Where have you been? Options

[dvandorn]

A note in another thread brought me to wonder how many of us have been to various sites that are significant in the history (or ongoing prosecution) of space flight.

I'll start off. I've been to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. (many times), and to the Garber restoration facility of NASM in Silver Hill, Maryland.

I've been to the Kennedy Space Center twice. The second time, there was a Shuttle on the pad. The first time, there was a Saturn IB with an Apollo spacecraft out on Pad 39B; Pad 39A was in the process of being reconstructed. (That ought to let people isolate that timeframe within no more than a year or so...)

I've been to the Johnson Space Center once. To give you a clue as to the timeframe, the MOCR wasn't in use (i.e., no flights were active), but instead of a TELMU console, there was an EGIL console. (Again, that ought to bring the timeframe into perspective, as well.)

That's about it for me in terms of visiting famous space-related places. How about y'all?

-the other Doug

[dmuller]

I saw the launch of the Shuttle carrying Ulysses at Cape Canaveral ... what a beautiful early morning that was. Was on holidays in Florida (lived in Europe at that time) and whilst we planned to visit KSC we didnt have a clue that a launch was on (in particular one that was about 10 years late). Ulysses is still (just) alive after all those year!

Then I was at the visitor center at the DSN in Canberra for the Phoenix landing. Watched the big dish dialing in on MRO, and I was looking into the big dish (it was at a very low angle) possibly at the time when the "Phoenix @ Heimdall Crater" image (see avatar) came down.

And ... somewhat related to umsf ... I visited the CERN some years back.

[nprev]

Well...not as many places as I'd like. (WILL see KSC before I die, though; that's on the list!!!)

-Stationed at Edwards AFB, 1983-1985; saw several Shuttle landings. Also met Chuck Yeager (!) when he was flying test for the F-20. (He's short ; I'm only 5'8" at best, was much taller then him. Made me feel both better and more inadequate at the same time!) Sneaked over & got a good close look at the Enterprise when it was parked in hangar 1414 (tee, hee!) Apparently chased off ElkGroveDan once during a Shuttle landing when acting as a security augmentee, but he'll deny it!

Also briefly met Ellison Onizuka, who died on Challenger. He was often flying back-seat on F-4s @ Edwards, and debriefed him on many aircraft problems (those planes were utter pigs.)

-Saw the (correct me if I'm wrong) Apollo 18 Saturn V laid horizontally in glory @ the Johnson Space Center; no time to stop for the tour, was in the middle of moving from Washington state to Georgia.

-Met Scott Carpenter when I was all of 7 years old at an oceanography lecture in Bozeman, MT (Montana State University, a noted board member's alma mater). He didn't want to talk about Mercury.

-Finally, during the total solar eclipse on 26 Feb 1979, hooked up with some JPL scientists somewhere east of Livingston, MT, at maybe 20 below zero. (They had a Celestron 8; I was irresistably drawn!) One of them was Michael Kobrick, later PI on the Magellan radar. They told me that Io was looking "interesting" in early imagery from Voyager 1; later, they sent me lots of press-release pics (I was still a kid, in the 9th grade. Gotta applaud real-live scientists for taking the time & trouble to foster interest!!!)

[ElkGroveDan]

-Stationed at Edwards AFB, 1983-1985; .... Apparently chased off ElkGroveDan once during a Shuttle landing when acting as a security augmentee, but he'll deny it!

It's a lie I tell you. I never went anywhere near the STS 9 landing. Don't imagine that just because I lived just 60 miles from there and when I heard that the landing had been delayed several hours that I was able to get off of work early. If you think I drove along Highway 58 to my secret spot and pulled the car off the road, hid it behind some shrubs, hiked a half mile, crawled under a railroad trestle, climbed over a security fence and eventually found myself standing on the north end of the Rogers Dry Lakebed then you would be flat wrong. If you think I used a 400mm lens I borrowed and took some of the most amazing photos of my life as the shuttle whooosh'd silently overhead it wouldn't be true. Finally if you think I looked up and saw two jeeps with armed USAF MPs speeding in my direction after it was all over and was able to scoot up over the berm at the end of the lakebed and disappear into the desert shrubs (heart pounding) until they had passed then you'd just be believing those rumors that Nick keeps spreading. He'll probably say the attached image is the approximate route I used to take to watch those early STS landings. I really must dig up those old photos and post them here some time.

