Leave for Florida a week from tomorrow. On Tuesday we plan on going to NASA. ; I know there is a planned shuttle launch for for Tuesday May 12th. ; Unfortunately, we fly out May 10th . ; So I decided to do a little research and find out how early they move the shuttle out to the launch pad. ; Without much hard work I found this http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NAS ... d_999.html Apparently, the shuttle was moved out to Launch Pad 39A on March 31st so Atlantis should be out there the day we go! ; You can bet Im taking my 50-250mm with me!
Actually, you'll get to see a very rare event... there are shuttles on both launch pads, which has only happened 18 times in the history of the shuttle program. ; Atlantis is on 39A and Endeavour is on 39B in case something happens on Atlantis that would require an emergency rescue.
Cool! Thanks Michael! Hopefully Ill be able to capture that with kit lens at 18mm. That or its use my Dad's P&S.
I am envious. ; If you go on the bus tour, be sure to go out back of the Saturn V building; there are good views of the launch pads from there. Here is a shot of pad 39B with a shuttle on it from 1998, taken from the observation tower along the crawlerway:
Dennis, the second shot is really cool. ; I would love to catch a launch one day but I think my time on the shuttle program is drawing short.
IT is drawing short, but there will actually be more launches once the new system is in place. ; The reason for this is that when they start sending manned missions to the moon again, It will be done in 2 launches. ; The "equipment" will be launched first, and then I think it is about a week later that the "crew" would be launched. ; Once the crew reaches orbit their part of the joint rocket will meet up with the equipment, dock and then launch from orbit to get to the moon. ; I just wish that the new rockets had a better look to them. ; The shuttle was a cool thing and to go back to designs from 30-40 years ago, just seemed silly to me.
Thanks. ; That was taken from the NASA Causeway on one of the standard shuttle launch tours. ; You get a ticket in advance from the visitor center (http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/buy-tickets.aspx) and they bus you out to the causeway. I've made many trips to Florida to see launches, but my success rate is only 30-40%; I saw the Skylab go up in 1973 and have seen three shuttle launches. ; The biggest disappointment was when I went down for a night shuttle launch; they scrubbed a few hours before launch time, and of course it was a problem that would take weeks to fix.
