Sunday 18th December – Launch day

Today we were on Simon’s schedule, so you’ll forgive me for being surprised that the alarm went off at 620am! This meant that we made it to Kennedy Space Centre before 9am so we were in the queue at the gates along with the other over-keen space wannabes.  Here’s a major difference between the US and UK – us Brits are only usually patriotic enough to sing along to our National Anthem at the beginning of international sports games or the last night of the proms, nowhere else.  Yet, when the US National anthem was played before opening today, everybody stopped what they were doing and sang.  Hats were removed, hands were placed on hearts.  Why are we Brits so ashamed of showing a little patriotism?

Once through security I struggled to keep up with Simon as we half-ran over to the bus tour queue to get to the Saturn V centre (again!).  Yes, it was exactly the same tour that we had sat on only three days previously.  But this time we had tour guide Tom who must have wanted to be a comedian earlier in life.  His favourite gag was about the over-use of the TLA (three-letter-acronym) at NASA, concluding his tour with ‘thank you, I’ve been T.O.M driving your B.U.S – have a great day folks!’  We liked Tom.  He even took the time to stop the tour so that everyone could get a look at a couple of alligators in the water-filled channels by the side of the road - our first, they were baby ones though.

Not the rush for seating we had expected!

No need for us to go and see the exhibits again we joined a small queue by the gate to the Banana Creek Launch viewing area.  Like running for the front rail of your favourite gig it was a free-for-all when the gate opened.  Simon selected a prime spot on the top row of the platform so we were set by 1030am.  We had a three hour wait until the predicted launch time.  It was a very hot day with no shade.  Okay, so maybe we didn’t have to get here quite so early to get a seat… but we couldn’t risk missing our one opportunity to see a launch like this.  The purpose of today’s launch was for an Atlas V rocket to release a satellite on behalf of a communications company to provide faster internet access to areas of North America.  We were at the closest viewing point the public are allowed but the launch pad was still a small speck in the distance.  That’s why I’ve cheated by copying NASA’s photo of what it looked like, ready to go...

when to us it looked like this.... 

We killed the time with some social media-ing but within a couple of hours of the launch we were joined by NASA experts to talk to us all about the launch and what to expect.  The worrying thing was that none of them could get the microphone to work – I doubt that I was the only one sitting there thinking ‘you can’t get a mic to work, but you’re responsible for sending rockets into outer space?!’  The tension built as we approached 127pm – specific launch time.  We listened in to the radio conversations between all the different departments running the show.  It got to the last minute.  Everyone with cameras at the ready, standing up, eyes straining against the horizon… but 40 seconds before take-off they aborted the launch!  Something was wrong.  The science geeks went to work to establish what had gone wrong and we were left waiting.  There was a two hour launch window.  If they couldn’t rectify the situation within that time frame they would have to postpone the launch to another day…. Nooooooo! We were regularly updated with the earliest possible launch time… it was tense.  Luckily, the techy people sorted out the problem and we had a new T-0 target of 213pm. Last minute, cameras at the ready, standing up, eyes straining against the horizon… then, take off! We had been waiting for this moment all day…. And I had my camera on the wrong setting!  I planned to video the launch but was on the ‘still’ setting.  Luckily it worked out as I snapped this....

Happy with THAT! And then took some rubbish video that you don’t need to see!

There wasn’t as much noise or vibration in the ground as I had been expecting, but then again this rocket is only a third of the power of the mighty Shuttle rockets. 

After the main event we had the rest of the day to catch all of the segments that we’d missed the other day.  But first we had to queue for over an HOUR for a bus back to the main centre, along with everyone else!  That meant we didn’t arrive back at the main bit until 4pm – the race was on!  We watched an Imax 3D movie ‘Journey to Mars’ which filled us in on NASA’s future plans to Mars and beyond.  It was an excellent film.  There was a section about the nature reserve aspect of the centre, so of course we did that.  Finally, we managed to squeeze in the ‘Heroes and Legends’ tour which was also very well done.

NASAs Orion - the future of space travel?

The very consoles used to aid the first Americans into space on the Mercury project

Simon gets as close to meeting John Glenn as possible (he sadly passed away recently)

A mural of the Mercury seven astronauts  - watch the film 'the Right Stuff' about the project if you get a chance, an excellent film

Again, we were the last ones out of the museum so got an escort! 

We had found a cheap gas station nearby so we topped off the tank before we made our way back to the springs about 9pm to collapse after a looooong day.