The Holy Land

"It's like what Mecca is to the Jews!" - Ali G, "Indahouse"

Yesterday was a long but uplifting day at the Kennedy Space Center. Recently I've been down in the dumps because of a laundry list of problems and inconveniences, but a good old-fashioned field trip with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) brought my spirits up.

[Update: Here's a link to all the photos.]

I arrived early at the Engineering parking lot because I misread an email, but thankfully I woke the president up and he got to the garage on time. We arrived at the Visitor's Center at 9:30 to meet Kristina Morrace, a former UCF graduate who gives us the NASA hook-ups like posters, official pictures, and in this case, discount Maximum Access passes. A $42 (I think) ticket only cost us $13.

Bypassing the Visitor's Center's attractions to get on the tour bus, our first stop was the Observation Gantry. Yesterday was a very special day because that morning they had just rolled out STS-115 Atlantis onto the launch pad via the crawler. They still hadn't closed the rotating launch pad around it, which covers most of the shuttle until close to launch time (which is later this month). Despite the quality of the images I was able to get, it looked very impressive. We were also able to see the other shuttle launch pad LC-39A, the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), and some of the military complex of Cape Canaveral AFB. On the bus ride there and back we were able to get a great view of the doors of the VAB, the largest in the world. They take 45 minutes to open, yet the tallest rockets only have 6 feet of clearance at the top.

They also had a space shuttle main engine on display, and I went klepto on the clothes in the gift shop for a minute.

That was actually the low point of the day. After the Gantry stop, we headed to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. Before entering, we saw a video on the historical build-up of Apollo 8 and how it was the first manned rocket to escape Earth's gravitational field. We entered a mock control room that had the actual control panels used by the people in the Apollo 8 launch and experienced what it was like when that much power rose from the pad. The back windows shook, the big screens lit up with the fire of the engines, and all the control panels came to life just as they did on the actual launch. It was tear jerking.

After the simulation we entered the hall where they have a full sized Saturn V rocket on display. Just standing next to the gigantic engines was powerful enough, but the also had mission statistics and astronaut quotes on panels from each mission all along one of the walls. I'm surprised how much I knew about Apollo and the Saturn V compared to my fellow space geeks, but I guess it just goes to show you that if you want to learn something, you learn it easier than if you don't. The Saturn V rocket with the Apollo capsule attached is 363 feet tall. That's only 5 feet less than twice the height of the shuttle and three feet longer than regulation size football fields (including the goal zones). They also had scale models of the Lunar Module, the Moon Rover, and the Command Module. Imagine being stuck in there for two days while two of your best buddies are frolicking on the moon. I'd hate to be that guy, condolences to Mike Collins and the other 5 Command Module Pilots.

Although it was not the first time in my life, I got to touch a moon rock, although I have a vague perception it was ordinary marble from Earth. I bought a poster and a pack of panoramic pictures in the gift shop, and then we went to see another movie in another theater about the actual landing on the moon. This one had a stage with a lunar module that dropped down from the top. Despite the fact that parts of it were corny as Nebraska, it actually made my eyes well up a little more than the Apollo 8 video. It was a terrific reminder of what I'm working towards, whether I'm the guy pushing buttons on a panel on the ground or the one planting the flag in the dirt in the distant future.

(Note for those looking through the pictures: The Chalet Suzanne soup caught my attention because I flew into their airstrip and got a ribbon for doing so during flight school.)

Once we got back on the bus we headed for the International Space Station Center where the station is being build and inspected on the ground before it head off into space. Now that the safety tests are done, they're ready to launch the rest of the station into space. There was no flash photography allowed because the flash might set off a fire alarm. Fires in space are similar to flashes because the heat does "rise" like it does in a gravity field, it simply expands in all directions like a camera flash, so the ISS builders designed the fire alarms to react to that kind of energy. Basically, if you wanted to cause a few million dollars worth of damage, bring a huge flashbulb. They were working on Japanese, Italian, and American modules. On the other size of the building they had life-sized models of the ISS rooms and the experiments, living quarters, and galley inside. It seems cramped on the ground, but with zero-G it doesn't seem so bad. On the far wall (obstructed by an ISS model) was Konstantine Tsiolkovsky's (the guy who formulated the rocket equation) most famous quote, one that I believe whole-heartedly. "The Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever."

