Florida 2010

Niel's visit to Florida

Equipment

Space Shuttle Launch viewing equimpent:

Binoculars for looking.
Camera for taking pictures.
Radio for listening to the count-down and commentary from NASA-TV.

Hts_1

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Snowman

Snowman

There had been plenty of snowfall in northern Arizona. We did not experience the five feet of snow they had earlier, but it snowed all Saturday and Sunday. This left us with a nice layer of fluffy snow on cruncy ice, ideal for playing. We spent Saturday morning at the Wing Mountain Snow Play Area, an unforested hillside for tobogganing.

We found this snowman next to the road and stopped for a photo opportunity.

Biosphere 2

Today I took a trip to the south-east of Phoenix, almost all the way to Tucson. Here in the desert stands an amazing structure, like something from a Bond movie. To the uninitiated it would look like a greenhouse, but if it's greenhouse it's a highly sophisticated one.

It was built during the 1980's, and was built to be completely isolated from the outside world, but capable of sustaining human life for two years. This was, in effect, a new biosphere and therefore called Biosphere 2.

From 26 September 1991 until 26 September 1993 eight people inhabited this super-greenhouse habitat. They were sealed inside, with no matter of any kind going into or coming out of this habitat. They farmed inside it, facing challenges like cockroach infestations and loss of species, but emerged at the end of the project having fed themselves from this closed system. The ideal of a perfectly isolated system was not quite met, because some of the oxygen disappeared from the system and had to be replaced, and it was only after the coming out that the problem was solved.

Today the facility is managed by the University of Arizona as a controlled-environment greenhouse. It is one of the few 'big-science' biological facilities in the world, filling a gap between the world of the greenhouse and the natural world.

Biosphere2

This morning I joined an hour-long tour of the facility. We met in what was the dining room of the biospherians, and from there went into the savannah biome. The tour continued to a view of the ocean from the mangrove swamp, and from there into the coastal fog desert. From the desert we entered the basement of the greenhouse, where the machinery for manipulating the environment is run from. From here we went up to the tallest part of the structure, where the foggy rainforest is located, getting a view of the tiny beach by the 'ocean' on the way. From here we went to one of the 'lungs' of Biosphere 2. This is a misnomer, for there is no gas exchange here, it's a room with a rubber roof that allows for the expansion and contraction of the air when the facility is sealed off.

The final stop on the tour is at the viewing windows of the ocean, which also includes a small aquarium that demonstrates the importance and functioning of coral reefs.

Although Biosphere 2 can prevent mass transfer to and from the environment, it cannot operate without energy transfer. An unventilated greenhouse in the Arizona desert in summer will rapidly overheat and destroy all the life in it. In the cold winter nights the rainforest could very well cool down too much. Therefore there is also a huge machinery plant on site to supply the heating and cooling necessary for the climate control inside.

After the tour I had lunch from the small cafeteria on site, overlooking the snow-topped Catalina mountains

Catalina_mountains

 
Unfortunately I had to leave soon after my lunch. The trip between Phoenix and Biosphere 2 is similar in distance and time to the trip between Johannesburg and Potchefstroom.

Visit to Crown King

The cast of characters of the story of the Old West is not complete without the prospector and the miner. A crusty fellow, usually unshaven, handy with the dynamite.

Arizona, with its highly eroded landscape and plenty of exposed rock is an ideal playground for the geologist, and mining still forms part of the basis of the Arizona economy. Children in school are taught about the "Five C's" of Arizona: Copper, Cotton, Cattle, Citrus and Climate.

In the heady days of the opening of the West, the thing they looked for was Gold, of course, and gold they found. Numerous mines sprang up, and railroads to supply them. People flocked to the mines, and towns sprang up. The mines, however, were never very productive, and as soon as the investors' money had been spent, the towns fell on hard times, and the people left again. On Friday we visited the ghost town of Crown King in the Bradshaw mountains. One turns off from the I-17 freeway that connects the cities of Phoenix and Flagstaff. It quickly turns to a dirt road running into the Horse Thief Basin Recreational Area, essentially uninhabited rough country that offers free camping anywhere. The road runs through places like Bumblebee and Cleator, before it starts up the mountain, following the bed of the railroad. Near the top of the mountains, among the pine trees (and the snow, at this time of the year) and at the end of the road lies the 'town' of Crown King, where there was a gold mine that had produced two million dollars' worth of gold through its life, but closed down in the 1950's. Today the town has about 80 to 100 permanent inhabitants, enough to have a primary school. The town consist of a few original buildings, like the general store and the saloon, and a large number of cabins used as holiday accomodation.

This is great country for exploring, and ideal for playing with quad bikes and off-road vehicles - indeed, one of the popular ways to reach Crown King is along a very rough track that comes up from the Lake Pleasant recreational area.

We had lunch at The Mill restaurant, a new building that looks old because it was built from material harvested from abandoned buildings in the old town. It is heated by a fire built in a boiler from the mining works.

