We’re one of the only flights today–Christmas is not a popular SubOrb day–so we have the viewing center mostly to ourselves. We watch together, as they cross the Atlantic, swooping northeast, their flight path tracked in gold on the map in front of us. Daddy is tapping his fingers, as he stares at the GPS screen. Beats the hell out of recycling it, any day. I’ve got one of those new sodas that are dispensed in round bubbles made of stiffened sugar you can literally eat the can after you’re done with them. So there we are, Daddy and I, bumming around the viewing room. Tony had managed to snag the use of a plane from a guy he knew from training otherwise, it would have still been way too expensive. So Ma was going to get to go up as far as they would let her, all without having to pay anything to the expensive SubOrb tour companies. And no one regulates who you take up in a SubOrb plane as long as you file your flight plan in advance, the government can’t really say anything. Money can overrule some of the old, but we don’t have that much money.īut then, Tony got his suborbital license. Old rules you out of almost everything fun. Or if you take a medicine or two, here and there, because again–old. No one takes you to space when you’re old. She’s wanted to go to space since she was a little girl, and watched that old space shuttle explode on TV. We stay behind at the Kennedy Space Center–there’s a viewing room that has live GPS tracking available for suborbital flights. Daddy and I kiss them good bye take a photo of them in their spacesuits for posterity, and wave at them. Tony and Ma are in their seats in the skimmer, strapped in and grinning at us. The Sweetness at the End By Jenny Rae Rappaport
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