PS3 Users Can Watch NASA Shuttle Launch Live (02/24/11)

[Murph]

http://tinyurl.com/4sp25zz

[F308GTB]

I was supposed to see the launch last year before it was delayed. Sucked as I brought my dad with me to see one of the last launches of Shuttle and it was scrubbed. Nonetheless, a good day for me. I was responsible for the structural subsystem for one of the main payloads - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_ ... ose_Module Also was responsible for the structural system with the ATV, which docked to ISS today. So far, 8 of my elements down, 2 more to go. Always great to see your work pay off. Met some great engineers across this planet over the last 10 years who made this a great team effort.

[TheGamer2]

F308GTB, would love to hear some of the stories you have. Any conversations with the astronauts?

[F308GTB]

F308GTB, would love to hear some of the stories you have. Any conversations with the astronauts?

Personally I'm a hardware guy. Not a big fan of astronauts. They tend to screw things up Was down at KSC with a couple of crews who had to do some training on a rack install/removal. Just so happens there was an issue late last week the popped up that affected the same rack in the flight today. The astronauts may have installed it incorrectly and there was a potential safety issue I had to clear over the week (completely blew my weekend).

Now there are some great astronauts out there. On ATV, the integration manager on the NASA side is astronaut Steve Smith. Real humble guy. Lived in Paris while ATV was in development and now is stationed at the ESA facility in The Netherlands. A couple of years ago I was taking the bus from ESTEC to Leiden and Steve hopped on to go home to Amsterdam. On the way his wife rings him up and gives him the list of groceries to pick up on his way home. This is a guy who has been on 4 trips to space and 7 space walks. But he's just a regular guy.

Also know a fantastic engineer at JAXA (Japanese equivalent of NASA). He made it to the final selection of astronauts in their last call. He just missed out in the end, but he said one of the tests for the Japanese was to sit in a room and make the same origami swan repeatedly for a couple of hours. Purpose was to see how they'd react to doing the same repetitive task for a long duration.

This week I'm in the DC area with Orbital Sciences. They've got a former astronaut working (Carl Walz) the commercial project I'm responsible for. On one trip to Italy for a review, Carl and I talked a lot and he mentioned how he took his trumpet with him to ISS. Practiced on ISS, which must have been quite a nuisance since he flew in the very early days of ISS before there was a place to hide.

I've met and worked with quite a few of the JAXA astronauts and they are really cool folks. Easy to get along with.

But mostly the crews just get me torqued up - losing hardware, breaking stuff that I have to go off an analyze for a failure scenario. The ops world is a completely different mindset than the hardware/engineering world. The astronauts typically don't have big egos like some may expect. Today's astronauts, due to the length of time they have to be on ISS, have different personalities than the shorter duration astronauts of the Shuttle generation and before. It's one thing to live in close quarters with 2-6 others for 3-14 days. It's quite another experience to live with the same 6 people for 6 months at a time in a confined space.

FYI, my grandfather was a professor in aerospace engineering at Michigan. A couple of his students were Skylab astronaut Jack Lousma and Ed White (Gemini spacewalker and died in the Apollo 1 fire).

[TheGamer2]

That's very interesting stuff, and thanks for sharing. I have much respect for all you folks.

[Rodster]

Nothing beats watching a live shuttle launch. I saw one while doing business in the Cape Canaveral area in the late 90's. It was freaking awesome.

[GB_Simo]

Nothing beats watching a live shuttle launch. I saw one while doing business in the Cape Canaveral area in the late 90's. It was freaking awesome.

Seconded. I'd booked up to watch an Atlantis launch in 2006 - STS-115, if memory serves - which had been delayed by a lightning strike until it fell into the same window as my hoilday. It was delayed twice more, I couldn't keep losing days of my holiday (when Atlantis did eventually launch, I was queueing for Twister at Universal Studios. If you ever find yourself with the choice, the shuttle launch is the option you should take...) so I gave up and thought I'd never get to see one.

In late 2008 I had the good fortune to be somewhere near Titusville when Endeavour was due to take off, drove down there to take a look and...wow. Even from a fair few miles away, there's a drama, a sense of occasion and an incredible energy about the event that needs to be experienced.

If any of you haven't been somewhere nearby as a space shuttle takes flight, make the most of any opportunity you get while they're still there to be taken in. It really is something else, you've only got a couple of chances left and as far as I was able to work out through the evening I spent there, it's the only chance you'll ever get to write the words, "I had the good fortune to be somewhere near Titusville."

[F308GTB]

When I was down with my dad last fall, while we missed the launch I did get him a nice tour. I was there on an award so we got a "VIP tour" but the real VIP tour came with my SpaceX contacts. Got he and I into the SpaceX launch processing facility on the Cape side. It's the closest he or I will come to a real rocket - had to duck underneath their Falcon 9 to get to the other side of the hangar. Got to peer into the Dragon module and see Elon Musk's "secret payload" which ended up being a wheel of Gruyere cheese. The SpaceX guys out there said they saw a Delta IV Heavy launch, but even that couldn't compare to a Shuttle launch. Fortunately I saw Flight 10A live (another one of my elements on that flight). But I want my dad to see one. Only 1 or 2 more chances left. We have a flight in April, but the very last flight, while manifested, isn't funded.

I've heard the thndering roar of Richard Petty's stock car from 10 feet away. I've heard screaming Indy cars on a road circuit when we had a race here in Houston. Nothing compares to the magnitude of sound and ground vibration you get from a Shuttle launch It's over quick, but it's one hell of a show.