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[stevesliva]

, and to the Garber restoration facility of NASM in Silver Hill, Maryland.

Me too! I heard they were closing it when the Udar-Hazy museum opened... true? What a fantastic tour that was. Saw all parts of the Enola Gay as they were completing the restoration to put just the nose on display in the mall. I suppose the bird's in one piece at Dulles now.(?)

Been to Johnson. Haven't been to Kennedy, but a few years ago I did see the never-used shuttle launch complex at Vandenburg. That was eerie. I guess it's found better use now.

[nprev]

Well, Dan, I'd have to call this plausible deniability... ...just glad we never caught you, is all!!!

EDIT: Son of a b..... that was our zone, that's exactly right, it really was you!!! I've been thinking all this time that it was unlikely; we chased off spectators all the time (never charged them; nobody had weapons or anything, just lotsa cameras.) I'll be damned.

[mchan]

Saw all parts of the Enola Gay as they were completing the restoration to put just the nose on display in the mall. I suppose the bird's in one piece at Dulles now.(?)

Yes, Enola Gay is in one piece at the NASM Udvar-Hazy Center. Was on a business trip in the vicinity last year and had 3 hours to kill before flight home from Dulles. Definitely worth the drive even if coming from DC.

Visited KSC during the Bicentennial year and the VAB was open for people to walk thru on the tour, being it was during the lull between ASTP and Shuttle. Memory of walking thru the same doors (which are several stories high at just the base) that the Apollos, Saturns, and Shuttles use to go out to the pads. I found it incongruous at the time that the road between the VAB and the pads was covered with gravel.

[nprev]

Forgot to mention that I've also been to the National Air & Space Museum in DC. At the time, the Viking engineering mockup was right there in the foyer; it seemed huge!

One of the Apollo CMs (think it was Apollo 8, but not sure now) was hanging from the ceiling...seemed so small. I remembered that the crew had free-fall to make it feel bigger, but, jeez...it was still so damn small, and I silently saluted these pioneers.

I'm not claustrophobic at all, but these guys had brass balls & probably the most pleasant personalities regardless. Tolerating a couple of weeks in a space no larger than a closet is an achievement in itself, multiplied by the fact that there were two other people there as well, with a brief break while the EVA crew went down & back. In all honesty, how many people could really withstand that?

Sure easy to draw the Columbus, Lewis & Clark, etc. comparisons, but by God the 60s-era astronauts earned them, and more. True pioneers in every sense.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention this?!! Went to the JPL open house in 2006...amazing, of course!

[DavidVicari]

I've seen the Apollo 8 CM at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and Apollo 15 at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. I was also surprised by how small they are. The USAF museum is the best museum ever, I highly recommend visiting it. USAF museum

I'm making it my goal to get to KSC to see a launch in the next year.

[Paolo Amoroso]

In October 2007 I visited KSC and watched the launch of STS-120. I also visited the Navy SEAL Museum in Ft. Pierce, FL, where there are two Apollo mockups used for recovery exercises and other items of recovery teams.


Paolo Amoroso

[djellison]

I've been to the old rocket testing site on the Isle of Wight
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v667/mah...Rockettest1.jpg

The National Space Centre here in Leicester where Beagle 2 was operated until it's demise, and they have a Thor-Able and a Blue Streak ( I think) rocket, and one of only two complete Soyuz outside of the former Soviet Union.

Clean-rooms at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to see C1XS, an Xray spectrometer going onboard Chandaraayaan (enough A's in there?) -1

ESOC in Darmstadt, including a brief tour of the back-offices and control rooms for XMM-Newton, Cluster, Envisat and so on by David Southwood.

Of course, the Science Museum in London is good, as is the new Greenwich Observatory, and Isaac Newton's home, Woolsthorpe Manor (including Apple trees )

But I've not 'done' Florida, Houston or California - all of which have amazing things that I must see one day.

[jamescanvin]

The most significant space flight place I've been is Woomera in south Australia - one of the oddest towns you'll ever visit as the entire place was an off limits military base not that long ago.

