4 posts tagged “shuttle launch”
The Discovery launch was fantastic! I've watched launches from my yard and workplaces for almost 20 years now but nothing compares to being seven miles away, just across the water and seeing it lift off. I was awestruck. It made me cry... Here's a very nice image of the lift off from NASA. Once we get the video off of the camera I will post it here. The day couldn't have turned out better for a launch. The skies were clear, only wisps of clouds. It was bloody hot, but we brought chairs and sunscreen and lots of water.
The observation site isn't as bad as I had feared. Porto-potties are never great, but at least there was something and they did have hand washing stations, which I didn't expect. They had also set up some tents with seating underneath, but obviously not enough for everyone. Then they had several drink carts and tents with hamburgers, hotdogs, drinks and snacks. We weren't interested in braving the food, though. The hamburgers we got from one of the carts back at the visitor's center was so revolting that I'll never be able to eat one again.
The new IMAX movie they're showing at the visitor's center is very good as well, though, you know, it's a little disconcerting to listen to Tom Cruise narrate about the joys of three men crammed into a small cockpit together... ah, nevermind. Anyway, the new movie is about the building of the International Space Station, filmed largely by the astronauts aboard the station and out on their spacewalks. It was just beautiful. We just had a really great day.
Tomorrow we're heading back down to Kennedy Space Center to watch another shuttle launch, STS-124 with Discovery. Here's hoping for good weather all the day, as these late afternoon launches are often subject to Florida's regular as clockwork afternoon thunderstorms. Also, here's hoping we don't return home with another bizarre illness!
This time we are taking the tour bus out to one of the viewing sites nearer to the launch pad, so we should have a much better chance of actually seeing something this time... Woot! We'll probably try to take some video again with our crappy little camera, which I will dutifully post despite the crappiness which may ensue.
And, just for fun, here is some nifty information about Discovery's history.
Enjoy!
We are well recovered from the hospital incident now, but have been struggling to get back on top of the work and school that we missed while we were otherwise occupied. We also took a lovely weekend of our spring break from community college (UCF spring break was... well, actually, was the week I was in the hospital... fun!) to go to St. Augustine to visit with my Dad and stepmom, but also to chill and get romantical. We had a very, very good time.
Soooo.... the good news is that I may not have to repeat Physics over the summer after all. We finally got back test number two, on which I got a "D" (as expected), but The Best News Ever is that I actually managed a "B" on test number three. Cosmic balance, or something like that. This was largely due to a lovely bit of unexpected extra credit, but I actually successfully completed the problem that gave the extra credit - even though it was the type of problem that generally frustrates me to no end and makes me quit halfway through. So, now I must just survive one more test and a multiple choice final exam, which is to be drawn from a pool of the quiz questions we have been doing all of this time. Additionally I have not quite a week between my last UCF final exam and the Physics final to prepare. I just have to manage a "C" overall for it to count for my minor...whew!
Next I just have to find out if I will be allowed to take Astronomy and the lab at yet another community college instead of UCF. One of the frustrations of UCF, or at least the Astronomy minor at UCF, is that apparently no one is interested in teaching the lab part of AST 2002, even though it is one of the required choices for the minor. The other choice is to take the Physics II lab - and therefore Physics II. Not my first choice, naturally. Besides, I really want to take the Astronomy lab. At any rate, if I can, I'll take AST 2002 plus lab at Seminole Community College and have it transfer to UCF so that I can continue with the rest of the Astronomy minor. I hope.
Final note, tickets for another shuttle launch are going on sale soon... Monday, I believe. We are going to try to get tickets again, and this time it will be a daylight launch. It is very hard to get tickets for daytime launches though. They tend to sell out within a matter of seconds, probably because some scalper is buying up large blocks of tickets. We have yet to be fast enough over either internet or phone to score daytime launch tickets. Night launches are apparently much easier to acquire, probably because few people are mad enough to hang around until 3 or 4 am and then drive home in heavy traffic while exhausted. Wimps.
We're just about to head off to the space center for the middle of the bloody night launch of Endeavour. I'm very excited. Despite living in Central Florida for 30 years, I have not yet been to a shuttle launch. Well, we tried to go to one last summer, but it was canceled for lightning. Please don't scrub! Well, you know, unless there's a reason to.... But, the weather is supposed to be perfect tonight. Woot!
Update: Here's our video of the launch - not much to see, thanks to some late night cloud cover. Drat... More info later.
