A Launch to Remember (Conclusion!)

The past few days have been amazing! We’ve learned a lot, and we’ve had fun. That’s not to say that “A Launch to Remember” was easy for us. In fact, we’ve been running ourselves pretty ragged.

Anna at Atlantis Rollover on May 17, 2011

Two cross-country trips in two weeks without missing any classes was a bit of a feat for Anna. And the lack of sleep and twelve-hour workdays may be taking its toll on both of us. We were up by 2:00a.m on Monday to see the launch; we woke at 5a.m. today to see Atlantis roll over from the Orbital Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), and then we did the “Then and Now” tour of launch pads at Cape Canaveral; and we’ll drag ourselves out of bed at 2:00a.m. tomorrow morning with hopes of seeing Atlantis ”lift to mate” to the fuel assembly in the VAB. In fact, our last day (tomorrow) may be our busiest, with an interview scheduled before we take our flight home so that Anna can meet with her graduate students in the evening.

Doug at Atlantis Rollover on May 17, 2011

Just because it’s hard work, of course, doesn’t mean “A Launch to Remember” has not been thoroughly enjoyable at every stage. We know we’re lucky to have this opportunity. Maybe that’s why we’re expending as much effort as we can muster. We know this trip is not going to last beyond tomorrow. We know the space shuttle program will end soon too.

This concludes “A Launch to Remember” because Endeavour launched, and we saw our first space shuttle launch. Now, it’s the beginning of the end of Atlantis, too. Below, see our Table of Contents for this series (CLICK to view the individual posts):

Part 1: We Get Media Credentials

Part 2: A Space Shuttle Tile in Our Hands and the Leatherby Libraries Collection

Part 3: Arrival at the Space Coast

Part 4: Launch Is Looking Good

Part 5: About the STS-134 Crew, especially Mike Fincke

Part 6: STS-134 Crew Walkout & President Obama’s Visit to KSC

Part 7: PHOTOS of Space Coast Wildlife (Alligator!)

Part 8: Endeavour’s Delay

Part 9: On Leaving the Space Coast

Part 10: On Being a Couple of Journalists and VIDEOS of Us on NASA-TV

Part 11: Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

Part 12: Rotating Service Structure Rollback PHOTOS

Part 13: STS-134 Crew Walkout PHOTOS and more

Part 14: VIDEO of Endeavour Launch

Part 15: This POst (TOC)

Part 16: Launch Photos

 

 

 

 

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