If at Birth You Don't Succeed (5 page)

When my victory was finally out in the open, I was told that we'd be starting production on
Rollin' with Zach
by April at the latest and cautioned, “Don't go anywhere or do anything, because we're going to need to start shooting soon so that this show can be on the air by the fall.” But now, with April coming to a close, I still had no word on when we would begin filming, and there hadn't even been a single production meeting to talk about the timeline. I was stuck on the brink of doing something amazing. So Andrew and I ate our fro-yo and bided our time in Austin. While I was finishing up my bowl of cake batter and taro tart topped with Cap'n Crunch, Andrew proposed a novel idea: “You know, the space shuttle
Endeavour
is having its final launch in two weeks, and if nothing's happening here, I might really wanna go.”

Andrew had been a space fanatic ever since he'd seen
Apollo 13
. In grade school, he'd spend his afternoons with his other more scientifically inclined friends shooting off homemade rockets. On three separate occasions he had traveled down to Florida to watch a shuttle launch, only to have them canceled. Now, after thirty years, the US manned space shuttle program was being shut down. After this, any Americans in space would have to carpool with the Russians.

This wasn't just an opportunity to witness one of the greatest examples of American ingenuity in action, but also a chance to help my friend realize a lifelong dream. So over the next few days, we planned an epic twelve-hundred-mile road trip to Cape Canaveral that would serve as a fitting farewell to NASA's shuttle program. Andrew, my brother Brad, and my buddy Aaron loaded up into a minivan with a cooler full of Gatorade and beef jerky and we hit the road.

Our first stop was Johnson Space Center in Houston, where one of Aaron's childhood friends, Mason, worked as a NASA engineer. Aaron was the handsome, athletic type who always wore Chuck Taylors and loved Hunter S. Thompson, so I was surprised he knew people who were, you know, adults, people who had—what's it called? Oh right, careers. I'd never met a rocket scientist before and I expected them to be socially awkward geeks wearing carpal tunnel braces and nipple-high khakis. But when we arrived, a self-assured man in business casual attire came out to greet us. Mason was as chill as they come and almost as chiseled as Aaron. He printed out our official NASA guest badges, which were not just slips of paper with our names on them, but
plastic
and very official-looking. “Look at how legit this is!” Andrew said in hushed, excited tones, pinning his now most prized possession to his shirt.

When we entered NASA, we discovered that they, like me, were in a holding pattern, uncertain of when or how their next project would get off the ground. In addition to the shuttle program ending, plans for the first manned mission to Mars had just been scrapped. That explained why a multimillion-dollar spacecraft was sitting unoccupied on top of what looked like a three-story mound of dirt and rock meant to simulate the unforgiving terrain of Mars.

Normally four dudes giving a day's notice would not be able to just wander up to a Mars Rover and inspect and admire it as though it were a Nissan Leaf in a showroom. But since no one else was going to be using it for the foreseeable future, we just decided to have a poke around. Taking advantage of our VIP access, I asked Mason my most pressing question about space travel.

“Has anyone ever had sex in space?”

“I don't think so,” he shrugged, thus adding another item to my already considerable bucket list.

With everything I wanted to know about manned space travel cleared up, all eyes shifted back to the Rover. It looked like a white MechWarrior on top of monster truck wheels, with a helicopter's bubbled cockpit—something straight out of a sci-fi movie, but it was actual science. First, we watched Mason confidently drive the vehicle over a test course meant to simulate the terrain of our neighboring planet. He expertly commanded the two joysticks in the cockpit, navigating over the mountains of dirt and gravel with ease. Then he opened the doors, climbed down, and casually asked, “Do you wanna drive it?” Did we want to drive the multimillion-dollar vehicle that was designed for the maiden voyage to the harsh, unpredictable environment of the red planet? Why yes, yes we did.

