Arrived at ksc

I am for 2 hours now inside ksc. The weather currently is not so well, some rain and clouds. But lets hope for the best. We just finished lunch with an astronaut, which was a good experience. During the lunch Space Shuttle Astronaut Bob Springer talked about his space experience. A very friendly and caring guy, who also took quite some time answering questions individually.

Me and Family with Shuttle Astronaut Bob Springer

I am reporting now from a pda, for which i unfortunately just now lost the stylus.

to launch … or not to launch ;)

Today was a quite good day. The weather was OK, with lots of clouds in the morning and only very few ones in the evening. No rain at KSC, but there would have been too many clouds if it were a launch day.

The Internet connectivity in the Super 8 Titusville where I managed to stay is even worse than expected, my room seems to be too far away from the wi-fi hotspot. So I’ll be brief with this post.

The bad thing this morning was that the Up Close tour was sold out, so we had to go for the regular program. But not that bad at all.

The cool thing of the days was that I actually met Armando (a frequent commenter on this blog) in person. Out of the sudden, he spotted my at Saturn V center. Armando, it was really great talking to you!

NASA so far sticks with tomorrows launch date. The constraint is still the weather. NASA officially says that there is a 60 percent chance that the launch will be scrubbed. On spaceflightnow.com, however, a knowledgeable meteorologist just said that he’d give a 80 percent chance for a launch. His data was probably more current, so I stick to his point of view.

I’ll need to get up by 3a tomorrow (yeah, that’s in roughly 6 hours) as we booked “Breakfast with an Astronaut” and the breakfast is scheduled for 5:30a. So don’t expect an early morning post from me. I’ll try to post via my cell phone from KSC, but I do not know if I get coverage (at the hotel, it looked bad).

Stay tuned … and cross your fingers, please ;)

only the weather seems to be the constraint

I was to Orlando’ attractions today, so I think I just quote NASA’s shuttle home page for now:

At the STS-120 Launch Readiness News Conference Sunday morning, LeRoy Cain, launch integration manager, pointed to the weather as the only question mark for the launch week ahead. He reported all is “ready to move forward to launch on Tuesday.”

Weather officer Kathy Winters called Tuesday’s weather “promising” at 60 percent favorable. She explained that they continue tracking a frontal boundary that may now arrive on Wednesday, earlier than previously predicted. The front should be out in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, but the timing of the front’s arrival could cause problems for a Wednesday launch attempt should Tuesday’s launch not occur. Weather should improve once the front passes through the area. There is still only a 10 percent chance that weather could prohibit tanking for Tuesday’s liftoff.

That’s excellent news. The weather, however, seems to be a problem. Again, we had rain over here in Orlando and so it looks like viewing the launch becomes a betting game. We’ll see.

I’ll drive over to Titusville tomorrow and try to catch Kennedy Space Center’s “up close” tour. I hope the weather is well enough so that we can really see something.

Pam Melroy found the right words…

I though this excellent quote was left, as I didn’t see it on NASA Space Shuttle homepage. This morning I saw I had kept a browser open. So here the quote is:

“There’s something special about showing up in Florida,” said Commander Pam Melroy. “There’s a time when you need to talk, and the Flight Readiness Review was a time to talk. Then there’s a time when you need to go do it. And I’m happy to say we’re really here, and ready to go do it.”

In my opinion, these words actually tell everything that is needed to be known ;)

countdown started

As scheduled, the countdown for STS-120 started today at 2pm EDT in Kennedy Space Center. All systems are still go and it looks like we have an on-time launch — weather permitting.

I visited Seaworld Orlando today and have booked a trip to Discovery Cove tomorrow. So I am currently not following STS-120 in depth. That’ll change Monday, when I drive over to Kennedy Space Center.

Today, we had big clouds over Orlando. I hope the weather in Kennedy Space Center will be better on launch day. Else we probably have a scrub. Anyhow, let’s see how it evolves…

arrived well…

Just a quick note: we arrived well yesterday and are currently staying in the Orlando Residence Inn. We just got up (struggeling with the jet lag) and will have breakfast. More news probably this evening.

Two hours into flight …

If I had boarded a space shuttle, I would already been in orbit for quite a while. But, nah, I am sitting in a good ole Boing 767 on my way to Florida. And I try to be a little less bored by hammering my poor pda keyboard (no, the laptop is with my son for movie viewing).

The plane doesn't offer Internet service, so this post will probably take a while to actually show up on the blog. I need a wlan hotspot (free, of course) to send the post mail. Good that I have my own hotspot with me. If I write more posts, they may show up mixed up and not in order of creation – so don't wonder too much.

The really cool thing is that I got a different plane very quickly – we started just one hour delayed. Nd what is even cooler is that the pilot will fly faster (probably to save theschedule) and we so we actually should arrive at the originally scheduled time.

In essence, I have just exchanged one hour of flight time for one hour of being able to roam at he airport – not a bad thing ;)

If all issues during my trip can be as simply fixed as this plane problem, I'll probably have a great time.

Well, enough for now… another 7+ hours of flight time ahead of me …

Not only shuttles have technical problems…

I am right now sitting at Frankfurt airport and, guess what: the gangway was just rolled back from the plane. We were told that an engine problem was discovered during system checks… Lol – isn't that a good start for a shuttle launch viewing trip? ;) The delay, we were promised, will only be short (but do I trust that?). We'll see…

Now back to blogging silence.

My personal “launch” day…

The plane I flew with to the USA in 2006Well, not a real launch… My plane will “launch” tomorrow (Friday) from Germany to Orlando, Florida. Not within a few minutes, but a more than 10 hour flight. But, hey, isn’t a shuttle launch worth that? ;)

This is probably my last post for the next day or so.
When I arrive in Orlando, it will be late in the evening and I’ll head to the hotel to have a good night’s sleep. The next morning, me and my family will get a bit acquainted to Orlando’s attractions. I do not know how long it will take me to get my notebook and everything else back online … and how long it will take to get some time off for blogging from my family. So please bear with me if it will take a little while before there are new entries here in the blog. I promise I’ll keep you informed.

And please keep your fingers crossed for me that everything goes well on my trip ;)

Launch Viewing from Kennedy Space Center’s Main Visitor Complex

Kennedy Space Center's main Visitor Complex is set for a launch dayI intended to write a longer post on viewing from Kennedy Space Center‘s main visitor complex (not the causeway. Unfortunately, it was an unexpectedly busy day, so I simply ran out of time. However, I’d still like to provide some information for my fellow launch viewers.

In short: viewing from Kennedy Space Centers’s main visitor complex is not as bad as you may think. Granted, the view is obstructed, and you won’t see the (exciting) first seconds of the launch. However, there are lots of activities scheduled at the center on launch days. There are kid’s activities, special astronaut encounters and much more (at least this is promised by KSC, but I am confident they live up to the promise). Compare that to waiting hours on a parking lot – especially when traveling with your family. So viewing from KSC’s main complex is probably worth considering – especially if you have other opportunities to view launches (e.g. if you live relatively close to Titusville). For the greatest view, you should try to obtain launch transportation tickets at a later launch. If you just have one time and did not get launch transportation tickets, you may consider purchasing those NASA causeway tickets via official tour operators.

To get you an impression of what a launch looks like form the main complex, you may want to have a look at this youtube video:

And this Google video may be even better:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2505328158758910223&q=shuttle&pr=goog-sl&hl=en

Finally, I have a few select impressions from KSC’s launch day setup from one of my failed attempts ;)