WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.000 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:05.000 If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the voices of yesterday's space travelers echoing 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.000 across time. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:13.000 They mingle with the sound of the surf breaking on this secluded beach at NASA's Kennedy Space 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Center in Florida. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:21.000 This salty air has been filled with the laughter, whispers, and even tears of the men and women 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:26.000 who've passed through this shore's humble beach cottage, before soaring off into the vastness of 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.000 space. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:33.000 Mike Mullane: "This is sacred sand out here, it really is. It's where people have made those final 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:39.000 goodbyes, and they were final. But we know it. I mean, there's nobody, no spouse, 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:45.000 no astronaut walks that sand that doesn't know that there is a possibility that this is forever." 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:50.000 For years it's been the quiet, unassuming preflight retreat where astronauts have 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:56.000 reflected as they stood on the threshold of their dream: space travel. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.000 The cozy house sits perched above the dunes at the edge of a pristine beach that stretches 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.000 undisturbed as far as the eye can see. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:09.000 Its nearest neighbors are launch complexes. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:15.000 Bob Cabana: "Not all of our time is totally full getting briefings or preparing to go fly, 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:20.000 and it can get kind of claustrophobic over there just being cooped up in crew quarters and it's 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.000 really nice to be able to go out to the beach house and just walk on the beach and just sit there 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:31.000 and see the ocean, and walk up and down the beach, pick up shells, listen to the waves lapping on 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 the shore." 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.000 Mike Mullane: "Before the first mission, to sit out here and look at the sky and say, 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:45.000 'I'm next! I'm next! It's going to happen! I'm going to go into space!' That would just overwhelm 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 me. What history of these people that have walked through this beach house, who have walked on that 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:57.000 beach out there, said goodbye to their spouses in the shadows of the rockets they were 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:01.000 launching on tomorrow. I felt totally overwhelmed by that reality. That I was now part of it, 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:06.000 that I was walking the beach and saying goodbye in the shadow of the rocket that I was 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:08.000 going to be riding tomorrow." 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:14.000 The expanses of sea and sky make it a fitting place for astronauts and their loved ones. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:17.000 Janice Voss: "To me the most special time at the beach house is when you can go out there with your 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:22.000 family. There's one barbeque thing where you can bring out guests, and my parents 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.000 got to come out. And the beach house has been there forever and that history that stretches 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:31.000 out for so long and to share that, and let my family meet the other crew members in a 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:38.000 more casual setting, It's nice to have that really quite time to be with your family and 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000 share that history and culture with them so they feel a little more connected to 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:42.000 all that's going on." 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:48.000 Bob Cabana: "I looked for perfect little seashells. I got four of them, one for each of 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:54.000 my children and one for my wife. And I wrote a little message to each of them inside the shell. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:58.000 And I said, "Here, you hold this and give one to each of the kids and you hold on 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:03.000 to this when I'm launching and that's a little something of me with you during that time that 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:09.000 I'm launching into space." And somewhere I think they've all still got their seashells." 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.000 Mike Mullane: "You're boundlessly joyful at the thought of riding into space again, your 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:20.000 overwhelmed with that joy, but at the same time you have, as she said, the fear factor. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:27.000 That's hard to get your mind around that. But it is. That's the reality of an astronaut's life, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:35.000 and a spouse's life, in those final days and hours before a mission. Fear and joy overwhelming you." 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:42.000 Donna Mullane: "And it's exhausting! It was quite emotional when everybody leaves. 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:48.000 You're by yourself and you see each of the couples of the crew going off in different directions, 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:55.000 knowing that it's a private moment and they are dealing with their own anxiety in their way." 00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:01.000 Structurally, the two-story, wood-frame and concrete block house never really outgrew its humble, 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:07.000 early 1960s beginnings as part of the oceanfront Neptune Beach subdivision. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:15.000 The development and its land were bought in 1963 -- for the grand sum of $31,500. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:22.000 The acquisition was to accommodate the expansion of what would become NASA's Kennedy Space Center. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.000 Bob Cabana: "The beach house is a unique facility here at the Kennedy Space Center, 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:32.000 and it's changed a lot over time. Of course it was originally a home that somebody was living in 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:38.000 when the Kennedy Space Center was built. When eminent domain took over all the 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:43.000 property down here to build our spaceport the beach house was there and it became ours." 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:49.000 The cottage was somehow spared the fate of the nearby residences and a store and gas station. 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Mike Mullane: "I don't know who the far-thinking person was that preserved this house from 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000 destruction -- there were other houses here when this was private property, 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:05.000 but thank you for doing it. I'm sure they could not have imagined how this would be part 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.000 of space history, manned space flight history." 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:14.000 Now, just as in the past, the little house by the sea now stands ready to welcome the final 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:16.000 shuttle crews and their families. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:22.000 Once again, the traditional preflight barbeques will give way to quiet walks on the beach, 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:34.000 as they add the final shuttle-era chapters to this little-known corner of space history.