I neglected to tell Mason that outside of my wheelchair, the only time I had ever driven anything was a minivan in a parking lot as part of a test to assess whether, given my horrible motor skills and lack of depth perception, I might still be able to drive a car independently one day. It was a special car with hand controls and I sat with an instructor in charge of teaching me how to man the brakes and the gas, check the mirrors, etc., etc. After never getting above ten miles an hour, but still almost hitting the Rite Aid four times, it was deemed that I was not a suitable candidate to drive any car. But sure, I would take the keys to a complex and ridiculously expensive spacecraft that only a handful of rocket scientists had driven before.

The Rover could only be started when two keys were inserted by two astronauts (or, in this case, a NASA engineer and a high school dropout whose highest degree was a Duckorate from the Disney College Program) and turned simultaneously. This is the same failsafe that they use to launch nuclear weapons. As I stared out at the man-made mountainous ground, rife with dips and craters, I thought I had a fifty-fifty shot of leaving Johnson's Space Center with the distinction of being the man who totaled the future of space travel. But with Mason's encouragement, I went full-throttle, bouncing violently up and down like I was Gary Sinese on a rescue mission. With a sudden grating sound of tearing metal, the Rover stopped cold.

“Um, did I break it?” I asked in disbelief.

“Nah, you're good,” Mason assured me, completely unfazed. Aaron, Brad, and Andrew were slightly more concerned because while the cocaptain and I had seat belts, they did not. It was the best joyride I've ever had and I only got stuck twice.

When Andrew slid behind the driver's seat for his turn, he looked like he was having the time of his life but treated the experience with a particular sense of reverence and care. By the end we realized that while it may only require two men to drive the Mars Rover, it requires four to get me out of it. My short tenure as captain of that vehicle ensured that I'd be giving Mars a five-star rating on Google Places, citing it as “pretty wheelchair accessible.” But boy, let me tell you, after the high of driving the Mars Rover, getting back into a 2005 Dodge Caravan was quite a comedown.

We hit the road again, and since Aaron had brought a Wi-Fi hotspot with him, I was able to put Facebook updates on my fan page and even post a video from the car. With no news to report about my television show, I decided to let my growing fan base know that I was still alive and no one could stop me from traveling. We made a specific Skype account for the trip, ZachInSpace. I told everyone to add me so we could video chat, and as the Louisiana swamplands raced by my window I watched a hundred screen names pop up on my laptop. Aaron drove through the night while I got to know my fans face-to-face for the first time. I talked to parents who got their young children with CP out of bed just to say hello to me, and two teenage girls even shrieked and cried like I was Justin Bieber or something.

A news report on the radio informed us that we had a new reason to rush to Florida besides the launch; several tornadoes were right in our path. Soon enough, it started to rain—not a pleasant April shower, but a harsh pelting that made the windshield look like we were going through a car wash. Brad was driving and the strong winds were making it increasingly difficult for him to stay straight on the road. I quietly suggested that we should pull over. Andrew pulled up a satellite view of the weather on his phone, which revealed that a tornado was only five miles away. Not knowing exactly what the right call was in that scenario, we decided to stop at a Dunkin' Donuts.

“You want anything?” Andrew asked as he opened the door to a wall of rain.

“Yeah, I'll take a Boston Creme,” I said, thankful to be the one traveler who got to stay dry. Ten minutes later, Aaron, Andrew, and Brad returned with doughnuts, coffee, and a box of assorted Munchkins. As Aaron switched to the driver's seat, he gave me even more reason to be grateful for doughnuts. “The guy at the counter said, ‘Yeah, you guys are lucky you came to this Dunkin' Donuts. Apparently the one in the next town over—it's just gone. It blew away!' Whelp, let's go!” he concluded, putting the key in the ignition and heading to the Sunshine State by way of apocalyptic storm.

We finally got to Florida the day before
Endeavour
was supposed to launch. To the rest of the world, it was the day before the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Andrew's girlfriend, Christina, had flown all the way from Boston to be in Florida for the launch with us and we picked her up at the airport before checking in at our hotel in Kissimmee.

