NASASocial | The MAVEN Launch!
#NASASocial
This was the first time I've seen a rocket launch as an adult.
By that I mean that those shuttle launches I saw with my parents were wonderful, but they always felt like vacations related to my dad's work. (Well, they were.) This time I sought to watch the launch with other space enthusiasts and had to rely on whatever social media "chops" I had to secure a spot. I'm so grateful it worked out because the #NASASocial experience blew me away.
A view of KSC (Kennedy Space Center) and its shuttle-shaped running track. (credits: Jeffrey Putman)Among the highlights: seeing the shuttle launch pad up close, now being stripped for our next manned launch system (Orion), set to begin test launches in September 2014. We stood in the "flame trench"(perfectly named, and 4 stories high, 500 feet long, 60 feet across) and saw the crumbling bricks walls that for so many years withstood the shuttle's thrust, now being restored for the Orion. A man in a hardhat held a schematic of the new launch pad. Was he just a contractor? I struck up a conversation. "I've been doing this for forty years and I'm lovin' it," he told me, referring to his career in launch pad construction. He has been at it since the Mercury program and is still going strong. That's a long time, but a thousand years from now, will some of these bricks still stand here? Tour groups will visit this flame trench and hear their tour guide's explanation: "Yes, an ancient spaceport, friends. These stunted pyramids may not look like much, but they launched some of our first rockets into space. Space--that's what they called it. Must have looked must bigger back then."
Top Left: "I'm lovin' it!" Bottom Left: the old days. Shuttle on way to launchpad. Right: The Orion, our manned deep space explorer, blasting off in an artist's rendition (credit: spacenews.com)I resisted the temptation to grab a crumbled chunk of brick from the flame trench, which, I have heard but can't confirm, the shuttle occasionally blasted as far away as Kansas. The tour guide, if he's worth his salt, will most certainly say the bricks landed on the great wall of China.
In the Shuttle "firing room," where the big green "LAUNCH" button gets pushed. Okay, it's a bit different than that.The launch itself is a sensory experience that Youtube videos can't capture, regardless of noise-cancellation headphone quality. Seeing the vivid flame, hearing the crunchy boom of liftoff, watching the cranes fly away as the sound waves hit them (and then you)--all that never fails to impress.
What makes a launch more impressive is to think of the years of development leading up to that iconic 10-second countdown. Upon that launch ride the hopes of onlookers but, moreso, the best laid plans of hundreds of brilliant people--scientists and engineers who spent years constructing the MAVEN and its myriad atmospheric measuring tools that must go 0-15,000MPH in a matter of minutes and make it all the way to Mars unscathed. A rocket launch is visceral. Considering its cargo makes it nerve-racking. Our visit with the MAVEN's designers intensified that feeling for me--their mission will help us discover what happened to Mars' atmosphere. It may also give us a window into the Earth's future.
The MAVEN team worked through a government shutdown just two months before the launch and still managed to get their rocket into the air on time. And under budget.
That is determination. That is excellence. That is NASA, and our country, at its best.
Also, NASA at its best were the folks at NASASocial. From college students to part-time astronomers to ex-Navy SEALS, it was a disparate group that formed a community for a weekend, one that seems to be sticking together via social media. Really kind of beautiful, and no one even cared if you ducked out of a conversation to check your phone--you were probably tweeting something about the launch, called away for a moment to dialogue with someone else invested in space stuff. It was an engaging mix of casual tweeting about whose bus was the best--clearly #2 on day one, and #3 on day 2--and heavy dialogue about astrophysics. Muscle confusion for the mind. Really helpful for someone who spends his time dreaming up worlds that do not yet exist. However, if Lady Gaga really does sing in space, I'll claim that as prophetic. Read the novel. You'll see.
Complete video of our session with NASATV. I ask a question at about 51:30.
One last pic: NASA head honcho Charlie Bolden trying on GoogleGlass. Several NASASocial folks had them, and he couldn't resist. Credits to Talia Landman.
