The Final Space Shuttle Launch: STS-135

SummaryNone
OwnerMatthew Gilbertson
Creation Date2011-07-12 08:29:38 UTC-0400
Description11:29am Friday July 8th, 2011

Matthew Gilbertson & Doug Powell

Author: Matthew


Before July 8, 2011 there were two places in the world where humans get launched into space: Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan. Doug and I decided that we had to witness the final space shuttle launch, STS-135, in Florida because it would be a little trickier to travel to Kazakhstan for a weekend.

I had wanted to watch a shuttle launch since I put together my first Space Shuttle Lego set many years ago. Every time I heard or read about a space shuttle launch I always thought to myself “I’d really like to see a shuttle launch some day.” Well I couldn’t make the 3rd-to-last or 2nd-to-last launches so the final launch was my final chance.

T-minus 1 week:

We bought our flights down to Jacksonville at T minus 1 week, just after a NASA technical meeting had given the final OK for a July 8th launch. Flights into Orlando were over $500 at that point so we could really save by flying into JAX for <$400 and then driving a rental car down to Titusville. But at T minus 1 week you still have no idea what the weather will be for launch day.

T-minus 24 hours:

The weather forecast wasn’t looking promising. During a conference the NASA meteorologist gave the chances of weather permitting a successful launch at just 30%. Just 30%! And that’s assuming there are no technical failures. Doug and I were getting a little worried.

T-minus 18 hours (2 hrs before our flight):

The forecast hadn’t improved at all. Still only a 30% chance of the weather being favorable. I was on the verge of cancelling my flight. Better to save a few hundred bucks than waste a trip to Florida and not see a launch, I thought.

But I decided to go for it. Doug and I were starting to come up with backup plans. What if the launch was delayed for one day? We began to realize though that that was unlikely. We discovered that if they’re going to delay a launch it usually gets delayed two days to give everyone a chance to rest. That wouldn’t do us much good since our return flight was due to leave on the evening of the 9th, just one buffer day. Well if it doesn’t launch, we thought, we can always visit the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia and see some alligators.

We figured that the most likely scenario was this: we get to Florida and drive to Titusville Thursday night. The launch is scrubbed for two days. We call up JetBlue asking to push back our return flight, but can’t because it’s a million dollars. Then we go to the Okefenokee Swamp and see some gators. That’s what we considered the most likely scenario. But none of that scenario ended up coming true.

T-minus 12.5 hrs:

We arrive in JAX and rent a car. We sped down to Titusville to try to beat the rush. Many news outlets were predicting over ONE MILLION people would be watching the launch. Originally we had considered stealth camping just outside of Titusville (the closest decent launch viewing location) then driving in during the morning. But we got the sense that Titusville would probably be a tent city that night anyhow, so nobody would care if we slept in the car.

We pulled off I-95 Exit 220 to Titusville at 1:50am. “Umm… where is everybody?” we wondered. It seemed like a ghost town. Not another car on the road. We had expected bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles on the interstate. “Had the launch been scrubbed?” we wondered.

Soon we rolled into downtown Titusville and were relieved to see that we weren’t the only ones in town for the launch. Every parking spot within 5-block radius of the waterfront Space View Park was filled and people were starting to park on grassy areas. So we figured the launch must still be on. Doug had a hunch that we could find a parking spot north of town, and sure enough we found a grassy shoulder to park on near the road leading to the Max Brewer Bridge, our target viewing location.

Cars began pulling up next to us. We walked around to check things out but decided it was time to get to sleep. Just before 2:15am the guys in the truck next to us said they read that the fueling of the external fuel tank was still a go. This made us hopeful, but we still weren’t too optimistic.

T-minus 4 hrs: 7:29am:

We awoke in the morning in a different world. Thousands of cars were now parked up and down the road and behind us. Cars were double-triple-quadruple-parked. Pay parking lots had sprung up overnight with the going rate at $20. People were pouring into Titusville. Doug and I had beaten the rush.

With so many cars parked “illegally” we figured the tow trucks probably wouldn’t get to our car for a very long time, so we guessed it’d be safe to leave it there. So we packed up our stuff and headed to the bridge.

We were optimistic because it wasn’t raining, but the weather was still officially a no-go for launch. Doug and I had about a 30% confidence that we would get to see people get launched into space today.

T-minus 3.5 hrs:

Doug and I had done our homework and read that one of the best places to watch the launch was on the crest of the 50ft tall Max Brewer Bridge near Titusville. My GPS indicated that the launch pad was still 11.5 miles away, but there were few locations that would get us any closer. Nobody except the astronauts is allowed closer than 3.4 miles from the launch pad. The press and astronauts’ families can get to 3.7 miles. People who won the lottery on launch viewing tickets can get 6 miles away. And the closest reasonable viewing area for everyone else is Titusville, 12 miles away.

But we were nonetheless impressed that at 11.5 miles you could still see the space shuttle on the launch pad through the hazy Florida air. How many other “vehicles” are still visible at 11.5 miles?

T-minus 3 hrs:

“How many other MIT people do you think are here?” I asked Doug. On cue, just as we neared the top of the bridge I spotted a fellow faithful MITOCer named Keja who was there with four of his MIT friends. They had flown into Miami last night and had a return flight on Sunday night. “Well you guys will probably get to see a launch then since you’ve got until Sunday,” I said, “I don’t think our chances are very good.”