There is a fascinating Museum and Missile park, I must sort out my pictures for you lot, but in the meantime here is a picture of me next to Britain's only orbital launch vehicle the Black Arrow.

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[ilbasso]

I was at Naha, Okinawa when the Gemini 8 crew came in after their emergency landing. Saw SR-71's taking off from Kadena Air Base in 1967 when it was still a secret that they were stationed there.

In order of when I met them, have met astronauts Bill Anders, Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, and Wally Schirra.

I was at the Garber facility in Silver Spring in 1970, which is where I met the fellow from the Smithsonian who subsequently got me the tourguide job at the National Air and Space Museum, when it was still in the Arts and Industries Building. For those who never were there (it housed the NASM until the "new" facility was opened in 1976), here's what it looked like. I love the incongruity of space hardware in a Victorian-era setting.

Friendship 7


X-15 (Gotta love the ladder along the wall next to it!)


LM-2

I live about 7 miles from the Udvar-Hazy Center and go there frequently. My sister-in-law is a projectionist in their IMAX theatre.

Have been to KSC but have never seen a launch - that's a "must do" for the coming year!

Worked on the Space Station Freedom program, was at JSC and at the program HQ in Reston, VA. Have also been at Goddard.

Used to work across the street from NASA HQ. I watched Columbia's first landing from the public affairs auditorium there. Interviewed Orlando Figueroa ("NASA's Mars Czar") for a mentoring project at NASA.

Have been to Wallops Island and have seen sounding rocket launches.

[nprev]

Saw SR-71's taking off from Kadena Air Base in 1967 when it was still a secret that they were stationed there.

Okay, going into OT land, but we're talking airplanes!!!

Was TDY to Kadena from Korea in 1986, and happened to be out at the end of the runway when an SR took off. It pitched up right over us & went maximum throttle straight up; think I lost a significant amount of my hearing from that, but, boy was it worth it!!!

What I found amazing was that there was always a crowd of locals outside the fence before every SR launch; they apparently had better access to the flying schedule then we did!

Speaking of Korea, I was once again out on the end of the runway, same year, this time at Osan AB, doing EOR inspections on F-4s. There was a Lieutenant Colonel out there as well in the souped-up El Camino they used to catch one wingtip of a U-2 upon landing (it had a little bracket thing in the back for this purpose.) We just finished doing one of our planes, and he taxied to the takeoff point. As soon as he throttled up, his drag chute deployed! He apparently decided "screw it" & jettisoned it, then proceeded to take off. Meanwhile, we look up & see a U-2 on final approach, with a chute laying out there on the runway! We radioed the tower asking them for permission to go out on the active runway & get the chute off.

The Colonel didn't bat an eye. While we were trying to get the tower to clear us to get the damn thing, he peeled rubber in that El Camino (police interceptor 454 V8!), sped out to the runway, grabbed the chute, then got back in position just in time to chase the U-2 down the runway & catch its wingtip. We just stared with gaping mouths at it all.

(Us enlisted guys were always amazed to see an officer do something useful, after all... )

[tasp]

Many years ago, my dad saw a dirigible pass over their farm on a cross country trip, don't have time to search Google right now, but he recalls it being either the Shenandoah or the Macon.

Not too long ago, while driving near Offut AFB, I was able to point out a B-1 bomber on approach to him. He remarked it looked like a big mosquito.

I also drug him out in the yard to watch a shuttle/ISS pass almost directly overhead here a few years ago. The shuttle was undocked and trailing ISS about 10 degrees. He was amazed.

I have seen a total solar eclipse (Roundup Montana). My folks saw a bolide many years ago, and ~2 minutes later we heard a 'thud' which I assumed was a sonic boom. There was never a mention of the thing in the media (pre-internet days) so I don't know if it was really a rock, or an upper stage. Object passed N to S over Iowa about 30 years ago, summer or late spring, 4:30PM as I recall.

I have some space flown materials from Challenger, and a piece of Skylab.

I really like the AF museum in Dayton, and the SAC museum in Gretna/Ashland Nebraska has some space related objects in their collection.

They have a Goblin too !!!

I saw the space shuttle and 747 carrier in Omaha last summer too. Amazing sight, but my high def camcorder seemed to turn as many heads in the crowd as the shuttle did.