We are go for launch.
Trip Start
May 13, 2010
1
Trip End
Ongoing
Titusville, Florida
Saturday, May 15, 2010
So we did.
One of Travis's goals has long been to see a shuttle launch. Usually when he mentions such things, I think, "Hmm, that would be a very neat thing," and so the plotting and planning may commence.
The plan: Leave work in Washington, DC on the evening of Thursday, May 13, and drive all night so that we might arrive in Titusville, FL in the morning in time to find ourselves a good seat to watch the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. Launch is scheduled for Friday, May 14 at 2:19 p.m. After launch, go to pre-reserved hotel and pass out. On Saturday, visit the Kennedy Space Center to see the facility and do all manner of silly touristy things.
The catch: Kennedy Space Center launches are notorious for being delayed for the slightest problem, and since the window for launch is 10 minutes (due to what's flying around in space and the shuttle's mission target), a delay usually means waiting till tomorrow, starting the sitting and waiting all over again, and this could potentially continue for a week. In other words, one should not bank on anything actually going into space.
Hmm.
Travis meets me at my office at 5:40. We head for VA, meeting a ridiculous police motorcade that does not even include the presidential limousine (lame). Rush hour in Northern Virginia - supposedly dreadful, actually turns out to be not terrible. Lucky. A little slowing at Quantico, and after that it's cruise control all the way.
Six caffeinated sodas, four hours of something resembling sleep, and four driver changes later, we arrive in Titusville at 7:40 a.m. on Friday - launch day. We have made a 14 hour trip in 13 hours (I like fast.), and roll into the public parking lot next to Space View Park just in time to catch the last free public parking spot. Also seriously awesome is that our parking spot allows us to leave everything in the car and make trips for food or whatever else we want out of there at a whim.
Sadly, at 7:40 a.m. on a Friday, none of the delicious sounding cafes are open for breakfast (Chocolate Cafe? K--'s Cobbler Bakery? Yum!). We find the coffee shop, where we get a large and filling breakfast for 5 bucks. We're not in the city anymore... (This price thing happened a lot, actually - very exciting.)
Waiting ensues. Six hours of sitting in the direct sunlight (regular application of sunscreen absolutely necessary), listening to all the guys with enormous camera lenses speculate, listening to all of the twangy, southern accents, reading. As the day progresses, more people arrive. Parents tell their offspring that this is a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME-OPPORTUNITY. To be fair, this is true - there are two launches left, so if you want to go start planning now. As a rule, the children absolutely do not care. (Most are a little too young to be space junkies yet.)
Ten minutes before launch, the crowd has risen to what would be, in more thrilling circumstances, a fever pitch. Two minutes before launch everyone is standing, waiting. Some countdowns begin, but no one has a radio broadcasting the launch, and since we're in a grassy area that is not the shockingly overcrowded Space View Park, there are no loudspeakers broadcasting the launch. In this Podunk town even the blokes with 3G phones are having technical difficulties. It doesn't matter - our smattering of collective countdowns are sufficient notice. Now it just remains to be seen if the launch will actually go off. (As no one has a radio or the ability to check the internet to determine flight status, we will all find out that the launch has been delayed when it fails to make a big explosion.)
Suddenly, the rocket's cloud appears on the horizon! In a matter of moments, the shuttle is blasting off of the ground and into space! The crowds cheer because 1) the shuttle actually went off, 2) we have all been waiting for six hours and it has not been for nothing, and 3) some people we don't know are going to complete a mission about which we know nothing. Yay.
The crowds are not in a mad rush to get back to their cars (thank goodness), and Travis and I are able, with only a little concern for the people walking wherever their desires direct them, to leave Titusville with no fuss and little delay. Current estimates say that 40,000 people were out to watch the launch. The Space Coast was so crowded that we ended up driving another hour south to our hotel. Sleeping in a bed was awesome.
Saturday morning, since Friday went according to plan, we woke and drove back up to Titusville to visit the Kennedy Space Center. It turns out that KSC's visitor center is like Disney World for space geeks. What we had hoped would be a morning adventure turned into an all-day affair with scads of lines. Very edifying, however, and definitely worth the entrance fee. There was a hop-on-hop-off bus tour around the bigger part of KSC, an Imax movie (or two), a shuttle simulator, a rocket garden, exhibits, everything. The gift shop was out of control. On a side note, KSC's visitor center makes enough money to keep itself functioning entirely without taxpayer money or interference in the scientific functioning of NASA's programs. Neat.
We left KSC at the same time we'd left my office in DC. It was a very good thing I hadn't made a hotel reservation somewhere in South Carolina, because we'd never have made it. Besides, our trip down had been so easy that we figured it couldn't possibly be a bad idea just to power through and go straight home. Unfortunately, we had the most dreadful book on tape to keep us company in the midnight hours, and I have no idea how we actually made it through Virginia in the dawn hours, but at 8 a.m. Sunday morning, we pulled in to our snug little house, took only the camera out of the car (priorities, you know), and crawled in to our very own bed.
The cat meowed for hours with joy at our return.
