652189 external_news 1635436298 1635436298 <![CDATA[Rockets, Labradors, and Lowcountry Shrimp]]> If you stand on top of the marinas of Kilkenny, Georgia, and squint beyond the dolphins, over the black soil and green grass, past new leaves nudging through those of last year, across Coastal Georgia’s Sea Islands — Wassaw, Ossabaw, St. Catherines, and Sapelo — you may catch a spaceship sailing through the mellow Atlantic dawn.

Ron Sattele, a longtime resident of Kilkenny, showed me a video he took with his smartphone, back when the SpaceX Crew Dragon was catapulted from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station in April: the Falcon 9 rocket started off tracing a gentle arc from the bottom right of the screen to the center. The first stage detached midway, forming a hump-shaped vapor trail as it landed vertically on a designated site. 

The historic launch was in plain sight of coastal Georgians like him. Kilkenny is no longer a quaint seaside village, and it does not want to be, but there is much to learn about adapting, surviving, and maintaining its character in a rapidly changing world.

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