After the DemoSat launch, the team went to Kennedy Space Center August 4–8, 2007. We attended a pre-launch conference and saw the launch of STS-118 on August 8.
Bus ride to the visitor's center.The rocket garden. I want to believe that somewhere there's a button that will launch all these simultaneously.Me inside a Mercury capsule.Damn right.A Saturn I.It's pretty huge.Blast deflector.An Apollo capsule.These are simulated TPS tiles on the shuttle at the visitor's center.I was impressed by these engines when I saw them, but I just kept seeing bigger and better things.An external tank and solid rocket boosters.This is a cool ride that simulates launching the space shuttle.This isn't the ride itself, just a pre-briefing.Which is nonetheless still pretty cool.Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the ride.This is the walk on the way out.The Phoenix lander.The astronauts' memorial.Matt Hoffman amidst the rockets.Our first close view of the VAB.The crawler. It's way huger than you would ever think.The launch pad 39B.A water tower nearby.The VAB hazy in the distance.Crawler tracks on its rocky road.Notice the trucks for scale."Astronaut Parking Only." Sweet!The simulated Apollo mission control room at the Saturn V center.Those are the actual computers they used for the Apollo missions. Too bad it's so dim in there.Oh. My. God.The Saturn V rocket is one of the biggest things I've ever seen. I wanted to cry.This is the van they used to use to drive astronauts out to the pad.Pictures don't give the same impression of bigness.This is what it looks like when NASA builds a car. Notice what a shit car it is.The top of the command module hatch (I think).Chris Koehler giving his talk about Space Grant.What a great guy.We set up for our presentation.We got some good interest.This is at the Air Force base nearby.That's a Redstone rocket on the very pad where Alan Sheppard took off to become the first American in space.For being holy ground, it's kind of a dump.This rocket is Mr. 7.More assorted rockets.Some Delta launch pads.This is apparently a rather famous lighthouse.That's one of the boats that recovers the SRBs from the sea.A nice close picture of the VAB.An Orbiter Processing Facility, the one for Discovery.Sweet.Okay, so the Space Shuttle engines are pretty big when you get close to them.I wonder if anyone will pay money for these secret blueprints.A big honkin' forklift for lifting the engines.I want to keep my laundry in a box labeled "Space Shuttle servoactuator".This is where they repair and maintain Discovery.Wow! This is a real space shuttle that has been in space.And the ones who work on it are scruffy guys with beards.There are a bunch of these green flags, I guess on the tiles they're going to replace.A new tile and an old one.Landing gear compartment.That's the nose.Me holding a tile. They're lighter than I would have thought.The VAB up close.A peek inside.Back at the visitor's center. That's the biggest canyon on Mars. The Grand Canyon is shown in the inset.Female space suits are going to be hot!This building is all about early space flight.That's a Gemini capsule.The are bird's nests everywhere in the old rockets.Evan rapping.Awesome.A jumbotron showing the astronauts getting ready on our way to the launch.T − 1:50:09.Chris.Me.You can see the launch pad over my right shoulder.The 20-minute hold.Helicopters.The excitement is really building.About T − 5.You should have heard the cheering.At T + 10:00, the astonauts are already in space.Sweet moiré at the airport.Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport.Monorail, monorail, monorail!
