanics work downstairs on one of the elevator motors, so we have to imagine the horrific vertigo; the boys crash five times before landing correctly. Still, I find myself covering Chas’ eyes as the tarmac lights swallow the shuttle, and all is then black.
The kids laugh and touch every archaic steel switch on the console, poring over the data screen, trying to make sense of the complex code of numbers and letters, and I, scanning the code with them, get a sense of what they’ve been going through this year, as they have slowly begun to string letters together to form words, and understand the translation of larger numbers, how to scan linear strings of data. Folds upon growing folds of intelligence, carried by wild chariots of grubby abandon, tell us everything without words; wonder behind the flood of simian awe.
What an absolutely unforgetable experience with a friend that, who knows, may work alongside Ford someday. No doubt they are building dreams and aspirations together.