Nasa
 

I've been a little behind on this one. Next shuttle launch is tomorrow, Saturday, 7/11, 6:39 pm central time. STS-127, shuttle Endeavour. These things keep me pretty busy.

Weather looks crappy in central Florida, so I don't know. I guess I could let y'all know what the NASA weather people think after the morning meeting...

After that, the next one's scheduled to launch 8/18, but this date is fluid.

We had a beautiful directly overhead fly-by of the space station over Johnson Space Center last night. We get to see it the next two nights.

Tom

Yeah, Dh says it's threatened to storm the last few days. They still don't have power at the bridge from a storm a couple weeks back - supposed to be fixing that today.

According to AOL weather - not that you can trust that - there's a good chance of storms in Orlando the next couple days. But you never know. Seems like they blow in and out pretty fast this time of year.

I like this site too: http://spaceweather.com/flybys/flybys.php
it lets us know what space stuff we can see in the sky relevant to our zip and when.

:)

An error page pops up with Becca's link.

Go here http://spaceweather.com/flybys/
and enter your zip code.

Thanks Becca!

I was looking for you on Tuesday Tom, but they took us to the wrong mission control on the tour! We went to Space Center Houston with my nephews this week. They have done a good job improving it and making it more interactive for the kids. We did the historic mission control tour and went by the rocket park, so it was fun for the boys.

Good luck on the launch tomorrow! Tell the guys in Florida they are more than welcome to send all those clouds and the rain our way if it makes life easier on them...

Ok, you've done the tour. Next time, however, just bring them down to JSC and I'll give ya the insider tour! I can take 4 to 5 people in, just not when a shuttle's up. I'l take ya physically into the historical control room so you can sit at the actual flight director's console, and the viewing rooms of both the shuttle control room and the station control room. And a couple other training control rooms. And into a few shuttle simulators if there's no astronauts in there (there's usually a couple that are empty). How about the shuttle toilet trainer? My MIL loved that one. Oh, and the big swimming pool (neutral bouancy lab). Astronaut training vacuum chambers, etc... A Weekend is probably best - no interferences, but it don't matter.

It's simple. I meet you at the front gate and escort you on site. My car or yours, don't matter. I do it all the time. I just need a couple days notice to scrounge up some "escort required visitor badges"'.

Last people I took in was a girl I went to high school with and her hubby and daughter. They live in Phoenix and flew over just to do the tour with me (we went to high school in Michigan). We went by the shuttle control room and the folks were taking a break from a simulation and the flight director gave them a detailed description of what goes on in there - even posed with them for photos. So neat things can happen...

Just let me know, ok?


Sat weather go for launch - 40%
Sun weather go for launch - 60%
Mon weather go for launch - 70%

Tom

so, no blast off today? I went to nasa.gov and the shuttle is still there. I am really mad at our cable service for taking NASATV away.

Ok, guess we'll try again! 5:51 pm CST Monday.

Tom

I was going to ask you about a tour, but I knew we were just a few days out from a launch and didn't want to intrude on your preparations. Flight Director Lunney was my brother's roommate in college, so I was expecting him to call Bryan, but he didn't. Next time I will just take the bull by the horns myself...

:(
I watched Saturday.
I watched yesterday.
I watched today.

Stoopid weather! :Sigh:

what's the latest try time?
 

I am hoping to watch it on Nasa.gov. what time are they going to try today?

They see to be all suiting up for the launch. They had some lightening earlier but nothing hit near the launchpad. They haven't called it off yet. I think the time is going to be around 6pm cst.????

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

52 minutes to launch.

20 minutes and holding for 10 min....

9 min and holding...launch is expected at 6:03 EST......

I missed it!!! Grrrr shoot. When's the next one Tom? I will have to catch that one.

Where are you Tom?
 

Tom, are you in this picture? if so, where?

Wow!!!!!
Double Wow!!

Nice launch!!!!:)

No. I'm off on rotation for this flight. When we're in the room it's the front right console, right inside the door. But we're usually not there. There's more important places for us to be. Right now, I'm in the mission control power plant, waiting for the morning ops meeting.

We finally launched, however. We lost some foam on the launch, so today's OBSS survey will be important.

Schedules (all CST):

Dock 7/17 12:53
EVA1 7/18 11:03-17:33
EVA2 7/20 10:33-17:03
EVA3 7/22 10:03-16:33
EVA4 7/24 09:03-15:33
EVA5 7/27 07:33-14:03
Undock 7/29 03:03
Land 7/31 09:45

Busy mission

STS-128 scheduled to launch 8/18 but don't count on it.

Tom

Whats next after the shuttle is retired?
 

Tom,

I heard that they are ending the shuttle program in 2010, what is the next plan for NASA? have they released a picture of the next craft they plan to use to go to space in?

What I have seen is the Orion project, it is a capsule that is larger than Apollo was. It will go to the Space Station, the Moon and probably Mars.

The Aris 1.. Constellation Program.:cool: The same thing, I think??

Thank YOU! :)

I'm so afraid that one of those astronauts is going to come lose from the station, while out there working on it, and float off into space..:eek: