Last week was an amazing week. As you know, I was one of 150 selected by NASA to attend the GRAIL launch and Tweetup. First of all, I have to apologize for not being able to update the blog with my experiences before today: it was the first chance I’ve had to sit down and formulate an entry for you. So without further ado: my NASA Tweetup experience.
Part 1: The Tweetup
Tuesday, September 6th. After work Tuesday, I drove up to Titusville to attend the Tweetup. I actually arrived early enough that I was able to go to the dinner that had been set up for early arrivers. We all gathered at the Dixie Crossroads in Titusville (I was one of the last to arrive) to begin our experience. About 80 or so of the 150 tweetup participants were able to attend, and we had a great first meeting (and a great dinner). Since the restaurant closes at 9pm, I was back at the hotel in plenty of time to rest up from the 4 ½ hour drive up from Naples.
Wednesday, September 7th. Registration for the Tweetup started at the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex at 7am. I wasn’t the first to arrive, but I was close. I showed my two forms of ID, picked up my badge and swag bag, and then hung out in the parking lot with the arriving tweeps until the Debus Conference Center opened at 8:30. At 8:30, we were all ushered into the conference center (which was still being prepped for the afternoon session) for the initial meeting, where we were introduced to our hosts from NASA and JPL and to each other. Everyone got a chance to stand up, introduce themselves (and their Twitter handle) and state an interesting fact about themselves. Needless to say with 150 people, this took the better part of an hour and a half, so we were a few minutes late getting started with our tour of KSC.
Since we had such a large group NASA arranged for four tour busses, each of which went to the same places but in a different sequence so as to not overwhelm the facilities at each stop. On my bus, Bus 4, we visited Launch Complex 41 first. This is the Atlas launch complex, and was the launch site for the recent JUNO mission to Jupiter. It will also be the launch site for the Mars Science Laboratory mission in November, sending a new rover called Curiosity to explore Gale Crater. Along the way we passed by Launch Complex 40, where SpaceX is setting up shop for their launches. After LC17 we continued on past Launch Complex 39, from which the Apollo program and Shuttle program launched. Since the Shuttle program was retired this summer, NASA is still working on taking apart/reconfiguring LC39 in anticipation of the next program, so we weren’t allowed to stop. We had to settle for a drive by on our way to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). We spent quite a bit of time there, and they let us go inside for a look around. The massive transport crawler that moved the Saturn V rockets and Shuttles to the launch pad was parked inside, as was (surprise) the Shuttle Endeavor, looking less-shuttle like with parts of her nose and reaction control pods on the back removed as it’s being transitioned from a working spacecraft to a museum piece (well, it was supposed to be a surprise but earlier busses who had visited before us had already tweeted about it). We also learned that the final resting place of the lost Shuttle Columbia is in the VAB, available for study by researchers and engineers. Our bus missed the next stop (the Countdown clock) since we were running behind, so we moved on to the final stop of the morning, Launch Complex 17: the Delta launch complex from which GRAIL would be launched. We couldn’t see much of the actual rocket, since the servicing tower was still protecting it.
After lunch, we all headed back to the Visitor Complex for an afternoon of presentations. You saw on the event schedule who we heard from (I was going to live-blog it, but NASA didn’t anticipate there would be 150 people with computers, iPads smartphones all competing for a small pool of wireless IP addresses, so I never was able to get connected). The highlights were Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator, Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Uhuru from Star Trek TOS, Maria Zubar, the PI from MIT for the GRAIL mission, and, of course, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium in NY and television personality. We wrapped up with a group photo in the lobby of the Debus Center (it was pouring outside, where the picture was supposed to be taken) and headed back to our hotels to try to rest for the launch attempt Thursday morning.
Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 coming later this week…
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