2 More KSC Trips (Continued)

The first part of this entry really contains most of the story. The rest of the time was pretty uneventful although I did see some other cool stuff so I'll share some of that now. When we went out to the launch pad to work, the Crawler was at one of our stops so I got a picture next to it (below). Unfortunately, it was dark so I didn't get any really good pictures but you can see how huge it is.

Speaking of huge, I took some pictures of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) with some workers on it to give a sense of scale. You can see the series of pictures in the album or on Zooomr. Zooomr lets you add 'portals' on pictures so that when you hover over or click on a part of the image, you see the more detailed image. Sorry IE users, I couldn't get it to work in IE earlier but maybe you'll have more luck.

The other place I did some work this time was the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF). This is where Station components are stored and worked on before being launched. There are pictures of most of the components in the album. Elizabeth was most interested in Columbus because she is the lead for her group for that flight. Lastly, Andrew and I were led to the Mercury launch pad where John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Again it wasn't in great shape, but there were some cool monuments like the one below and the astronauts' parking spots are still there.

I also put the pictures of the Mercury Monument on Zooomr with the same click zoom coolness!

2 More KSC Trips

Over the last 2 weeks, I've made 2 more trips out to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These trips were much more relaxed than my last one so I got to do some more sight seeing. I've updated the KSC album with a bunch of pictures from the trips. The first trip included some work at the launch pad again and both trips included some work at the Space Station Processing Facility so there are pictures from both of these places. However, I think the coolest part of my trips was driving around the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base to see some of the old spaceflight memorabilia.

Andrew, my coworker and friend, and I decided to go see the Apollo I launch pad, where three astronauts tragically lost their lives in 1967. However, neither of us knew where it was and there were no signs pointing us in the right direction so we ended up on an interesting journey around the base. First, we visited a missile and space museum that a sign led us to. It was interesting, especially the fact that it was open but no one was there and the lights were off. I guess you can do that when badges are required just to get to it. We turned the lights on and had a look around (there are quite a few pictures in the album). Next, we stumbled upon the old lighthouse and a couple of Delta rockets on their launch pads (pic). At this point we had driven quite a bit and needed to go to the space center for some work.

We continued our quest the next day with some vague guidance. We ended up at a back entrance to the Shuttle Pad and also passed "The Beach House" which is one of the places crews hang out before launches. The guard at the Pad gate gave us some more directions and we eventually stumbled upon the Apollo I Pad. In fact, we realized after we got there that there was a direct route that ended on the complete opposite side of the pad. I thought our meandering was so funny that I made a Google My Map documenting the journey (I know I'm a nerd).

So, there really isn't that much at the Apollo I Pad to see but I like the picture above (and there are others in the album) and it is cool to see where it happened. There is more to talk about but this is getting long and I am getting tired so it will have to wait. TO BE CONTINUED...

Whirlwind Trip to KSC

This weekend, I took a trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for work. It was a quick trip, but an exciting one. For every Shuttle flight, we make a couple of trips to KSC for equipment testing. The reason I titled this "Whirlwind Trip to KSC" is because I left Houston at 8:50 am on Friday, spent ~12 hours at KSC that day and got back to Houston at 4:00 pm on Saturday. For this trip, we were on the launch pad so I got to see the Shuttle in its vertical position and we worked in the payload bay area. Check out the pictures in the photo album including a couple of me in my bunny suit. You'll probably notice some spots on the external tank that are lighter in color. This is where they repaired the hail damage that originally delayed the launch.