The diary of a space shuttle chaser...

[manlymatt83]

It was a lot of work, a lot of sitting in traffic, and a lot of exhaustion, but I'm proud to say that after 7 months and 7 roundtrips Boston to Orlando, I was able to see the launch of STS-133, STS-134, and STS-135 from the NASA Causeway.

I flew down back in November for the first attempt at STS-133. After many days of delays (and many roundtrips to KSC), it finally got rescheduled to December. That trip ended up getting delayed too, but finally in February, Discovery (STS-133) launched. The weather was perfect:
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/STS-133-launch-day-3-023.jpg

Came down for Endeavour (STS-134) at the end of April. It was scrubbed. Came down again two weeks later, and the shuttle finally launched! Endeavour was a bit cloudy, but still good. The third best launch out of all of them.

This week, almost two months after the Endeavour launch in mid-May, I came down yet again for Atlantis. I figured it would be scrubbed, but the launch went off without a hitch Friday morning.

All in all, three launches in 5 months, but the chase began back in November. Was an excellent experience... met a lot of different people, spent days chasing tickets to the causeway (which are hard to get, and I never did win the lottery). Coming back down to Florida for the landing next week... will be sad to see the program be complete after that....

 

[Nebor]

I always thought they looked cool on TV. I've never really considered going to see a shuttle launch in person, I'll have to check it out sometime.

 

[Blitzvogel]

It had to come to an end at some point. The question, is how will we rise out of mediocrity? An attempt at another X-33 type craft would be really cool. It is also nice to see some private companies step up to the plate to create launch vehicles and man carrying space craft that will allow man to hopefully extend general commerce to space, and humanity along with it, ushering a new era. I'm currently waiting patiently for the first space colony or at least small scale experiment.

Then I want mobile suits! (just kidding, kinda)

 

[manlymatt83]

I always thought they looked cool on TV. I've never really considered going to see a shuttle launch in person, I'll have to check it out sometime.

Too late. Done.

 

[manlymatt83]

It had to come to an end at some point. The question, is how will we rise out of mediocrity? An attempt at another X-33 type craft would be really cool. It is also nice to see some private companies step up to the plate to create launch vehicles and man carrying space craft that will allow man to hopefully extend general commerce to space, and humanity along with it, ushering a new era. I'm currently waiting patiently for the first space colony or at least small scale experiment.

Then I want mobile suits! (just kidding, kinda)

I actually support the retiring of the shuttles. Too expensive.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I actually support the retiring of the shuttles. Too expensive.

That and they are old craft and old designs. Despite the problems initially, I wonder how viable the X-33 might be now or in a few years with some advancements in materials. I'm quite surprised Lockheed or Boeing hasn't tried to create their own space launch services and launch complexes using their vehicles. That is the real future.

 

[SonicIce]

always wanted to go see it

 

[zzuupp]

I thought Boeing had a part in the Sea Launch venture.

& Congrats to the OP for seeing them all. I'm jealous

 

[nanette1985]

We went to a lot of the early ones - inlaws had a place in Fla, always bitched about us not staying with them every moment when we went to Fla. I'll always associate shuttle launches with crabby old people .

We stopped going after we had kids - with one kid we still managed it but with two and three the logistics didn't work. And the launches got more and more popular, not as much fun any more.

Great people, great times. Miss that. Congrats on your sucess - 3 launches in 5 months, awesome.

Looking forward to whatever comes next.

 

[Nebor]

Too late. Done.

It's cool, I watched a YouTube video of it. When do they start the launches again next year? I assume they stop due to weather\seasons?

 

[manlymatt83]

It's cool, I watched a YouTube video of it. When do they start the launches again next year? I assume they stop due to weather\seasons?

No, the program is done

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

 

[manlymatt83]

We went to a lot of the early ones - inlaws had a place in Fla, always bitched about us not staying with them every moment when we went to Fla. I'll always associate shuttle launches with crabby old people .

