Off Into Space

Photo credit: NASA/Fletcher Hildreth - May 11, 2009

Sandy and I were able to attend the launch of the Atlantis on Monday, May 11. A good friend of Alyssa and Lichar's, Megan McArthur, is one of the astronauts aboard STS-125 and they received an invitation and tickets to the Space Center for the launch from her. This is the mission to repair the Hubble Telescope which was originally scheduled to launch in October. Due to some things going wrong on the Hubble, the launch was postponed until May so that additional parts could be readied to repair it. This was the third launch for Alyssa and Lichar to attend but the first for Kaiden and his grandparents.

What an experience we had! Our tickets gave us admission to the Kennedy Space Center so we went early so we could explore the Space Center. We had 10 adults and 2 babies in our group - Deana, Kira, Andrew and Alison, Kira's parents and nephew plus Alyssa, Lichar, Kaiden, Sandy and me. We left our Cocoa Beach hotel about 8:45 a.m. and were at the Space Center shortly before 9:30. Here's the view of the line to get in and some of our group!

Once inside you were asked to remove all electronic equipment such as cameras and cell phones and turn them on for inspection. It was after 10:00 a.m. when we got through the gates and into a "cooler" building. I don't know what the temperature was but it was HOT already. Just before we got inside there were some bottles of water provided which is what you see Alyssa drinking above. We did bring several bottles of water along from the hotel but it didn't take long for them to get warm.

We found out that the buses which would transport us to our launch viewing site would run between 11:00 and 1:00 (launch was scheduled for 2:01) and all agreed to meet back up at 12:15 inside one of the buildings. Alyssa, Lichar and Kaiden decided to stay inside the building out of the heat since they had already seen the visitor center. Sandy and I headed out to explore a little and soon found out that the gift shop had umbrella type chairs for sale. We went in and got us a chair and an umbrella. I had brought a small blanket to sit on and didn't want to have to haul another chair back to Amarillo. There were probably more things to see and do but we were already so hot that we decided the only thing we really wanted to do was the Shuttle Launch Experience.

The Shuttle Launch Experience was designed to give participants a chance to experience the sights, sounds and sensations of a real shuttle launch. There were warnings to people with high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems that these conditions could be aggravated. We entered into a large (air-conditioned!) room where a video shared lots of information about a shuttle launch. I tried to find some of those facts on the Internet because I cannot remember them but haven't been successful. One of the pieces of info was that anyone or anything within a certain radius of the launch pad would be killed by the heat and/or noise. We then went into another room where we were seated and then buckled up. The seats were moved so we were on our backs like the astronauts are prior to launch. There was a lot of vibration and noise but I don't think it came close to a real launch. It really was a fun experience. Here's more info about the SLE.

We met up with Alyssa and Kaiden in the (air-conditioned) Information Center. Kaiden got his picture taken with an "astronaut." Of course, he was held by three different real astronauts (including one who was aboard the shuttle) in the first weeks of his life.

We finally met up with the rest of our party and boarded a bus to be taken to the launch viewing site. Interesting fact - they took our group picture before boarding the bus and I thought it was just a souvenir thing but it's really a security thing! We were on one of the last 5 buses to go to the viewing area and arrived at our viewing site just before 1:00. Thank goodness we waited that late. It was so HOT - I can't even begin to describe how hot we were. There were buses lined up three deep for at least a mile or more. There was an area between the buses and the Banana River where several THOUSAND people were gathered to view the launch.

We were 6-7 miles from the launch pad.

You can see the shuttle just above the red chair in the above photo.

About 1/4 of a mile from us were concession stands and I hiked to one to get some cold water for us. When I got back Alyssa, Kaiden, Andrew and Ali were on one of the buses and the driver had started it to get them cool - it created quite a stir because the buses are NOT allowed to run during the launch! The nice driver couldn't stand to see the babies suffering in the heat.

By the time I got back with the water I was unbelievably HOT and tired and concerned about Kaiden and then it was time for launch. Honestly my pictures are so bad because I was so HOT that I couldn't focus on what I was doing. But I will share them to give you a feel of what we saw. We also heard a loud noise and felt the ground shake but it was after the shuttle was already in the air.

One of the neat things was that we were able to see the solid rocket boosters after they detached from the shuttle itself. I took pictures of one of them because it was shiny enough that I could see it through the view finder. I had to enlarge the pictures to circle the SRB in red.

After the shuttle was completely out of sight, we reboarded the buses for a trip back to the visitor complex. It was great to get back on an air-conditioned bus but we were so exhausted from the heat. Traffic out of KSC back to the main roads is usually backed up for several hours so we decided to just hang out in one of the buildings for 30 minutes. Since we were on one of the last buses to arrive back at KSC, we were able to avoid lots of traffic. When we finally went to the car, the parking lot was about 75% empty and we didn't hit any traffic until we got to Cape Canaveral.

I'm not sure that I'd do it again if it was not a night launch or in the winter. The heat was just too much on me! The way things are right now there really won't be too many more shuttle launches so I am glad that I did get to experience one!