This is a longer than normal post… you can click on pix to see larger views, and there will be links to galleries at the end… grab your favorite hot or cold beverage of choice and hang on for a fun ride!

I had the unique privilege last week to be invited down by NASA to participate in taking tours, meeting with various NASA Staff, and viewing the FINAL launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.  It’s been a few days since I got back home, and I still can’t shake the awesomeness of seeing what I saw over the 2 day period @ Kennedy Space Center.

There was a group of 150 of us brought together – Space Geeks and IT Nerds mainly – to participate in a “Tweetup” where we would engage in the “new media” methods and processes to spread in word and pictures the story of this last flight of the Atlantis, and the 1st of the final 3 Shuttle flights ever…

We arrived on L-1 (one day from launch in NASA speak) miles outside the security gates at the press credentials building to pickup our badges and info kits and directions to the next place to go… thru Gate 2, and more miles up the road to the immense VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) and turn there to the press area for more badge checks and directions to next place…  Once parked and resisting the urge to skip the rest of the way, I stopped and soaked in just where I was and what was going to happen soon… off to the right of me are the press buildings for news outlets like CBS, etc and to the left of me is the countdown clock.  so I walk over to the clock, which is HUGE and touch it.  No alarms go off, no men with guns show up, in fact a few others are doing the same.  We look at each other, smile, make comments, and head to the tent setup for us over the next few days.

Inside the tent, it’s setup with screens surrounding a podium and dozens of tables with a large power strip in the middle of each and 8 wireless access points strapped to the top poles giving us nerds and geeks the power and connectivity we need!  People start gathering at tables, introducing ourselves and forming friendships right away – strangers with so much in common.

The morning kicks off with speakers giving us their points of view on their job and the future of space exploration and what we can do to help… Q&A followed giving us the ability to go past the prepared messages and find out answers to burning questions like “is there room for us to squeeze in the shuttle tomorrow”
We heard from an enjoyable variety of speakers in the morning:
  • Robert “Bobby” Braun – Chief Technologist for NASA, hit a home run with the intro and answers to sometimes challenging questions raised in the kick-off of the event. Touching on the new things in development and consideration for NASA’s next steps post-shuttle.
  • Janice Voss – Astronaut on 5 Shuttle missions, MIT Grad, logged over 49 days in space traveling 18.8 million miles in 779 Earth orbits. wow…  When asked what her favorite memory from being in space was, she quipped “looking down seeing the cities and realizing everyone I love is down there… stuck in traffic!”
  • Stephanie Stilson – Space Shuttle Orbiter Processing Director (Discovery)  She is responsible for the team of over 1,000 people that get the orbiter and parts ready for the next launch after landing.  The shear amount of logistics is staggering.  Many fun “inside stories” shared about the friendly competition and rivalry between the orbiter teams.
  • Jon Cowart – NASA engineer and one of the most engaging speakers, let alone space geeks I’ve heard in a long time… many of us around the room starting a “get Jon to speak to Congress” movement.  Fascinating talk and ability to make common sense of techno-babble…
  • Ron Woods – Equipment Specialist – been with NASA since Apollo days.  He brought actual space suit parts, and had the courage to let them be passed around and handled by us – oh what a trusting man…

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We walked over for lunch, next to the VAB – which as I mentioned before is HUGE!!! you cannot grasp the scale of the building in the pictures, it’s one of the worlds largest buildings by volume, and has it’s own weather inside – it can RAIN in there!  While we joked about getting “Space Burgers” and “Rocket Dogs” it was pretty typical cafeteria fair.  Time to walk back, each of us in small groups chattering on about things we’ve heard thus far and what we’re going to do next

We get on some busses, of course throwing rivalry in the mix, making the twitter timeline for a bit flood with “Bus one is the best!”, “Bus 3 is the party bus” and so on… We split up with some of us going to the Saturn V Center and others to the ISS buildings 1st.  In the ISS (International Space Station) building we saw the clean room where they prep the various modules and experiments that will be carried up to the station by the shuttles… a massive complex in it’s own right.  The Saturn V center is where they house a “Live” Saturn V rocket system that was literally being prepared for launch before Congress told NASA to stop it…  they moved the launch room, created some cool movies to put you “there” for a launch, and then open the doors to dump us right UNDER the nozzles of the rocket… goosebumps and cameras… click click click…