This was the first time I've seen a rocket launch as an adult.
By that I mean that those shuttle launches I saw with my parents were wonderful, but they always felt like vacations related to my dad's work. (Well, they were.) This time I sought to watch the launch with other space enthusiasts and had to rely on whatever social media "chops" I had to secure a spot. I'm so grateful it worked out because the #NASASocial experience blew me away.
A view of KSC (Kennedy Space Center) and its shuttle-shaped running track. (credits: Jeffrey Putman)Among the highlights: seeing the shuttle launch pad up close, now being stripped for our next manned launch system (Orion), set to begin test launches in September 2014. We stood in the "flame trench"(perfectly named, and 4 stories high, 500 feet long, 60 feet across) and saw the crumbling bricks walls that for so many years withstood the shuttle's thrust, now being restored for the Orion. A man in a hardhat held a schematic of the new launch pad. Was he just a contractor? I struck up a conversation. "I've been doing this for forty years and I'm lovin' it," he told me, referring to his career in launch pad construction. He has been at it since the Mercury program and is still going strong. That's a long time, but a thousand years from now, will some of these bricks still stand here? Tour groups will visit this flame trench and hear their tour guide's explanation: "Yes, an ancient spaceport, friends. These stunted pyramids may not look like much, but they launched some of our first rockets into space. Space--that's what they called it. Must have looked must bigger back then."
Top Left: "I'm lovin' it!" Bottom Left: the old days. Shuttle on way to launchpad. Right: The Orion, our manned deep space explorer, blasting off in an artist's rendition (credit: spacenews.com)I resisted the temptation to grab a crumbled chunk of brick from the flame trench, which, I have heard but can't confirm, the shuttle occasionally blasted as far away as Kansas. The tour guide, if he's worth his salt, will most certainly say the bricks landed on the great wall of China.
In the Shuttle "firing room," where the big green "LAUNCH" button gets pushed. Okay, it's a bit different than that.The launch itself is a sensory experience that Youtube videos can't capture, regardless of noise-cancellation headphone quality. Seeing the vivid flame, hearing the crunchy boom of liftoff, watching the cranes fly away as the sound waves hit them (and then you)--all that never fails to impress.What makes a launch more impressive is to think of the years of development leading up to that iconic 10-second countdown. Upon that launch ride the hopes of onlookers but, moreso, the best laid plans of hundreds of brilliant people--scientists and engineers who spent years constructing the MAVEN and its myriad atmospheric measuring tools that must go 0-15,000MPH in a matter of minutes and make it all the way to Mars unscathed. A rocket launch is visceral. Considering its cargo makes it nerve-racking. Our visit with the MAVEN's designers intensified that feeling for me--their mission will help us discover what happened to Mars' atmosphere. It may also give us a window into the Earth's future.
The MAVEN team worked through a government shutdown just two months before the launch and still managed to get their rocket into the air on time. And under budget.
That is determination. That is excellence. That is NASA, and our country, at its best.
Also, NASA at its best were the folks at NASASocial. From college students to part-time astronomers to ex-Navy SEALS, it was a disparate group that formed a community for a weekend, one that seems to be sticking together via social media. Really kind of beautiful, and no one even cared if you ducked out of a conversation to check your phone--you were probably tweeting something about the launch, called away for a moment to dialogue with someone else invested in space stuff. It was an engaging mix of casual tweeting about whose bus was the best--clearly #2 on day one, and #3 on day 2--and heavy dialogue about astrophysics. Muscle confusion for the mind. Really helpful for someone who spends his time dreaming up worlds that do not yet exist. However, if Lady Gaga really does sing in space, I'll claim that as prophetic. Read the novel. You'll see.
Complete video of our session with NASATV. I ask a question at about 51:30.
One last pic: NASA head honcho Charlie Bolden trying on GoogleGlass. Several NASASocial folks had them, and he couldn't resist. Credits to Talia Landman.
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