It was a very pleasant and interesting day out.

The Launch

I am posting this, not because I think it is any good, but because I don't want to delete it and don't know what else to do with it. --------------------------------------

The launch of STS-130 fell into two parts. The first part was the scheduled launch of 7 February 2010, scheduled for 04:39. This is the last scheduled night launch of a Space Shuttle. Once I had arrived in the Orlando area, Holly and I could plan what we would do to view the launch. We checked the internet, and found the second-best place would be in the Titusville area. The best place would be the "NASA causeway", a bridge between Cape Canaveral, where the space program started, and Merrit Island, which was developed into the Kennedy Space Center for the Apollo program. This is the closes the public can get to the launch pad, and it provides the best view of the launch pad, clear across the water. Titusville also provides a view of the launch pad, but at a greater distance. So Holly and I set off for Titusville. Fortunately it is an area she knows well, going there often to photograph bird life. We left Clermont just after 19:00, and arrived at the Titusville IHOP (International House of Pancakes) about an hour later. Here we stopped to stuff ourselves with greasy carbohydrates. The restaurant had many people who had come to view the launch. At about 23:00 we arrived at the Brewster bridge, that crosses from the mainland to Merril Island. On the far side of the bridge we found a construction site where the road is being widened, and stopped behind an RV. There were alread a number of RVs parked along the road, and we were not the only car arriving. The people in the RV were friends of the construction people, and the pointed us to a spot where we could have a clear view over the Indian river to the launch pad. It was very cold and windy but clear. We could see the stars, Orion on his feet, and with nothing really to do, we got back in the car, reclined the seats, and went to sleep. At around 04:00 we got out of the car. It was colder, and just as windy. There was cloud overhead, clearly visible in the searchlights that lit up the. launch pad and Shuttle. There were now many, many cars. Parked all along the road, and still more crawling along, not yet parked. We had no information, but there were other people with iPhones and laptops with wireless internet access, and the rumours had it that the launch would be postponed. Holly and I stood around for a while until the appointed time, and then the definitive ruling came: the launch was scrubbed. We went back to the car, and back to sleep. We had arrived early, and there was obviously no way that we would be first to depart. The flow of cars over the back over bridge that had started when the scrub was called was quickly frozen into gridlock. At about 6 am the cars started to move again, and we fell into the queue leading out of Titusville. We slowly crawled out, until the stream reached the Interstate, after which we got on the way to Clermont quickly. The sun rose before we got home. That was the first part of the launch. The second part of the launch started after I had woken from my coma. Holly would have loved to repeat the exercise, but she had to work on Monday, and being out in Titusville would not have allowed her to get back to work at 7 am. She tried to persuade a number of her friends to take me, but for some reason that I could not fathom they were more interested in some football match called the Superbowl than in an amazing feat of human ingenuity and engineering. Eventually it occurred to me that the tour operators who offer tours to the launches might have have had cancellations. This proved true, and with a little bit of help from a credit card I was booked on a tour to the Shuttle launch. Holly drove me to Kissimee and put me on the tour bus and left for a whole night's sleep. The bus snaked its way through Orlando, stopping at a series of hotels to pick up more guests, and by 10 pm we were at Kennedy Space Center, We joined the queue. What takes time is to get through security, which consists of a metal detector and a manual search through bags, with rules more-or-
less like for airline security. Many of the activities of the Visitors Complex was open that night, and I entertained myself with a simulated shuttle launch and an Imax movie of the moon. There were at least three huge screens up showing the NASA TV live feed. One was in the Flight Status Center, the on ther in one of the exhibition halls, and the third outside on the lawn by the rocket garden. This last one was accompanied by a live presenter. A variety of NASA celebrities, amongst them some astronauts were inteviewed and answered questions from the crowd. For a while I watched the TV showing the astronauts being strapped in. By about 03:45 I re-joined the crowd on the lawn, and found a place on the top step of the bleachers. It was still cold, but not as windy was last night. The moon was visible setting in the west, which showed that the sky was clear. This meant that the Shuttle could return safely to Kennedy, and the report from the emergency landing fields in France and Spain was also favourable. So the weather people was happy all round, and the lauch was OK. We cheered when we heard this. The countdown carried on. The APUs got started, so the Endeavour was under its own power, the beanie on top of the main fuel tank swung away. At T - 6 seconds the main engines ignited. At 0 the solid rocket boosters ignited. On the screen this showed as a sudden brightening. We could see nothing yet. But in a sudden bloom the sky on the horizon lit up, like a sudden dawn. Then a bright white star rose over the horizon, obliterating any possible view of the rocket that created it. Then the sound of those engines joined the light. Not a thundering sound, we're too far away for that, but a loud sibilant. This does not last long, but fades It may seem silly to have a TV commentary on something that one sees happening, but that's one of the things that leads to perspective on what's happening. Instead of just seeing a very bright but fading star in the sky, one can hear that after two minutes it is 180 miles away. Continued acceleration makes it speed away constantly, so that after nine minutes it is in orbit over Europe. Having just crossed the Atlantic in a 16-hour flight at up to 900 km/h, this makes it feel much, much slower.

