This past week I’ve been waking up early almost every day to photograph either the International Space Station as it flies over or the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket that was scrubbed Tuesday morning, scheduled for Friday and then rescheduled for Saturday morning.
Here’s the ISS flying over on Tuesday morning. The ISS is on the right side of the image by the palm tree.
Here’s the ISS flying over on Wednesday morning.
Here’s the SpaceX rocket launch from Saturday morning.
As 2013 winds down and I look back on it, it has turned out to be an extremely productive year. The year didn’t start off that different than the previous years other than my regular trips to the gym to work out. I had never been a fan of the gym – I don’t like crowds and I always preferred to do any workouts at home, though I don’t have any weights and was limited to bodyweight exercises. A group of friends at work play soccer on Thursdays and in the spring, we decided to add a second day of soccer on Mondays. I played both days most weeks from New Year’s to Memorial Day.
One thing I tried to do more this year was take chances and opportunities. I liken it to the movie Yes Man where Jim Carrey’s character says yes to anything that comes his way, though I was les liberal with my acceptances. In February I agreed to be team captain of our company’s Relay for Life team. We hadn’t fielded a team in 2012 and our team in 2011 was small, so I was hoping to get a good bounce-back. We rolled through several fundraisers – one a week – for two months until the night of the Relay. We ended up raising around $4500 in two months’ time with a sizable team of almost twenty walkers. It was exhausting and I swore that I would not be captaining again in 2014, though I did write up all my thoughts on the process – what worked, what didn’t, and thoughts for next year – to be given to the next captain.
On February 13th, I took the day off work to spend the day at the movie theatre watching a Die Hard marathon before a late-night premiere of the new movie, A Good Day to Die Hard. I had never seen the first three movies on the big screen, so it was worth the admission just for that experience, as Die Hard is my favorite movie. The new movie was pretty bad – it made an okay action movie, mostly forgettable, but it was a horrible Die Hard movie. I wouldn’t see any other Hollywood movies in theatres this year, but I did see Mile… Mile and a Half at the Athen’s Theatre in Deland, where I would also see All Shook Up and The King is Back, and I also saw Appalachian Impressions.
Also in February and March, a coworker asked if I wanted to canoe down Rock Springs Run, which we did four times over about five or six weeks, culminating in an overnight camping trip at the Otter Campsite along the run. This led to many weekends hanging out and many new experiences throughout the year.
In early February, I had gotten an email about the Space Coast Marathon and how they were planning to do a five-year event with medals celebrating the space shuttles. I immediately signed up for the marathon, figuring I had a whole year to get ready for it. I had always wanted to do a marathon and a flat Florida course seemed like a good start. I wouldn’t actually start training for several months though.
In late April I started running shorter races, the Healthy Heart 10K, the Run for the Trees 5K, the Seminole High School Spirit 5K, the Rescue Run 5K, the Lake Mary 5K, and The Nude Run 5K. A friend had told me about the Healthy Heart 10K, happening just down the street from where I live and I had only run one 10K previously, so I jumped on it. The Run for the Trees 5K was one I had run before, but you get a tree for completing it, so I had specifically looked it up online in order to run it again. It also runs through private communities that have very nice scenery. The Rescue Run 5K is one that happens in the park next to where I work and our company sponsors a team every year, so I competed in it for the third or fourth time. The Seminole High School Spirit 5K runs through my old high school and the parking lot of my old middle school, so it was a nostalgic race for me and also culminated in my fastest 5K ever. The Lake Mary 5K was another race close by that took place near the library I go to, so it was a familiar area. I decided to do the Nude Run 5K while looking for races with something exciting to offer, as opposed to the mundane show up and run 5K.
Recently the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex opened the new Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, so I bought a ticket online and found an available weekend to go check it out. The last time I had been to the KSC Visitor Complex was when I was in school on a field trip. Nothing had been extremely exciting or memorable about the experience. While I love space and the technology involved in exploring it, the Visitor Complex is mostly just a bunch of stuff with signs explaining it.
The shuttle being there was a game changer though. I had to at least go see it once – it’s the shuttle! Upon getting to the Visitor Complex, I made my way around the Rocket Garden to see all the rockets that have been used in launches. It’s probably the most exciting exhibit outside of the new shuttle exhibit and one of the few things I remembered from my childhood visit.
Eventually I made my way to Space Shuttle Atlantis and waited in line. Before seeing the actual shuttle, they had us stand in a theatre to watch a movie about how they designed the shuttle. After that movie, we walked into a second room to watch another movie about the shuttle launch, which included additional screens on the sides of the room and ceiling. Finally the shuttle was revealed and it was one of the best reveals I’d ever seen – I almost didn’t think it was real at first.
We got to walk around the shuttle and other mini-exhibits around it. After checking out the workout station, the space toilet, Canadarm, the orbiter, and other exhibits, I made my way towards the exit just as the next group of people entered – perfect timing by the designers.
The shuttle exhibit made the entire experience worth it and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in space, history, or just random “must-see” tourist attractions.
New POV video released of Felix Baumgartner’s space jump. They have the full video posted here: http://stratos.rdioexclusives.com/
Back in June, I went to the Kennedy Space Center’s Astronaut Training Experience. We started by getting to take a look inside a replica of the orbiter, seeing the lower level, climbing up to the upper level where the Commander and Pilot sit, then come back down and out the hatch.
After the tour, we went to a room with simulators set up. We split into groups of two to work together on landing the shuttle. One person would do the landing while the other person would punch in commands into a green-screen application, such as turning off auto-pilot, dropping the landing gear, and deploying the parachute. After taking turns, the teams could also try the docking simulation. The person who got the best stats in four categories on the landing simulation got to be the Commander for their mission (there were two larger groups, each doing a mission).
While one team did their mission, the other would be able to train on a zero-G ladder and multi-axis chair. The zero-G ladder had you strapped into a harness and they counter-balanced your weight perfectly do that if you did nothing, you would not go up or down. You could use your arms to pull yourself up a series of ‘rungs’ and then pull yourself back down. We had some fun propelling off the ground and grabbing the bars to stop ourselves.
The multi-axis chair was a 60-second spin on three axes, while they asked you a couple simple questions to test your mental functionality while spinning. My questions were to spell ‘chocolate’ backwards and what year it was 39 years ago. I nailed both. *brushes off shoulders*
Then the teams switched places and our team started our mission. The Commander and Pilot made their way to the orbiter while the rest of us took our seats in the control room. My job was the Flight Dynamics Officer – or FIDO. We simulated take-off, deployment of a satellite from the payload bay, and return to Earth.
The two teams recombined after this and we got a quick tour of some space items – space food, items that we wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for NASA research, etc. And then we got to meet with an astronaut – Robert Springer. He gave us information on the space program and left time for us to ask questions before we all headed back out to the main room (with the orbiter) and took pictures with Mr. Springer.
Anyone who is interested in space, space technology, or anything similar would enjoy this 4-hour training experience. The price is reasonable for the amount of time and amount of knowledge and entertainment you get out of it.
ren3gade 