We spent the day before the launch the way any adults preparing to witness history would—by fighting grade-schoolers for turns on our hotel's water-park slides and going to Cici's Pizza Buffet. Reluctantly, we turned in early, knowing we wouldn't be able to get a full night's sleep if we wanted to have a good viewing spot for the launch.
Endeavour
was supposed to take off at exactly 7:05 in the morning, and to compete with the thousands of other wannabe astronauts, we'd have to get there at 4:00 a.m. Luckily, the duration of time I'd have to be awake to witness this marvel of modern science was, all told, about a minute and a half.

In the wee hours before we headed to Cape Canaveral, Andrew was constantly checking the NASA Web site for updates. He knew better than anyone that even the slightest change in weather or the smallest mechanical malfunction could debunk the whole thing. For as many launches as
Endeavour
had endured, space travel was never something that was taken lightly. When you're sitting on millions of tons of rocket fuel and leaving the planet's atmosphere, any hiccup can be catastrophic. But as we loaded back into the Caravan, all signs pointed to a perfect day for a launch.

We arrived before dawn but were led by a processional of taillights through acres of tall, swampy grass. It didn't seem like a prime viewing area for anything other than a swarm of mosquitoes, but on this day, to be an audience among the bugs cost thirty dollars. We peered out across the water, and through the fog we saw
Endeavour
. “Is that it?” I asked. From our distance, I could block out the entire thing with my pinkie. It looked like the kind of tiny rocket you used to win at the end of a marginally good game of Tetris.

“Well, can't get any better than this!” Andrew said. Through the stereos of other onlookers who'd tuned to NASA radio, we were able to hear the technicians going over every detail of launch prep. To Andrew, this was fascinating. To me, it was like one of those
Sounds of Nature
CDs where loons or playful dolphins soothe you to sleep. The crowd had young people who had waited their entire lives to see this event, sitting alongside old people who'd been to every shuttle launch since the program started. In the middle of these superfans, there was me, struggling to stay awake and trying in vain not to drool on my shirt. As I saw the sun peeking over the horizon, my eyelids got too heavy and I conked out. When I awoke, the sun had taken the chill out of the air, but something else had taken the excitement out of it. I recognized the familiar sounds of people folding up their lawn chairs and packing up coolers, and out of the corner of my sleepiness I heard Andrew say, “The launch has been scrubbed.”

“What?” I said, trying to sound engaged as I worked my way back into consciousness. The first thing I noticed was Aaron's camera in my face as he confirmed that he had some great footage of me drooling with my mouth open. “That sucks,” I muttered. I wasn't awake enough to be coherently concerned, but I tried to string together a sentence. “You mean they're not going to try to launch the shuttle at all today?”

“Yep,” Andrew said, genuinely disappointed. “No launch till Wednesday at the earliest.” Once again, we were in limbo, waiting on forces beyond our control to give us the green light.

“Shit!” I said, finally coming to and jumping into cheerleader mode. “This is what I say we do. First, we go get milk shakes and regroup. Then, we go to a hobby store, buy a model rocket, and launch it ourselves. Show NASA how it's done—a shuttle rebuttal! Twenty Aught 'Leven!” It was settled. We'd head back to the hotel, deal with our grief, and start planning our own trip to space via toy rocket.

Without a clear date scheduled for the relaunch, we decided to wait out the delay at my grandparents' house in Sumter, South Carolina. If NASA couldn't deliver from Cape Canaveral, my grandpa's backyard would have to do. But before we left Florida, we made a stop at the Kennedy Space Center to take a tour. As we made our way up to the observation deck, we could see
Endeavour
sitting on the launchpad. It stood there, facing the sky, towering over everything, but for the moment relegated to doing nothing. I'd never felt such kinship with an inanimate object before. As we passed through hallways filled with plaques commemorating all the astronauts who'd participated in the shuttle missions and stopped at memorials for those who'd lost their lives in the
Challenger
and
Columbia
disasters, I found a new respect for the individuals who had risked everything just to explore.