Is this launch on or off?

Probably my most apprehensive L-1 yet, just because it’s really not clear if this thing is going anywhere tomorrow.

On the one hand there have been tweets like this…

https://twitter.com/#!/cwg_nsf/status/89094930978451456

https://twitter.com/#!/nasa/status/89025332035862529

the video of which can be seen here…

https://twitter.com/#!/nasa/status/89092231725711360

and then there have been things like this…

https://twitter.com/#!/sts_135/status/89098324992462848

and

https://twitter.com/#!/nasakennedy/status/89091450607906816

The prediction seems the same at the moment, 70% chance of rain stopping play. But then we only need a few minutes of good clouds to get that thing off the ground. It will be what it will be. But there are a lot of people checking the weather over a small patch of coastline this evening.

 

So i’m not going to be able to watch the Space Shuttle launch…

But actually i’m not really that gutted. It would have been an amazing opportunity but it would have only been the icing on the cake of all the amazing opportunities i’ve had this week, mainly like the one below. (note, yes that is Seth Green in the first video).

That’s me in NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building and this is me in front of parts of the next Space Shuttle!

That’s something i never thought i would get the chance to do, and even without the launch pretty much makes the whole trip worth while. I’ll do a full digestion of each part of the tour i got as the weeks go on but as I sit here blogging from the wonderful town of Jacksonville i’m content with the new friends and contacts i’ve made and happy with the experience I got.

#NASATweetup is life changing, make sure you enter the draw for the next one when/if it opens.

#NASATweetup (unofficial) Day 1

So some sort of proper digestion of what happened today. Today was day 1, although the unofficial Day 1. I handed over my fingerprints to the US government for the second time in two days to get the badge that’s above and then made use of our complimentary entrance to the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor’s Complex. Essentially we pretended to be tourists for the day.

I went to Kennedy about 6 years ago so knew what to expect. The Rocket Garden is as wonderful as ever, holding a couple of extra relics from missions gone by. The food was as expensive as any other Florida based theme park. And there’s been a new addition in the past 6 years. The Shuttle Launch simulator ride.

The highlights of the day though mainly centred around the less ‘theme parky’ stuff. We bumped into the person that looks after this nasa_ames twitter account and also bumped into some of the people testing and building NASA’s Orion crew module.

He was talking about the testing of the launch abort system that’s still going on, even of the research and production of the rocket to go with it isn’t happening.

The other highlight was the standard NASA bus tour. We’re getting one that’s a little more in-depth tomorrow but it was still good to get as close as the public can to the pad less than 24 hours after arriving in the US.

There was a small fire going on while we were driving along pretty close to the press site by the looks of it…

https://twitter.com/#!/cfnews13_space/status/63344096089096192

and there were some interesting helicopters flying around chucking water at it, so I’m hoping the tweetup tent (or twent) is still in one piece for tomorrow’s activities.

If you want to follow along yourself loads of it is being streamed here from 12PM EST (about 17PM BST) feel free to tweet me if you can see me in the crowd. If you do tune in you’ll see some interesting chats from astronaut Clay Anderson (@astro_clay), Dana Hutcherson, Endeavour’s Flow Director and Tara Ruttley who works on some of the science for the Space Station.

I took loads more pictures today but I’ve decided to hold them back and post them as galleries in the days after the launch. Like i said earlier if you listen to either BBC York or BBC Norfolk’s breakfast shows you’ll hear me in the morning from my wonderful beach house here in Cape Canaveral. And if you listen to their drive shows I might be able to do a couple of interviews into their Drive programmes live from the press site itself.

That all depends on NASA WIFI though, they might be able to launch a rocket but they might not be able to handle 150 people excitedly using their internet.

Catch you tomorrow

Quick day 1 blog, more later

A quick blog to satisfy my blogging needs (will post more later). Today was amazing! And it’s only day 1! We did the tourism thing round the visitor’s centre.

I’ll grab some food then download pictures and do a proper blog. Then I’ve got two interviews to do this evening. If you listen to either BBC York or BBC Norfolk’s breakfast show you’ll hear me tomorrow

Oh and look who I bumped into!

Well isn’t this a wonderful part of the world!

Well I made it, things were a bit touch and go at times but I’m actually here………… A VERY long way from Yorkshire!

The only hairy moment occurred during my connection at New York, for future reference one and a half hours is not enough time to get off one plane, go through immigration (which nearly didn’t happen because of a mistake on my landing card thing), get my suitcase, recheck my suitcase, change terminals and then go through security AGAIN.

Running to a plane carrying a rucksack, laptop and shoes in you’re hands is not a good look.

On the bright-side Jacksonville is beautiful! Very nice airport (and free WIFI!). Somehow I managed to get 22 emails while I was off the grid (will deal with them later).

The Tweetup begins now, will be handing over my fingerprints to the US government for the second time tomorrow and hopefully going round Kennedy Space Center’s visitor centre like the tourist I’m secretly not.

Hope the rest of the tweeters made it here safely, at least that Icelandic volcano isn’t erupting again.

P.S. I like the way my iPhone changes it’s timezone based on what network it’s connected to, nice touch.