But pretty soon my dad called up and said that the guy on CNN was optimistic that the weather would improve. We saw a blue patch of sky in the distance approaching us. Soon we heard through the NASA channel on the radio that the weather was now “GO FOR LAUNCH!” The bridge began to buzz with excitement. We began to realize that this was real. This wasn’t TV or YouTube. There was nothing between us and the launch pad except 11.5 miles of humid Florida air. Today, despite the odds, we might actually get to see people get launched into space. The time began to tick more slowly as we waited with anticipation.

T-minus 1 hr:

The sun was slowly coming out. Boats began to speed into the Indian River for front row seats. NASA helicopters buzzed overheard, keeping an eye on everyone. Police ATVs raced up and down the bridge. The NASA dude on the radio was “cautiously optimistic.”

But we weren’t out of the woods yet. They not only needed the 20 mile radius to be rain-free at launch time, but also 25 minutes after launch in case the orbiter needed to return for an emergency landing right after launch. On the radio they said they were “keeping an eye on a squall line forming to the west.” If the weather was bad, however, they could only delay the launch by a maximum of five minutes, and after that the launch plane wouldn’t line up favorably enough to permit the shuttle to meet up with the ISS.

T-minus 5 minutes: “Waive constraints”

Even though the clouds looked a little ominous to the west the dude on NASA radio said they would “waive a few constraints” and they were now “GO for launch.” We wondered which constraints they were waiving, and how often they did that before. But the excitement on the bridge jumped up by a few notches. It was looking like, despite the dismal earlier predictions, people were going to get launched into space today.

T-minus 31 seconds:

The seconds were ticking away. Everyone craned their necks to get a better view of the launch pad. Me, Doug, and Keja hopped onto a tall, precarious concrete barrier, giving us an unobstructed, 11.5 mile view of the shuttle and launch pad.

But at 31 seconds before launch the NASA radio dude suddenly announced that “we have a hold” and the countdown stopped. Apparently some kind of safety-critical camera on the orbiter wasn’t working. Everyone on the bridge groaned with disgust. I imagined that there was some engineer alone in some dark isolated KSC office frantically rebooting his computer to try to get that camera working. Had we come all the way down here to Florida for a disappointment after all?

The five minute launch window was dwindling quickly. “We’re at plus 1 minutes and still no-go for launch,” the NASA radio dude reported. “…Plus 2 minutes…” I turned my head away in disgust. If they had scrubbed the launch days or even hours ago it would have been a little more bearable than if they scrubbed it right now, I thought to myself. The chances of seeing people get launched into space were plummeting.

But then a glimmer of hope: “We’re at the plus 2 minutes and 30 seconds mark and still no-go for launch…,” the NASA radio dude said. Seconds later: “…the camera is now working and we are now GO for launch,” he reported. He maintained a neutral voice over the radio, but I’m sure in reality he was as excited as we were. The clock resumed ticking down from 31 seconds.

Hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes focused in unison upon the launch pad. “Can you even imagine how many people are watching this?” I asked Doug. “Probably not as much as the Superbowl,” Doug answered, “but still a lot.”

At T minus 10 seconds everyone on the bridge starting counting aloud. “…5…4…3…2…1…!” A bright orange fireball suddenly lit up 12 miles away and the giant structure that we had seen sitting dormant on the ground for the past four hours awoke like a dragon. For twenty seconds we watched as four people were launched into space. As the shuttle disappeared into a cloud the roar of the engines finally reached us and the crowd erupted into cheers.

Two thoughts were going through my head. First, I had just watched people get launched into space. It’s completely unlike any other technical achievement mankind has accomplished. And second I felt a huge sense of relief. I would no longer have to live with that internal pressure and guilt for missing all the other launches. This had been my absolute last chance to see a launch and I had been successful, despite the odds. I could finally let it go from my conscience.

We lingered around for ten minutes after the shuttle disappeared. The column of smoke still hung in the air. I think for many people it took a while for the reality to sink in. People like us had come from all over the country—the world—to see this little orange speck from 12 miles away for just 20 seconds. It was 100% worth it.

Doug and I wanted to make a quick getaway so we walked swiftly to the car. It was still there so we figured that, luckily, there must have been a lot of cars ahead of us in the towing queue. We were mentally prepared to spend the rest of the day stuck in traffic, but somehow we made it to the open road in less than 15 minutes. The traffic wasn’t much worse than just getting out of a Wal-Mart parking lot on a Sunday morning.

As we cruised north along I-95 I said to Doug it felt like we had stolen something from Florida. Historically, the chances of a seeing a launch had been below 50% at one week out. At 12 hrs out the weather brought the chances down to 30%. Doug and I had flown in on-time, beaten the rush to Titusville, gotten a decent sleep, and watched the launch under bluish skies from one of the best spots. Then we beat the rush heading out of town and now had the problem of deciding how to kill 24 hours in northern Florida. Things hadn’t exactly unfolded the way we had expected.

“Pretty much anything could happen to us right now and I would still consider it a successful trip,” I said to Doug. “You can’t take away the fact that we got to see people get launched into space today.”

To put some icing on the cake our plan was to camp that night in the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Georgia and see some gators the next day. But unfortunately we arrived to find that the park was closed due to forest fires. So we drove back to Jacksonville and camped at a city park on the beach. Next day we walked along the beach and visited a state park before catching an evening flight back to Boston.

Even though Doug and I didn’t bring back too many seashells or much a tan from Florida, we still carried with us the ultimate souvenir: the memory of witnessing the final space shuttle launch.