We stopped going after we had kids - with one kid we still managed it but with two and three the logistics didn't work. And the launches got more and more popular, not as much fun any more.

Great people, great times. Miss that. Congrats on your sucess - 3 launches in 5 months, awesome.

Looking forward to whatever comes next.

Thanks Yeah, hands down to the people for sure! It's like everyone knows everyone. Never a mean person in sight. Was a great experience.

 

[Nebor]

No, the program is done

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

Oh I see.

Do they have a timeline on when the new shuttles will be done? Not in time for next season I guess?

 

[manlymatt83]

Oh I see.

Do they have a timeline on when the new shuttles will be done? Not in time for next season I guess?

There isn't an active shuttle being developed by NASA. A few private things.... but nothing concrete. My guess? 10 years.

 

[Sa7aN]

i dont know why we didnt just continue using the saturn 5 as our payload launching system, have a separate permanent orbital spacecraft for moving stuff around and a reusable vehicle for launching the astronauts that was also a re-entry vehicle. Saturn 5's were perfectly fine, could lift 10x what the shuttle couldhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceplane

 

[Sa7aN]

There isn't an active shuttle being developed by NASA. A few private things.... but nothing concrete. My guess? 10 years.

never with how our government is gutting NASA, hell they have a bill on the table trying to cancel the James Webb Space Telescope (hubble replacement)

 

[ichy]

i dont know why we didnt just continue using the saturn 5 as our payload launching system, have a separate permanent orbital spacecraft for moving stuff around and a reusable vehicle for launching the astronauts that was also a re-entry vehicle. Saturn 5's were perfectly fine, could lift 10x what the shuttle couldhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceplane

Well they idea behind the shuttle was that re usability would make it much cheaper to lift things into orbit, and that expensive one-use rockets would be obsolete. Unfortunately that ended up being a complete and utter fail.

 

[SonicIce]

i dont know why we didnt just continue using the saturn 5 as our payload launching system, have a separate permanent orbital spacecraft for moving stuff around and a reusable vehicle for launching the astronauts that was also a re-entry vehicle. Saturn 5's were perfectly fine, could lift 10x what the shuttle couldhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceplane

I don't know but my guess is Saturn V is basically 50's and 60's technology. It's expendable and wasteful and it was built for the sole purpose of rushing to the moon.

 

[Linflas]

It was a lot of work, a lot of sitting in traffic, and a lot of exhaustion, but I'm proud to say that after 7 months and 7 roundtrips Boston to Orlando, I was able to see the launch of STS-133, STS-134, and STS-135 from the NASA Causeway.

I flew down back in November for the first attempt at STS-133. After many days of delays (and many roundtrips to KSC), it finally got rescheduled to December. That trip ended up getting delayed too, but finally in February, Discovery (STS-133) launched. The weather was perfect:
http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/STS-133-launch-day-3-023.jpg

Came down for Endeavour (STS-134) at the end of April. It was scrubbed. Came down again two weeks later, and the shuttle finally launched! Endeavour was a bit cloudy, but still good. The third best launch out of all of them.

This week, almost two months after the Endeavour launch in mid-May, I came down yet again for Atlantis. I figured it would be scrubbed, but the launch went off without a hitch Friday morning.

All in all, three launches in 5 months, but the chase began back in November. Was an excellent experience... met a lot of different people, spent days chasing tickets to the causeway (which are hard to get, and I never did win the lottery). Coming back down to Florida for the landing next week... will be sad to see the program be complete after that....

I did 2 trips to see Discovery, first in November then for the launch in February. I viewed it from here. It was a blast and I got to reacquaint myself with a lot of places I used to hang around when I was stationed in Florida in the Navy. Grats for being able to see all 3, I bet the traffic jam for that final one was epic.

 

[ichy]

I don't know but my guess is Saturn V is basically 50's and 60's technology. It's expendable and wasteful and it was built for the sole purpose of rushing to the moon.

