CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (REUTERS) — With a rally cry born of the trauma of Sept. 11, an astronaut cried, “It’s time to let freedom roar!” as the space shuttle Endeavour soared off its launch pad Wednesday with 6,000 U.S. flags commemorating victims of attacks on New York and Washington.
The shuttle launch was the first since the hijackings that propelled the United States into war and took place amid unprecedented security to guard against sabotage.
Delayed almost a week, first by problems at its destination, the International Space Station, then by bad weather at the Kennedy Space Center, Endeavour lifted off at 5:19 p.m. EST without incident.
“Freedom rings loud and clear across this country. But right here and right now, it’s time to let freedom roar. Let’s light ’em up,” shuttle commander Dominic Gorie told the launch team in the final minutes before liftoff.
Endeavour flew east just as the sun set in the west. The result was a spectacular light play on its billowing contrail, which was gray nearest the ground then turned orange, yellow and finally a brilliant white as Endeavour rose out of sight.
The mission, to deliver three new astronauts and more than two tons of supplies to the International Space Station, has been largely overshadowed by the memorial cargo and the intense security.
NASA had feared a space shuttle fully loaded with fuel, capable of exploding with the force of a small nuclear bomb, would make an inviting target. The U.S. Air Force threw up a 40-mile no-fly zone around the launch pad and NASA stepped up security at the space center.
Jet fighters, armed assault troops, helicopter gunships and mobile .50-caliber machine guns were among the defense measures spotted in the days leading up to the launch.
PLANE INTERCEPTED
The Air Force said F-15s intercepted a single-engine Piper airplane that flew into restricted air space Wednesday and came within 24 miles of the shuttle before it was turned around and landed at an airport near Orlando.
The plane was intercepted at 4:05 p.m. EST and was on the ground at Sanford airport before the shuttle took off.
“The direction of the plane did not indicate that they were inbound to the launch facility,” said Col. Samuel Dick, vice commander of the 45th Space Wing at Patrick Air Force Base.
Endeavour, which was within five minutes of launching Tuesday before bad weather halted the countdown, is due to dock at the space station Friday and return to its Florida base Dec. 16.
The astronauts appeared unworried as they made their way to the pad, smiling and waving to television cameras as they left their crew quarters for the 15-minute ride to the launch pad in their silver Astrovan, protected by armed guards and a helicopter with snipers on the landing struts.
Astronaut Linda Godwin said in a preflight interview that the entire crew had the same thought on Sept. 11, when their training exercises were interrupted by news of the hijacked plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“You know, a shuttle on a launch pad — that’s a target,” she recalled thinking. “We all thought about that.”
Three of the astronauts on Endeavour — Russian Yury Onufrienko and Americans Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz — are scheduled to stay behind on the station until mid-May.
The current station crew of American Frank Culbertson and Russians Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin watched the smoke from the World Trade Center through an observation window as they passed some 200 miles above Maine just hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. They have been there since Aug. 12.
Culbertson has expressed concern about how well prepared he will be to return to a nation so radically changed by sudden war and deepening recession.
The new crew has also given some thought as to how prepared they will be for bad news on Earth.
“We’ll be informed, we’ll be in communication, but then again when terrible things happen, it’ll still be difficult to comprehend,” Walz said in a preflight exchange with reporters.
“I know (the current station crew) has been up there and all these things have happened, so they’ll come down to a tremendously different world. I’m hoping things don’t change so radically for us.”
Walz said they will have a psychological support group on the ground ready to help them if needed.