I had a year's worth of my life crater next to the launch pad. It's a terrible feeling.
It was ever thus. Before first light of the 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson in 1917 (at the time the world's largest), George Ellery Hale was so nervous that he only invited a poet, Alfred Noyes--no members of the general press.
Noyes later recounted the drama as part of a poem, "Watchers of the Skies":
"To-morrow night! For more than twenty years,
They had thought and planned and worked. Ten years had gone,
One-fourth, or more, of man's brief working life,
Before they made those solid tons of glass,
Their hundred-inch reflector, the clear pool,
The polished flawless pool that it must be
To hold the perfect image of a star.
And, even now, some secret flaw—none knew
Until to-morrow's test—might waste it all.
Where was the gambler that would stake so much,—
Time, patience, treasure, on a single throw?
The cost of it,—they'd not find that again,
Either in gold or life-stuff! All their youth
Was fuel to the flame of this one work.
Once in a lifetime to the man of science,
Despite what fools believe his ice-cooled blood,
There comes this drama.
If he fails, he fails
Utterly. He at least will have no time
For fresh beginnings. Other men, no doubt,
Years hence, will use the footholes that he cut
In those precipitous cliffs, and reach the height,
But he will never see it."
It was ever thus. Before first light of the 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson in 1917 (at the time the world's largest), George Ellery Hale was so nervous that he only invited a poet, Alfred Noyes--no members of the general press.
Noyes later recounted the drama as part of a poem, "Watchers of the Skies":
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6574]