Saturday, April 30, 2011

Shuttle Scrubbed....So Disappointed!!!

The sun rises on Launch Day

See we were ready for launch, this was around 8 am (been there 3 hours already)


The sun rising was beautiful







  I was like a kid before Christmas, I couldn't sleep on Thursday night.  We were up at 4:30 am to go get our prime site.  We had scoped out a site this week where we could have sun and shade and no one could stand in front of us.  With over 750,000 people expected we had no idea what to expect here at the park.  People were pouring in on Thursday night.  but when we went down to double check our site Thursday, people had already put up an e-z up, chairs and things on the picnic table.  Chairs were laid out on the ground all over the corner we wanted.  We debated what to do, a storm was coming in and we didn't want our chairs blown away, but we wanted a good site....after all we had been here all week waiting for this.  But the storm hit hard and that solved our delimna, we would still get up early and go down.  So with not sleeping that wasn't hard to do, and while I was awake I did check out "The Wedding" on TV.  When we got down to the beach area at 5 am it was calm and quiet, but there were people who had slept in their chairs all night already there and other people sitting in their chairs ( our prime #1 spot) so we picked a good site still (Joe McCart said he liked it better then our 1st pick anyway...thanks Joe).  We had our coffee and enjoyed the peacefulness and sunrise.  Another couple came over and we began to talk.  They liked so many of the things we do..micro-brew (they even brew their own) wineries and travelling.   We had a great time exchanging things we had done did at the same places we each had visited.  More people came down and it was like an early morning party.  By 9 am the wind was picking up and the clouds were threatening rain...and then it rained.  I came back to the motor home to get lunch in the crock: pot as Joe and Connie were bringing their friends Peggy and Ron. We had told them to leave early as they were saying traffic would be backed up for 6 hours, but they arrived around 10 am and that was good.  I kept checking the NASA website as we were worried about the weather, the wind was blowing hard and the clouds hung low.  Around 2 pm I reported the astronauts were suited up and headed to the shuttle.  Within 20 mins. a man with what seemed like portable ham radio (Rich is that possible?) said they were defueling the shuttle,I said "What did they scrub it?"  he said "I don't know".  Well common sense is if they are defueling it with less then two hours to lift off...it is scrubbed.  Sure enough a blown heater fuse was found and so that was the end of that......oh the disappointment in the crowd.  It will be tonight before they get the technicians in to see if it is an easy fix or not.  If just changing the fuse works then it will launch at 2:33 Monday.  We are scheduled to leave here Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed for us please.  So we came back to the motor home, had some wine and conversation, ate lunch and made the best of it, with good company that was easy.  So we will await to hear the latest.  As far as the "Wedding" why didn't he just grab his princess on the balcony and give her a proper romantic kiss????
See the view we had, just to the far right of the building is the Endeavour


Chairs waiting for their "people"

Clouds begin to descend on launch area

What happen to our view????
Coffee and donuts with Connie, Peggy Joe and myself

Oh well, might as well have some wine and fun

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is possible. Someeone probably had the frequency made available so folks can hear what's going on during the launch. It as probably a 2meter one and the guy u saw had what they call "a handheld radio" either a one, two or three band radio. Or he just had a scanner..Rich..