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Final stop for L-1 events was to head over to Pad 39-A and get as close as you can get to the Shuttle on the pad without being on the gantry crew itself!  The bus caravan pulled into a little “do not cross” taped off area and let us all out, many cameras already clicking away.  The orbiter was still hidden by the service structure used to prep and work on the cargo bay and we were there on time to watch them pull it back out of the way.  Fired off a lot of shots getting the feel for the lens and the best settings to combat the horrid light (very harsh and low on the horizon).  Slowly without much warning the huge structure began to rotate away revealing the Shuttle Atlantis in it’s pre-launch glory…  click click click click…  Still many of us remarking to each other how cool this is to be THIS close.  Florida sun starting to really heat us up as we stand there watching – who cares we’ll shower later!  click click click…

After about 30 mins or so the rotation is complete and we snap off a few group shots with the pad in the background, and board the bus to head back to the tent to gather things up for the day.  They gathered us up in our group, took one of those “Where’s Waldo” shots – I’m kneeling in the front row on the right… big white spot/shirt…

We’re told that the engines are so powerful that their vibrations generate enough force and sound pressure to shatter concrete… OK, so we’ll stay a little farther back tomorrow at launch, I understand…

As the bus starts pulling away, all of us still eyes glued on the Pad, we reach a spot with a perfect back-on shot of the shuttle on the pad… we’re all asking the driver to stop and people are diving for spots near the windows to take that one last “perfect” shot… click click click… then we realize how this must look everyone literally on top of each other like a massive “twister” game, laughing as we untangle and start comparing shots on the tiny little camera screens…  oh what fun!

Get back to the tent, gather the stuff, get final words of instruction for L-0 and head out… Calling it a night…

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Could hardly sleep that night, excited like a kid on Christmas Eve trying to sleep…  Get up, grab breakfast with a new tweet-up friend staying in the same hotel (JD Andrews), and we head up the road to KSC for “L-0″.

A lot more people out this morning… lining the roads already as we get closer and closer to the NASA gates.  As we walk to the tent, there are also lots more press around today setting up, dozens of microwave and satellite trucks, the press buildings teaming with people.  The countdown clock locked into the traditional 3 hour hold, and we assemble for another group shot around the clock, NASA photog Paul Alers doing his best to keep us all behaved and still for the shot – like herding cats…  (I’m a few people in from the clock in the back row)

We slowly peel away from the clock and the bustle of activity outside and head into to tent to hear from another fun round of speakers while we await “the moment”

  • Lori Garver – NASA Deputy Director – made the case for moving forward and developing new technologies and innovations that will bring our space program into the next decade.
  • Patrick Barrett – Weather Officer who gave us all the possible weather reasons why a mission would be scrubbed… not a fun topic considering the day, but good times!
  • Chris Meinert -STS-132 Closeout crew – He came over to talk with us right after closing the hatch on the orbiter sealing in the Astronauts.  Gave a very emotional remembrance of the crew of STS-107 Columbia that he was the last one here on earth to see in person.
  • Madi Sengupta – Johnson Space Center Space Station Robotics instructor – trains the ‘nauts on using the arm on the shuttle.
  • and Bobby Braun came back for another round of questions. Yay!

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The best-est part of all the speakers, was they genuinely wanted to be there with us, to talk with us – not “at” us… they engaged in conversation, answered questions, and hung out… Astronaut Dave Wolf stopped by and spent a long time chatting and walking around answering questions and giving us lots to tweet about… real deal “Right Stuff”

Part way thru the morning, they announced the Astronauts were loading up into the transport van and were going to stop by outside the VAB for us to wave and wish them luck – a tradition of sorts… so we grab gear and go walking quickly towards the spot… helicopter hovers overhead, Armored security vehicles surrounding the transport, escort cars… and Ta-Da!  Here they are!  Godspeed!!

