Kurt Leucht’s Blog

Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably heard that NASA launched a new rocket today.  Below are some photos from in and around the NASA Press Site and also some video of the launch that I took today.  The video also contains some decent manatee footage.  There are usually manatees hanging around the turn basin there near the Press Site.

The Ares I is intended to replace the Space Shuttle for launching astronauts into space after it retires in the next year or so.  Today’s launch, dubbed the I-X mission, was an unmanned flight test of this new rocket.  Not only was it unmanned, but the whole upper stage was fake and just dropped into the ocean after separation.  But we’re taking baby steps here, people.  Don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. 

Here’s the video that I took.  Click on this link to see this video on the YouTube website where you can comment and vote on it and stuff.

And here are some photos.  Click on any photo for a full sized version.

Obligatory photo of the countdown clock with the launch vehicle in the background.  It was 5am when I arrived at the Press Site this morning.  Way way earlier than my normal arrival time.

Inside the NASA Press Site where they show various camera views of the launch vehicle and they also have some cool large models of the Ares I and also the future Ares V heavy lift cargo vehicle.  These models are like 7 or 8 feet tall.

Various news channels shoot interviews all day long here at the NASA Press Site.  Here you can see the Air Force weather officer getting some time on camera with Fox 35.

NASA TV showed some beautiful sunrise video …

… so I went outside to see it for myself.

Live trucks lined up in the NASA Press Site parking lot. You can see the rocket in amongst the transmission towers.

The NASA Press Site is about 3.5 miles from the launch pad.  You can see the white rocket and the three really tall lightning towers around the launch pad.  These towers were built especially for the Ares I program.

Here are the folks from NASA Edge recording their show.  NASA Edge is a cool and hip educational program on NASA TV. You should check it out. While you’re there, be sure to also check out NASA-360, which is another cool educational program that NASA produces.

History was made tonight and I was there. It was pretty cool to witness the rollout of the Ares I-X test flight rocket first hand. Ares I is designed to replace the Shuttle for getting astronauts into orbit. Enough talk … here are the photos that I took and also a short edited video (click for larger versions of the photos):

This is the employee signature banner for Ares I-X.  Each flight gets a banner that is displayed along with the vehicle and these banners are signed by KSC employees who have worked on that mission.  I worked on the ground control system for the Ares I-X mission, so I made sure I signed this banner.  I wonder if you can find my signature…

Can you find my signature now?

How about now?

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The Ares I-X rocket doesn’t look terribly huge inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, but it’s nearly as tall as the Saturn V rockets that we used to go to the moon during the Apollo program.

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Excitement is in the air as the new big rocket emerges from the VAB.

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Isn’t she big and beautiful!

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Not symmetrical by design.  We’re re-using a Shuttle mobile launcher platform for this flight, which has two holes for solid rocket booster exhaust.  So we mounted the Ares I-X rocket over one of the two SRB holes in the platform.

Glowing in the spotlights.

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The spotlights were very bat-symbol-like.  I didn’t get a good photo of it, but there was enough moisture in the air to clearly see the rocket’s silouette projected big and bold up into the sky.  It was quite impressive.

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Obligatory photo of me standing in front of the rocket for the scrapbook.

Here is the video:

Or you can watch the video directly on YouTube here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHEla1t0byQ

The other day at work I saw an osprey sitting on a pole eating a fish, so I took some video of it and posted it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1GHx1SbmbM

Ospreys are pretty common around here. Sometimes that are mistaken for bald eagles due to their white heads.

Kurt

Last week I was able to take part in an annual beach cleanup on the very remote beaches of the Kennedy Space Center. It was a lot of hard work, but it was pretty cool to take part in this worthy cause. I put a short video from the beach cleanup on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjT6dTbacg0

This is an annual event at KSC and it is organized by the Fish & Wildlife Service, who owns most of the land that KSC sits on. They do this every year before sea turtle nesting season starts.

There were some pretty interesting items that were collected, in addition to a ton of bottles and bottle caps, which I noticed were the most frequent item found. A lady right directly in front of me found 2 separate messages in bottles. One of them was a letter from a 9 year old girl in the Bahamas who’s whole class had put messages into bottles for a “sea-pal” exercise. The lady who found the message said she was definitely going to write the little girl back. I found quite a few bottles, but none with messages.

It was hard work in the hot sun, but I’m going to sign up again next year.

Kurt

This evening I ran my first 5K race. I’m not counting the one in January where Sam and I walked and pushed both boys in their umbrella strollers. This time I actually ran. I guess I performed okay for my first race. I wasn’t studying the clock when I finished … guess I was just happy to finish … but a couple coworkers who were paying more attention than I was told me that I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 minutes.

Below is a poor quality photo from my cell phone. It was pretty hot and sunny and also very humid during the race, which started at 5PM. There was a pretty good turnout of KSC employees … probably around 400 people. They had choices of a 2 mile, a 5K, or a 10K. It was a well organized race and I definitely plan to do it again next year.

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September 27th update: The official race results are in and I came in 115th out of 149 runners in the 5K race with an official time of 33:00.17. I’m happy being in the front of the last quarter of the participants for my first race. My goal for my next race will be to be smack in the middle of the whole crowd.

There were 330 total participants between all the different race choices: 71 in the 2 mile walk, 58 in the 2 mile run, 149 in the 5K run, 48 in the 10K run, and 4 rollerblade entries.