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http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=DUGGIS07
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16473224 December 6, 2007—It may sound "Grinchy" of me during this holiday season, but a good weather forecast doesn’t put my mind at ease as we go into the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. The launch may go just finem and you’ll hear it "live" on 90.7, but when weather watchers give the "all’s well", I keep thinking back on missions past.
So, to everyone, including one member of the WMFE Board of Trustees and his family who say they're heading out, have a great time and there may be an impressive launch to see. A word about traffic. Be patient. On a nice day like this, people (understandably) come out in droves. The trip back usually is worse than the trip out, with back-ups on highway 50 and the Beachline creating snarls that can make the one hour trip to the coast more like three hours going back toward Orlando. My first and worst experience with that was during STS-33, it was my first night-launch. Driving between KSC and I-95 usually takes about fifteen minutes. It was more like three hours after the spectacular liftoff. To put that into perspective, Space Shuttle Discovery had orbited the Earth twice! Still, enjoy the launch, and take a few extra CD’s to listen to. More to come |
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I recall one countdown at Kennedy Space Center where there was a ninety percent of good weather, and a pop-up storm formed right over the launch pad just minutes before liftoff. No Joy that day. And, of course, there were innumerable examples of launch days with a ninety percent of bad weather when a blastoff occurred. I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, including members of the European Space Agency who’ve been waiting twenty five years for the liftoff of their Columbus Science lab, the interior of a five-foot scale model is pictured here. The actual compartment is twenty three feet long and weighs ten tons on Earth.