The Think Tank

** Note: I made several posts about our trip to Florida while it was happening, but those were mostly submitted via my phone and only told a part of the story.  This is meant to provide you with the full story, including some details and funny bits which never made it into the previous posts.  I hope you enjoy it…  **

Joel and I have always wanted to see a Space Shuttle launch.  A couple years ago when NASA announced they would be retiring the Shuttle program, we decided that we were going to go see one of them.  As the remaining missions dwindled, we had yet to follow through on our dream.  But that all changed in the middle of January.

With a mere 5 launches left on the schedule we realized that it was now or never.  We heard from several people that if you could only see one launch in your life it should be a night launch, and the February 9th launch for mission STS-130 was the last night launch on the schedule, so that was our target.

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It was chilly and wet in the morning

Joel and I took part in the Worst Day of the Year Ride, the second largest organized ride in Oregon.  It is so named because statistically speaking the middle of February is when the worst day of the year occurs, but despite that mathematical fact, the previous 8 rides have all taken place under blue skies with temps in the 50’s.

This was my first year taking part in the ride, and of course, it is also the first year that it has rained.  Go figure.  Fortunately it didn’t rain terribly hard or for very long, probably only the first hour or so, then it dried out.  By mid-afternoon the sun even made a cameo appearance.

I left my house around 7:30 and rode over to Joel’s house, where we met up and rode down by the Rose Garden, along the East Side Esplinade and then to the start line .  Our registration also paid for food and drinks at all of the many rest stops, including doughnuts and coffee/tea/cocoa here at the start line.

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Here is video from the shuttle launch!  I warn you, this is a little bit PG-13.

Joel started recording at T-60 seconds.  Be sure to turn the volume up because you can hear the NASA TV announcer calling out the progress as well as communication between Launch Control and Endeavour.  (I apologize for the generator motor.  The noise is irritating but you can still hear everything.  It’s funny, I don’t remember hearing it at all in the moment).

You can see the full size version by going here.

Here are a couple of my favorite pics from last night.  I haven’t really had a chance to look at all of them yet, but I will be doing that this afternoon and hopefully will be able to get them up tonight.  But, we are on our way down to the Keys so I may wind up being distracted tonight.  I figured some of you might want to see at least a couple of the pictures, so I thought I should put a few up right now.

Update:

All of the launch pics are now up on the Gallery page.  You can get there by clicking on “Think Tank Gallery” in the Page List (upper right corner), or by clicking on one of the images on this post.

Well, we are back in line for the shuttle launch tonight. It did not make sense for us to drive 3 hours back to Saint Petersberg just so we could turn around and drive 3 hours back to the Cape, so we stayed in a little dive motel in Titusville. We ate breakfast after the launch – barely able to stay awake – while our room was being cleaned, then we slept the day away. We didn’t get up and moving until 5pm. We went to a nearby sports bar and watched the Saints whoop on the Colts, then we came back to Kennedy Space Center for attempt #2 for this launch.

What a different experience: last night there were approximately 10,000 people on 200+ busses. Tonight there is not even a quarter of that. It’s nuts. For contrast, the picture above was taken tonight, the one at right was taken last night. Last might we were standing where tonights shot is facing, and we had thousands of people behind us.

I will be trying to post the rest of the pics tonight, these are all from my phone so far.

Launch Status:

As of now they Are predicting a 60% chance of successful launch. Right now it is clear skies, but there is a cloud bank moving in. We’ll just have to wait and see…

Update, 12:33:

We are in line for the 4th bus, 4 better than yesterday. No tech issues and weather is “go” as of now.

Update, 2:08am:

We are around T-1:00 hour and the weather conditions are currently “red” but the weather officer is optimistic for “green” conditions in the launch window.

On an up note, we managed to sneak in 4 beers, which was better than last night: we had a six pack of Guinness and a bottle Belvanie confiscated at the gate.

Update, t-9 and holding:

All weather conditions are go at KSC, and the prediction is that this will continue. Now the problem is the emergency landing sites in Europe. All three of them are “no-go” right now. We need one to be green in order to launch.

Update, T-9 and counting:

We are Go For Flight!!!! It’s time to go flying!!

Update, 4:25am:

Shuttle Endeavour launched successfully tonight carrying six astronauts into orbit. What an incredible sight!! Everyone is right, there’s nothing like it!

I’ll upload pics and video tomorrow.