Thwarted Again

We have all arrived and assembled. The NASA shuttle page tells me that the launch is still on for tomorrow. Of course, once I got actual internet again I learned that someone at work had been a busy little bee and changed some computery thing or another after I left and a bunch of stuff was failing all day. I got all that fixed and then went out for dinner with the family. Then we went shopping for picnic supplies for tomorrow and now we’re all back at the hotel getting ready for tomorrow. The tour bus is going to be here at 06:00 which is about two hours earlier than they were estimating last I heard which is kinda lame. That means up at 04:30 to get a shower, check the packing, stage gear, and all the other stuff that makes it look like we’re the ones going to space. At least 04:30 is really 05:30 for internal clock time. But that also means that it’s already 21:40 internal time which is pretty well bedtime.

Big day tomorrow.

The gate agents in Dallas found a seat for me. It’s a middle seat but that beats sitting in the airport being all emotional any day of the week. Soon we will be on our merry way to sunny Florida. Plus now I have had coffee.

I think this is the same gate we left from last time.

In case anyone who knows about this place didn’t already know, i am returning to Florida to see if they’ll finally launch Space Shuttle mission STS-133. I’m worrying myself sick in the Austin airport right now. Apparently the reason I have been unable to select a seat on my flight from Dallas to Orlando is that the flight is oversold. The ticketing agent said to try to get a seat in Dallas so that is what I’ll do. I think it’s funny that this flight has been oversold for a month but whatever. As long a I can be in Orlando before 6:00 am tomorrow it doesn’t really matter. Wish me luck.

I talked to the gate agent and she tells me that I shouldn’t worry and the agents in Dallas will find a way to get me on my flight. Is it unreasonable that this makes me as nervous as it does? The gate agent was nice and reassuring at least.

Space shuttle Discovery’s launch on the STS-133 mission has been targeted for no earlier than Feb. 3, 2011, to allow for more testing on the intertank stringers on the external tank.

Now I don’t have to worry about it for a while.

Dad and I are sitting in the airport right now. The lines have been pretty long. No doubt the throngs of disappointed would-be shuttle spectators have swollen the already stout crowds of folks returning from more conventional vacations. We have seen a lot of people from the UK and, to a lesser extent, Germans and Scandinavians. Orlando really does seem to be an international tourist destination. Dad got a book at the store just now so I think I’m going to grab a coffee and read mine as well.

If they decide to go ahead with the pared down mission schedule in December the decision to come back or not will be tough. If the go ahead and push it all the way to February when STS-134 was supposed to launch I am much more likely to try again.

I did have fun despite the launch scrub. Next time I think the plan will be to stay the entire window and just not worry about trying to keep the trip short.

Tweeters from NASA:

NASA Space shuttle managers meet at 11a ET to discuss when next launch try would be. Preliminary schedule is Monday at the earliest. Stay tuned.

NASA shuttle managers have scrubbed today’s launch attempt of Discovery’s STS-133 mission due to a hydrogen gas leak. Next attempt TBD.

The Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, carries gaseous hydrogen safely away from the shuttle to a flare stack, where it burns off.

Shuttle managers are evaluating a gaseous hydrogen leak at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate that attaches to the external tank.

RT @TheSuss “we are T minus awesome!”

So, this was indeed negative awesome. Now we’re waiting for the dispersed tour group to reassemble so we can go back to Orlando.

Picture time!

We visited the Kennedy Space Center yesterday in preparation for what was not to be launch day today. I spent some time walking around the Rocket Garden and the Early Space Flight museum. The rockets are cool. And, though they are big, they are still small enough that it is amazing to think that people have traveled into space on their brethren.

After that I got on the tour bus that drives you around the restricted access areas. The first place it stops is the LC39 viewing platform where you can see pads 39A and 39B from which the shuttles are launched. You also pass by the vehicle assembly building which is enormous.

From there you go to the Apollo launch site. They have the launch control room from the early Apollo missions preserved and do a little show with it that simulates what it would have been like to be there during a launch. It was pretty well done. They rattle the windows and change the lighting and all that. From there you go into the main part of the building where resides one of the three remaining Saturn V rockets. It’s been stored indoors and is in great shape. I have a bunch of pictures of that.

After that we left, came back to the visitor center looked at a few other things and then returned to the hotel. Obviously today has been something of a bust but it’s good to be spending some alone time. I think we’ve all been getting on each others nerves a bit.