TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

Evie and Pete Compton perk up when they hear stories about Florida’s

Kennedy Space Center on the news.

The Newport Beach residents said they feel they’re almost a part of

what’s going on over there. Having seen the live blastoff in February of

the $1.4 billion laboratory “Destiny” to the International Space Station.

The couple is grateful to have gotten the “real insight.”

They felt the ground shake from a set of bleachers three miles from

the launch-pad and saw plumes of smoke form a rainbow.

“You can watch it on television and you can see it in the movies, but

when you’re there you just can’t believe you’re really there,” said Evie

Compton, a 61-year-old real estate agent.

Her husband agreed.

“On TV it’s too easy,” he said. “[Live,] you get to see how complex

and dangerous something like this could really be.”

The couple spent about four days with a VIP group touring the Space

Center grounds in Cape Canaveral, midway between Jacksonville and Miami.

They got peeks into facets of the business that regular tourists don’t

normally get.

Paul Geery, the couple’s son-in-law and a director for Boeing, which

handles the computers for the Space Station, gave the Comptons their VIP

passes.

“We had to be cleared weeks before we went,” Evie Compton said, “We

had to wear badges and they specifically told us that ‘If you lose that,

you call us immediately.’ They didn’t want an imposter picking it up and

being where they shouldn’t be.”

The couple met astronauts who’d traveled up in previous launches. The

professionals answered quirky questions for their audience about what

it’s like to live on a space shuttle and shared scoops about the training

process.

The astronauts for the “Destiny” launch were in “lock-down,” Evie

Compton said, which helps isolate them from germs.

Pete Compton, who is the vice president of a telephone company, was

most taken by the number of human hands involved in a single space

mission.

“On TV, you think of 20 people sitting in the control center, but each

has its support group,” said the 63-year-old. “There are so many people

involved -- a cast of 1000s’s.”

When they visited the sterile rooms -- rooms where representatives

from different countries gather to assemble their contributions to the

Space Station -- Evie Compton heard a buzz of foreign languages.

“We just thought it was so wonderful, all these different countries

working together to make this happen,” she said.

The after-party for the successful launch of the “Destiny” was

particularly moving.

“Everyone was patting each other on the back,” Evie Compton said.

“Some of the people were almost in tears hugging each other because they

worked so hard. We were just so excited for them.”

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to TRAVEL TALES, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.