Looking back more than 60 years, Numeroff says. "When I saw my first airplane I ran into the street, waved to the pilot and he waved back. Now Americans will be going into space as if they were traveling to a neighboring town."

Squinting his eyes at the shuttle three miles away and motioning at the 12-story Vehicle Administration Building (VAB), Numeroff says, "When I first got here in 1959, the Cape was a swamp. Now it has burgeoned onto a place like downtown Manhattan."

*****

Ralph Morse, a Time-Life photographer since 1940, is too closely tied to the news to judge the historical significance of what he has watched.

Having photographed every NASA lift-off since 1959 and shot more than 90 per cent of the Time-Life photos, Morse says, "I've seen America's space program go from pea shooters to cannons, and now taxicabs and pick-up trucks, and every step has been a big one. I feel so close to the launches--it's impossible to judge which has been bigger than the next."

Morse admits, however, that the shuttle comes close to helping him realize one of his dreams. "The shuttle may make it possible for me to photograph in space--weightless," he said, smiling and hefting his gut with both hands.

*****

As darkness fell last night and reporters filtered through the press room--typing, reading, rigging cables, gazing down the "Saturn Causeway" towards paths 39A--a twinge of campfire cameraderie took hold.

"You've just spent $10 billion, finished a week-long countdown, flooded a million gallons of fuel into a hundred-thousand-pound bird, and launched the whole contraption into orbit," a beer-drinking cameraman bellowed in front of the press grandstand.

"Nowwww it's Millller Tiiiime!