This is a blog post about my obsession with following space exploration activities. Originally I had my collection of web links here at the top, but in March 2009 I moved them to a separate post. Below is a chronicle of my history of my obsession, and our trip (ultimately unfruitful) down to Florida in December 2007 to see a Space Shuttle launch.
A Brief History Of My Obsession
I have been following the space shuttle program since the maiden voyage in 1981. I was listening live when Challenger exploded that day in 1986, and was watching the control room on NASA TV when Columbia burned up on entry that Saturday morning a few years ago. And countless other more minor events, such as launch sequence aborts, engine shutdowns during ascent, etc. So when I watch a countdown and launch, I see the milestones of history passing by. T-31 seconds, that's when the GLS handover happens and the count used to abort there sometimes. T-3 seconds, that's when the computers may decide that the engines haven't ignited properly and it shuts them down (before launch). T+72 seconds, that's when the SRB seal burnthrough finally ignited Challenger's tank. T+120 seconds, that's when the SRB firecrackers burn out, and the shuttle has made it out of the soupy atmosphere, and the worst of the launch risks are behind us, including the foam impacts that doomed Columbia. So a launch is exciting but also sobering since I am reminded of so much as it races through the process.
In 26 years of following the program, I've never actually seen a launch. Back in high school, I think the summer after we graduated, my friend Steve Krill and I flew down to Florida (on People Express!), stayed at his aunt's vacant condo in Jupiter FL, and intended to drive up to KSC the next morning to see the launch. We overslept! We woke up 30 minutes before launch, jumped in the car and started driving, and 2 minutes before launch we steered over to the beach and watched from afar, still about 30 miles away.
Dec 2007 trip to Florida
So earlier this month Sharon and I drove down to Florida to see the launch of Atlantis, scheduled for Thursday Dec 6th at 4:30pm. I had access to the media viewing area, which at 3 miles from the pad is about as close as anyone can get! Except, of course, for the 7 guys strapped into the thing at the pad. .... 
Alas, I couldn't get Sharon in so she'd be back at the KSC Visitors Center with the unwashed masses, about 8 miles away. The first photo shown here is of the big countdown clock that you see on TV -- that's where I would see the launch from, and I took that photo of the clock up close (note the annoyed heron in the background, lower right corner).
So, continuing the concept of my years of fanboy experience informing my viewing of the launch, I knew that getting the shuttle through tanking was a notable milestone in the countdown sequence. I remember STS-114 (the RTF mission) when those ECO sensors just drove them nuts with their fickle behavior. they did eventually get that mission off the pad, of course, but not until 3 weeks of hair pulling had passed. And several launches since then had gone without a peep from the ECO sensors. But I still knew that it was there, an experience from history to worry about.
We woke up on Thursday morning and I caught up on the countdown status as we got ready to head to KSC. I wanted to see them get through the tanking before we headed in. And at that moment, the ECO sensors had once again reared their ugly cryogenics heads, and our launch was scrubbed for the day.
Which turned into 2 days, and then 3. NASA came up with a justification for attempting again on Sunday, but that failed too with the same problem. And so the whole thing was scrubbed for the month. As I type this, a week later, NASA believes they've found the problem and they're getting ready to try to launch again starting on Jan 10th. I don't think I'm going to be able to get back down there for that attempt, but I'll admit that I've been thinking "an 8 hour drive isn't so hard, I can zip down and zip back, and only miss a day or so of work, or none at all if it's on the weekend!" I dunno ... it's so hard to catch up again after being out of town ...
[update Feb 2007: I got within one day of being able to head back down to FL to view the STS-122 launch, but alas it launched on time. Maybe next winter!]
So, back to the Florida trip just completed, we made the best of it and did a couple touristy things at Kennedy and then visited Sharon's parents. At Kennedy we did the Up Close tour, which is a step up from the basic bus tour that comes with KSC admission, and takes you on a two-hour guided tour of several places:
- the International Space Station center, where we could see the modules ready to go up to the ISS on future missions (they also have a little museum area that has mockups of the modules, and that's where I staged the goofy photo of me pretending to work in the Harmony Node above)
- the causeway and a panaromic view of all the launchpads, including the Atlas and Delta pads
- just outside the VAB, where you can see the soaring birds lazily circling alongside, catching thermals off the vast sides of the building (no visit inside though)
- the Shuttle Landing Facility, where a astronaut-polited T-38 zipped by
- the closest you can get to the shuttle pads, both 39A and 39B, by way of a visit to the "A/B Camera Stop"
We didn't get to do the last one (the pad visit) because of the impending launch. And frankly I was a little underwhelmed by the tour, especially when I saw that regular tourists can get to the ISS center from the Saturn V site by bus. I was expecting to get a peek into an OPF, or at least a stop at one. Afterwards they left us at the new Saturn V building, where Sharon and I did the fun floating-in-space photo that you see here.
The other tour is called "Cape Canaveral: Then and Now" and takes you off in the direction of the old launch pads and the Air Force Space and Missile Museum.
Update: In March 2009 I went down again and was able to finally see a launch!
In Jan 2005, NASA's Cassini probe arrived at Saturn and deployed the Huygens probe to descend into Titan's murky atmosphere. The probe was designed to only last a couple hours, long enough to parachute slowly down through the atmosphere, hopefully survive the impact on the ground, and then report what it saw at the surface. After months of analyzing the results, the scientists released these two astounding videos showing what this strange world looked like.
1. This video collects the actual pictures that were taken by Huygens during the descent and creates a virtual movie out of them. With narration describing the descent, you should first watch this video to get a sense of what was happening during the descent, and then continue to the real killer item below.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/video-details.cfm?videoID=127
2. This is an absolutely incredible view of all of the data that came back from Huygens during the descent. You can watch it all the way through and still not fully absorb all the types of information it is presenting to you. Truly a tour de force in scientific data visualization, and possibly the most amazing video I've ever seen in my life.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/video-details.cfm?videoID=126
A more complete collection of results from the mission can be found at their CHARM site -- "Cassini-Huygens Analysis and Results from the Misson". You'll find a series of PDF slideshows that summarize what they've learned about the Saturnian system, and the presentations are frankly breathtaking in how beautifully they present the data and the new questions that have arisen.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/products/CHARM.cfm
Posted by: Chris C. | February 13, 2008 at 04:31 PM