http://www.cecilwhig.com/local
July 20, 2011
NEBP in the news!
We were on the front page of our local paper for our great story on traveling to witness the historic shuttle launch. Check kit out!
http://www.cecilwhig.com/local
http://www.cecilwhig.com/local
July 9, 2011
End of an Era - The Final Shuttle Launch
For several months we had planned on attending the final shuttle launch. We are Florida transplants and had witnessed the amazing launches of the past from afar. With one exception, Kelly was about 14 miles away on the beach to witness the Challenger launch and resulting disaster on January 28, 1986. After experiencing that horrific event, she had decided to view from a distance all other succeeding launches. When the announcement came that the Atlantis was going to be the last shuttle launch, we both knew we had to be there to photograph this historic event.
After days of research, we found out that the closest location for the public was what NASA calls “The Causeway”. This is a strip of road that is located on the Kennedy Space Center property and ranges from 6 to 7 miles away from launch pad 39A. NASA has a lottery system for purchasing these tickets of which we were not selected. The next opportunity for causeway tickets was to go through a tour bus company. NASA only allows 5,000 tickets to be sold. We spent over 4 hours online trying to get tickets and were finally able to purchase them for access to the causeway. The only other options for acquiring access is either too expensive (ticket outlets, scalpers, etc. ) or, extremely difficult to obtain (Congressional ticket access availability, Press access, etc.).
We flew down to Florida on Wednesday night which was the beginning our roller-coaster ride. The launch was scheduled for Friday at 11:26 am and the local news had been predicting over 1 million people to attend. Florida weather is predictable, for the most part during the summer in that, you can always count on late afternoon showers. As it should naturally happen to us, the weather was going to be very unpredictable with a slow-moving tropical front moving in bringing all-day showers and thunderstorms on Thursday. This created lots of rain and NASA gave a 30% chance of launch for Friday due to this anticipated weather.
We had to meet the tour bus company at a supermarket parking lot in Kissimmee, FL. at 2:00am on Friday morning for transportation to Kennedy Space Center. Our photography equipment probably weighs close to 80lbs and we were going to have to carry these bags around for several hours. After the hour drive to KSC we had to disembark the bus and go through two levels of security. The next step was for all 5,000 people to re-board their respective busses at 5:30am. During the waiting around, we were receiving Twitter updates on the status of the launch. A “Go” for launch did not look good. Finally, we were headed to the causeway at 8:30am. Here we are 6.5 hrs into the day and there is a high possibility the launch would still be scratched and we would have do this all over again. As the morning progressed, we kept receiving encouraging communications that NASA was proceeding with the launch as planned.
Once we got off the bus at 9:00am we had to find the perfect spot to set up our gear. There are many islands sprinkled between the causeway and the launch pad and we wanted a clear line of sight. We used 3 different cameras with lenses ranging from 200mm to 500mm and a 600mm lenses. Since we had such a tight field of view with these lenses, we were able to maneuver our shots through the crowds.
The closer it got to lift-off the better the weather became, although still somewhat hazy conditions. Within a ½ hr of lift-off, the clouds opened up and the sun even came out. At that moment, we knew this launch would happen. We were going to witness and record history to an end to 30 years of manned space shuttle flights.
While we heard many people exclaim victory for obtaining their "bucket-list" moment, this was just another chapter in our lives which we were happy to share with the World.
![]()
After days of research, we found out that the closest location for the public was what NASA calls “The Causeway”. This is a strip of road that is located on the Kennedy Space Center property and ranges from 6 to 7 miles away from launch pad 39A. NASA has a lottery system for purchasing these tickets of which we were not selected. The next opportunity for causeway tickets was to go through a tour bus company. NASA only allows 5,000 tickets to be sold. We spent over 4 hours online trying to get tickets and were finally able to purchase them for access to the causeway. The only other options for acquiring access is either too expensive (ticket outlets, scalpers, etc. ) or, extremely difficult to obtain (Congressional ticket access availability, Press access, etc.).
We flew down to Florida on Wednesday night which was the beginning our roller-coaster ride. The launch was scheduled for Friday at 11:26 am and the local news had been predicting over 1 million people to attend. Florida weather is predictable, for the most part during the summer in that, you can always count on late afternoon showers. As it should naturally happen to us, the weather was going to be very unpredictable with a slow-moving tropical front moving in bringing all-day showers and thunderstorms on Thursday. This created lots of rain and NASA gave a 30% chance of launch for Friday due to this anticipated weather.
We had to meet the tour bus company at a supermarket parking lot in Kissimmee, FL. at 2:00am on Friday morning for transportation to Kennedy Space Center. Our photography equipment probably weighs close to 80lbs and we were going to have to carry these bags around for several hours. After the hour drive to KSC we had to disembark the bus and go through two levels of security. The next step was for all 5,000 people to re-board their respective busses at 5:30am. During the waiting around, we were receiving Twitter updates on the status of the launch. A “Go” for launch did not look good. Finally, we were headed to the causeway at 8:30am. Here we are 6.5 hrs into the day and there is a high possibility the launch would still be scratched and we would have do this all over again. As the morning progressed, we kept receiving encouraging communications that NASA was proceeding with the launch as planned.
Once we got off the bus at 9:00am we had to find the perfect spot to set up our gear. There are many islands sprinkled between the causeway and the launch pad and we wanted a clear line of sight. We used 3 different cameras with lenses ranging from 200mm to 500mm and a 600mm lenses. Since we had such a tight field of view with these lenses, we were able to maneuver our shots through the crowds.
The closer it got to lift-off the better the weather became, although still somewhat hazy conditions. Within a ½ hr of lift-off, the clouds opened up and the sun even came out. At that moment, we knew this launch would happen. We were going to witness and record history to an end to 30 years of manned space shuttle flights.
While we heard many people exclaim victory for obtaining their "bucket-list" moment, this was just another chapter in our lives which we were happy to share with the World.
July 8, 2011
July 6, 2011
NEBP heading down to Florida!
We will be on the causeway for shuttle launch on Friday. Launch of Atlantis' STS-135 mission will be the LAST shuttle launch for NASA. Living in Florida for so many years, we witnessed so many launches which we took for granted. This is a great opportunity for us to experience this historic event and capture some awesome photographs. Follow us on Twitter @NortheastBay for latest updates.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)