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At L-0, T-Minus 2 minutes, there was not an open patch of grass in the press area or the water’s edge nearby that did not have a person or tripod in it… I had found a small patch of ground to setup in with what I considered a good shot angle, and prepped my iPhone to record audio, put the Camera with 400mm lens on the tripod with the grip head and – once again – told God THANK YOU for what we were about to watch and experience…  T-Minus 30 seconds, click off a couple of test shots to make sure stuff still works, look down to make sure I am not stepping on the iPhone and it’s still recording….  T-minus 16 seconds – this is when launch pad is being flooded with water to protect the shuttle and the pad from the massive amount of acoustical energy from the engines and boosters…

Now T-Minus 10 seconds – OH MY GOSH THIS IS COOL – reframe the shot in the viewfinder for the 1,000th time… finger poised on the shutter release…  Breathe in, breathe out… breathe in, breathe out…   Excitement in the air feels like static electricity…  ”BLING!!” Big flash of light at the pad, everyone around me going “WOHOOOO” and mash down the button on the camera with the right hand and releasing the grip head with the left to allow fluid tracking as this spaceship’s engines turn that swimming pool of water into a massive side shot of steam clouds… plumes of smoke and fire are visible now as the craft slowly lifts up and away… BOOM – the sound pressure wave hits… the loudest thing you have heard, crackling, rumbling and rocking to the BONE!!… click click click click click click click…. Sound pressure even where we were is incredible, the ground shakes…  and as fast as the camera could keep up with the shots I was taking and tracking…  The rumbling and feeling lessening as the shuttle gained altitude, but the unforgettable sound still there….  click click click click click click…. leaning the tripod back on 2 legs as I reach the limit of the grip head rotation…. click click click click… bright white exhaust trail on a deep blue cloudless sky, tiny bright yellow spot of the engines getting dimmer and dimmer as the shuttle gets closer and closer to “home” of earth orbit…

Heart pounding… body tingling… hands shaking… eyes getting this strange salty watery discharge welling up in them… walking briskly back to the Tweetup Tent or “Twent” as we called it so I could get these pictures off the camera and into the laptop/twitter-sphere… quickly pick a couple of shots of of the 100s shot in 4 minutes…  Giddy excitement from the guys and gals around the tables nearby as we all were still “in the moment” and watching the large screens scattered around the front of the tent showing the NASA TV shots of the rest that our gear could never pickup…  ”THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME!” is heard all over the tent…  While not “Walter Cronkite” kind of reporting, that’s the kind of tweeting and new media verbiage going out…  Traditional news outlets are in the tent now interviewing some of us about what we saw and how we’re “reporting it” – CNN, MSNBC, Local Outlets, etc…

We watch the rest of the flight and initial orbit on the large screens, trading pictures and email addresses, and not wanting this moment to be over…  Finding as many of the NASA folks still in the tent and shaking their hands in thanks… Many plans for things to do after are made among various groups and some even promise to help take down the tent later if they won’t make us go home…  Most decided to hit the Visitor Center to let the massive crowd and traffic out on the roads outside the Cape disperse…  We all kept our badges and credentials on, badge of honor – or nerdness – but it doesn’t matter at this point.  We just watched the Shuttle Launch closer than most people ever will!  There were various after-parties scattered around the area and some even over at Disney World where quite a few ended up staying.  Memories, friendships, experiences and being part of history all made with 150 online strangers via technology, a shared love for space, and a bond that is hard to put into words.  Thank you God! Thank you NASA! (Stephanie, Beth, John, Kelly and so many others!), and thanks to my family for letting me go! <grin>

If you’re not a space-nerd or don’t think the expense of the space program is justified, consider this – NASA is also studying EARTH from space. Our home…  the planet’s environment, atmosphere, weather patterns, and developing and refining technology that will help us to take better care of our planet as good stewards should.

I’m a huge NASA fan and I’ll miss the shuttle program, but after seeing what’s on the horizon, and the unbridled enthusiasm the family at NASA has to get started on new/next things, I can’t wait to see what we come up with next!

There are a lot more pictures, especially of the RSS/Pad-39A and the Liftoff itself… here are some links to more pictures from the event – enjoy!!

© Gallery – STS132 Tweetup Day 1

© Gallery – STS132 Launchpad 39A

© Gallery – STS132 Tweetup Day 2

© Gallery – STS132 – Liftoff

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