The Delta IV launch.

Another half-completed post I don't know what to do with. So I'm posting it for the sake of completeness. ------------------------

The Delta V launch was

It was my luck that made me choose this Shuttle launch, which was to be followed within 48 hours by the launch of a Atlas V rocket, intended to place the Solar Dynamics Exporer into its geosynchronous orbit. The viewing of this launch fell into two parts again, both practically identical. On the first day, Holly drove me to the Kennedy Space Center. The best viewing spot was from the Saturn V/Apollo Center. At this point, which is a usual stop on the KSC tour, there is a complete Saturn V rocket. This is the biggest rocket ever built, and wasspecifically designed to put a man on the moon. The rocket lies horisontally, separated so that one can see the separate stages and their engines. In the treasures of space gallery a collection of artefacts from the Apollo moon landing program is on display, including a whole command module and a selection of space suits, and a piece of moon rock. The Atlas Iaunch pad (SLC-41) is less than three miles away from the Saturn V/Apollo center, with a clear view across the Banana river. A clear view can also be had of the Shuttle Launch pads, at close range, but for shuttle launches this viewing site is reserved for family of the shuttle crews. Fortunately there was no need to organize passes: the usual KSCVC tour stops here, and a fleet of buses is available to ferry the visitors back and forth. The launch window opened at 10:23, and apart from the guidance that visitors who wanted to see the Atlas V launch should have boarded a bus at 09:30, there was not much else to be done. We arrived early, at around 08:00, and boarded one of the first buses. This was earlier than the normal opening time of the Visitors center, and we were all launch-watchers on these buses, loaded with cameras, long lenses and tripods. We were quite early, having made ample allowance for delays due to traffic, so there was time to visit some of the exhibits before we joined the growing crowd outside. Like at all airshows, it takes arriving early and/or some elbow power to get to a good spot on the flight line. In this case the flight line was a fence on the bank of the Banana river. We got our spots at the fence about 45 minutes before the launch window opened. There were bleachers on the lawn, a large digital clock showing the countdown, and over the PA system the commentary from NASA-TV was relayed continuously, so that one could know what was going on. The wind was strong and blustery, though the day was clear. The rocket systems were in good shape, no problems at all. When it came close the launch window opening, with the countdown at T-4 minutes and holding, the controller made the poll for go. All were ready, except weather, so T = 0 was not set to the opening of the launch window, but about 30 minutes later. This time approached, but still there was a no-go on the winds, but the trend seemed to be decreasing, so T=0 was set at the end of the launch window. The winds aloft seemed to be good enough so it was a go, and at T minus four minutes the countdown started. Within a second or two, the countdown stopped. There was a 'redline condition'. It turned out that wind, probably a gust, caused a strain guage to report an excess of force on the rocket, which caused the countdown to stop. During the wait we watched the birds, and struck up friendships with the other people at the flight line. On my part this was a slightly self-interested friendship, because I had forgotten my binoculars, and borrowed a pair. Bleh. We toured the rest of the Saturn V/Apollo center, and then went on to the next stop on the bus tour. This was at the international space station preparation center, where all the parts of the International Space Station are readied before they are loaded into the orbiter for launch. The clean room where the work is done can be viewed through glass from a public gallery. In the other part of the center there are some mock-ups of what the Space Station looks like insided. Slightly fake, though, for it has floors. Back at the visitors complex we went to see a 3D IMAX movie, and went for a ride in the Space Shuttle Launch experience. Then we went home. The next day we went through a very similar routine. It was colder and still windy, but the weather was still clear. It was difficult to tell if there was more wind, or less. We drove off into the rising sun again, and got to Kennedy Space center at about the same time. There were not as many people ready to board the bus this time. At the Saturn V/Apollo center we got straight to the flight line. This time I got myself some hot chocolate from the Moon Rock Cafe inside the center, before I ventured out into the cold again. The rocket was still sitting patiently on its pad. It was still windy, and there was some high cloud, so it was not as sunny as it had been on Wednesday. The wind, however, was not a problem, and the cloud high enough to give a clear view. On the final go/no-go poll everything was "go", even the weather. Four minutes before the opening of the launch window, the countdown started again. It felt a bit weird thinking that after all the hours of waiting, the rocket that stood across the water from us would actually soon be flying, unless something completely unexpected happened. The countdown continuted, the engines ignited, and, a second or two later the bright light appeared at the bottom of the tower. Slowly, ever so slowly, the light lifted from the tower. Within a short time the pencil of the rocket stood on its bright light clear of the tower. As it went higher it went faster, which is quite what we would expect from an accelerating rocket. Within a minute or so it was at an altitude where it left a nice corkscrew contrail, which Holly called its signature. I followed the disappearing flame through my binoculars until it disappeared in the sky. Then we packed up and got on the first bus out, back home.