One Short Cross-Country Flight, One Spectacular Ending To A Lot Of Hard Work

I spent last week baking in the Florida sun and combating a sever case of humidity head. The launch of the experimental Ares 1-X rocket was the culmination of the hard work of myself and many other engineers and scientists. Myself and those on my team were fortunate enough to get a gracious invite form our NASA counterparts to come watch the launch. Thanks to some last minute maneuvering from Paul B. (you the man) I was even able to get a couple important guests on site to watch the launch. Ma and Pa made the drive down from Walton to see the big firecracker go.

The first launch window was open for Tuesday morning from 8am to noon. Since we had to get there early to check in and get bussed over to the viewing site, this meant getting up at about 3am. Ugh. But get up we did. And drove into NASA to get checked in. Strangely enough, the nice lady checking us in looked at my Cass Baseball tee and my parent's IDs and said "are you all from Walton." Um, yes, we are. Turns out her niece is a Lady King. (As coincidence would have it, we met some more people at a picnic later with relatives in the area who recognized my Cass football tee. Strange.)

We were actually granted VIP access viewing (the section usually reserved for astronauts' family) which included access to all of the on site museums including the Saturn V building. So before boarding the bus to the viewing site, we kicked around the Visitor's Center where the retired rocket farm is.

rocket farm

"astronaut" at the Visitor's Center with Mom and Dad

Once at the viewing site, we staked a claim on some bleacher space and... waited. Since we were there so early, it was still a couple hours until the launch window even opened. The Vincents (sans rugrat) were actually at the same viewing site, so we were able to do some catching up whilst we passed time til launch.

The Vincents (hopefully you see one some day)

And much time would pass... There was one countdown from the 4-minute hold that ended shortly thereafter. Everything looked good to go - the national anthem was even played - before the countdown was called off due to a cargo ship approaching the splash down area! Soon after noon came without getting another chance for launch. Unfortunately for the Vincents, they would have to leave the next morning so this was their only shot at seeing it go. But we met up again with them for dinner before turning in early so we could do it all again the next day.

Since there would be no check in, we slept in another hour or so (still awful early). Wednesday played out much as Tuesday did, only I spent a significantly larger chunk of time in the Saturn V building escaping the heat and humidity. Mom enjoyed it. Things didn't look good all morning due to weather - but then a window opened up literally minutes before the window closed at noon. The countdown started up from the 4-minute hold, and to my surprise kept going... 10... 9... ... 3... 2... 1... Liftoff!

Ares 1-X liftoff!

The bright cloud of fire ignited under the engine, the rocket began lifting itself from the pad, and then just like that it was well above the pad and speeding up into the air, into and out of a nearby cloud. The Ares 1-X was much, much faster than the two shuttle launches I had seen before. It was surprising to see just how fast this one moved away from the Earth.

Ares 1-X aloft

It was really satisfying to see something that we worked really hard on go off like that. And even more so that family and friends were able to be around for it. I wish you all could have been there. Rest of the pics here.

Tuttles post-launch

The Fourth Time Is the Charm

Recently, I spent a long (hot) week of work down at Kennedy Space Center working with NASA on the booster portion of the proposed shuttle replacement system. We (well, most of us - too bad, Jeff) got a nice perk for all of our hard work that week in the form of watching the shuttle launch. Truly an awesome spectacle; I feel very fortunate to have been able to witness that. For nerds like me who watch a computer screen all day long, it can be hard to really wrap my mind grapes on the very scale of the things we are dealing with - not to mention the idea that those very things will be pushed into space by a controlled explosion more or less. These trips to KSC are an excellent reminder of just what an amazing achievment reaching space is.

Even being there on site, it's difficult to put things in perspective as everything around is magnified in size to support these huge vehicles - wrenches, carts, hoists, yes, even... bugs. OK, maybe that's more due to the warm, humid climate, but still. I'm just sayin'. (For those of you that know me, you're probably laughing thinking about: how much I'm sweating in that heat, and how out of control my hair is there. Yes, it's ridiculous, but not quite as bad as in New Mexico, Vincents.)

For instance, take a look at the facility we're looking in. In the picture below, the tip of that needle-looking thing poking out of the bottom-left corner is about 70-some feet or more off the floor. You might notice that the roof of the building is a just a bit further up.

inside the VAB

As I wrote earlier, we did get to see the shuttle launch as well (after 3 scrubs due to weather). Here's a shot just after liftoff:

yep, pretty cool

The engine fire got so bright that I could no longer focus manually at one point and had to switch over to the autofocus. Pictures alone don't do the sight justice. You really need the sound. Fortunately I've got a video (thanks to Shannon for taking this).

STS-127 Shuttle Launch from Ryan Tuttle on Vimeo.

As I said, a long week, but a pretty fun trip. Thanks to all our friends at NASA for their hard work and getting us out to see some really cool stuff. All the pics from this trip here, and a previous trip over here.

post-launch beans and cornbread