Once we were on the bus and back at the Visitor's Center, we saw a 3D IMAX film about the Space Station narrated by Tom Cruise ("Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft to get the fire off me!"). It was pretty straightforward, but it seemed out-dated. I thought I remembered seeing it in the Smithsonian a few years back, but I specifically remember begin outraged at the guy who shaved his face without shaving cream near the end of the movie. This happened near the beginning. However, I was even MORE outraged by the guy who spilled little tiny pieces of POPCORN everywhere. POPCORN can get into every nook and cranny, every electrical wiring system, and short-circuit your life support system. Baaahhh, my blood pressure is too high to talk about that part. Overall, despite the weird CGI 3D near the beginning, I really enjoyed the film, and once again it brought some tears to my eyes. I didn't bother stealing the 3D glasses.

The IMAX theater also had the Liberty Bell 7 exhibit. The Liberty Bell 7, piloted by Gus Grissom (who died on Apollo 1) splashed down after a successful mission, but for unknown reasons the hatch blew before the Scuba divers could get the floatation devices on the capsule. Grissom narrowly escaped Davy Jones' Locker, but the capsule was lost until a crew partnered with the Discovery Channel lifted it up from 16,043 feet below sea level on July 20, 1999, the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing. They cleaned it up and added a couple things to the display, but it is otherwise authentic spacecraft. The heat shield was burned completely off. What's eerie is the quote from Gus near the end of the exhibit with a model of his Apollo 1 spacesuit. "The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." Most people would say he ate those words, but I think he was selfless to the point of sacrifice. He was a true hero just like the rest of the astronauts with the Right Stuff.

We stepped outside to get a closer look at the rocket garden and get some pictures of the group. It was a nice sunny sight, but the rockets paled in comparison to the Saturn V. They had more fake capsules that looked worse than the Mercury one we all got in earlier.

Since we had two free IMAX shows, we caught the other 3D IMAX film. "Magnificent Desolation," written and narrated by Tom Hanks, was about the moon landing and had a pretty good CGI view of a moonwalk. The beginning was really corny though. It showed a bunch of kids who didn't even know who Neil Armstrong was saying they wanted to go to the moon and drawing pictures. Later they showed a communications failure and how astronauts would have gotten out of that situation. The end showed a possible scenario for a Helium 3 mining operation on the moon in the future (Helium 3 could be the fuel that saves our planet, and it's on the moon in mass quantities, but the Saudis don't want us to think about that). Well, let's just say that I haven't cried that much during a movie since the Land Before Time. It was really touching.

By that time we were almost out of time. We had time to get to the gift shop where I got a shot glass with my name on it (since I'll probably use it more than a coffee mug because I don't drink coffee). Lucky for us, the Astronaut Hall of Fame closes at 7 instead of 6, so we arrived there at 6:30. I really liked seeing the portrait of each astronaut with his or her mission patches underneath. What I was intrigued by was the Boy Scout display showing which astronauts were what rank. There was also a space-sickness generator that didn't affect me too much, so there's hope for me in Zero-G (it's more of the constant change in G-forces that gets me, such as when I stood at the bow of a fishing boat as it rocked that one time... later I spewed). The last thing I saw was a quote from Mike Mullane, the author of "Riding Rockets." "Even a bird is not as free as an astronaut." I cant' say I agree considering the tiny amount of space in a spacecraft, the pre-planned orbital trajectories, the minute by minute schedule you live by, and the packaged, processed food served in space... but it's close.

So that was my day. It was a good day.

Speaking of the G-Forces, SEDS has an experiment going up on the Vomit Comet that a friend of mine is going to test in zero-G. I helped him build the wood and clear plastic box so he can simulate soldiering electronics in space. This was supposed to happen in April, but Lockheed pulled the funding on the project and it was frozen. One of the SEDS guys works for Zero-G and managed to open up a spot for my friend Jason, so we had to hastily assemble the test box. Jason also had to learn how to use the Cold-Heat soldiering iron. If I'm lucky he's going to get me a flight suit, although the chances are slim. If he's lucky he's not going to ruin the experiment by vomiting all over it. He's doing 40 parabolas, some of which are Mars and Moon gravity, but most are zero-G. If all goes well and we get to try the experiment again, I'll be the one riding the modified 727 next time, hopefully with a better system.

Update: I was just accepted to the Space Generation Conference in Valencia, Spain, so I will have more on that as things develop and a huge entry with hopefully more interesting things to write about.