The problem is that rocket technology hasn't really advanced all that much since the 1960s. If we were still building Saturn V type rockets today they'd have more modern electronics and probably be lighter because of advances in material science, but to date nobody has built a liquid-fuel rocket engine that matches the power of the Saturn V's F-1s.

We stopped building Saturn Vs because a political decision was made to build the space shuttle instead. In hindsight this was a mistake. In 2007 Michael Griffin wrote a paper showing how if NASA hadn't built the shuttle they could have continued launching a couple lunar missions per year in addition to sending up Skylab type space stations for most of the 1970s without spending any more money than they did on the shuttle program.

 

[Linflas]

The problem is that rocket technology hasn't really advanced all that much since the 1960s. If we were still building Saturn V type rockets today they'd have more modern electronics and probably be lighter because of advances in material science, but to date nobody has built a liquid-fuel rocket engine that matches the power of the Saturn V's F-1s.

We stopped building Saturn Vs because a political decision was made to build the space shuttle instead. In hindsight this was a mistake. In 2007 Michael Griffin wrote a paper showing how if NASA hadn't built the shuttle they could have continued launching a couple lunar missions per year in addition to sending up Skylab type space stations for most of the 1970s without spending any more money than they did on the shuttle program.

The problem with that is there was no vision for a next step beyond that. Yes we could continue to go to the moon but without the vision of the next step of establishing a base on the moon there was really no reason to do so. That should have been our objective along with a new goal of a manned mission to Mars as the next logical goal.

 

[ichy]

The problem with that is there was no vision for a next step beyond that. Yes we could continue to go to the moon but without the vision of the next step of establishing a base on the moon there was really no reason to do so. That should have been our objective along with a new goal of a manned mission to Mars as the next logical goal.

True. Apollo missions were also very risky. I've heard that part of the reason that the last couple of planned moon landings were canceled was that we'd scored our big propaganda victory by beating the Russians, and that if we continued to fly people there there was a very real risk of losing astronauts in the process.

If we had launched more than one or two more lunar missions though that would've required a second batch of Saturn Vs. Rocketdyne had developed a significantly more powerful version of the F-1 engine, which means that we could have had a series of gradually longer duration and more ambitious missions to the moon. At the same time they could have flown additional Skylab missions (NASA actually built a fully functional second Skylab station that was never launched) to build experience with long-endurance missions in preparation for a flight to Mars.

What really slays me about the end of Apollo is all the hardware that was built but never used. At the end of the program there were two Saturn Vs, a backup Skylab station and several Saturn 1Bs that just went to waste. Without building any additional equipment we could have launched two more lunar missions or one more moon landing and a second space station. If we'd gone ahead and built a second batch of Saturn Vs then the possibilities are endless...

 

[JulesMaximus]

I kind of kick myself because I have family not 30 minutes from there. Still, with the number of times they scrub these missions I figure I would have had a 50/50 chance of actually being there for a Shuttle launch. Not to mention flying all the way across the country to see it.

 

[Linflas]

I kind of kick myself because I have family not 30 minutes from there. Still, with the number of times they scrub these missions I figure I would have had a 50/50 chance of actually being there for a Shuttle launch. Not to mention flying all the way across the country to see it.

Funny thing that. I was thinking that they had been launching pretty much on schedule for the last couple of years when I went down in November. I allowed time for weather delays but wasn't too concerned about hardware. By the time it had been delayed to Thursday and the weather that day indicated only a 30% chance of being favorable I cut my losses and headed home Wednesday. Given what ended up happening it was a smart move. I was really lucky when I went back in February, the launch was actually delayed to within 30 seconds of so of a scrub when they resolved whatever it was and off the thing went.

 

[sao123]

The problem with that is there was no vision for a next step beyond that. Yes we could continue to go to the moon but without the vision of the next step of establishing a base on the moon there was really no reason to do so. That should have been our objective along with a new goal of a manned mission to Mars as the next logical goal.

we still have the problem of no vision, no goals, and no program.