I want to see a space shuttle launch.
I’ve always wanted to see a space shuttle launch
When I was younger, I used to wake up at 3 in the morning just so I could watch the space shuttle launch or land. In fact, I would sleep in the TV room with my digital watch smashed between my head gear (for my teeth) and my ear. That way I would hear my alarm go off and wouldn’t have to get up but could just turn the TV on.
Alex and I used to take cardboard box lids and draw “complicated” gauges and dials on them and number pads and position them all around us as we lay on the floor and did simulated rocket launches.
I watched Space Camp and the Challenger Investigation video so much that the VHS tapes were almost burnt up.
I would record hours and hours of NASA TV on tapes and not let ANYONE touch them because I might just want to watch that launch or landing again. Incidentally, I’ve never watched any of those VHS videos again, but I kept them, just in case
During college my desire didn’t go away, but got preempted by the less exciting but more important aspects of education. I did however get the chance to see an Astronaut speak once and watched as many launches as I could be near my computer for.
When I heard that the space shuttle was going to be retired in 2010 I resolved in my heart to see a launch before I it retired. Last year at Iowa State, with the help of family, Laura and I decided that we would try to go see a launch sometime this year. What with her school and scheduling a trip around a particular launch, it’s been difficult to get the trip off the ground.
This week, the pieces are finally falling into place. Actually the first piece fell into place last summer when my parents graciously gave us permission to use their resort in Orlando for our vacation. This was for my Birthday last year on June 1. I also got some graduation money from other relatives and placed it in the “Florida” fund. It didn’t work out to go down that summer (2008) because of my new job and I was already taking time off for Boundary Waters. During the school year, it’s almost impossible to get Laura a week off, so that left this summer 2009.
As the winter months ticked by I watched the launch schedule weekly if not daily. Unfortunately, there were no launches scheduled for this summer. There was one in May, and one in August, but none in June or July when school was out. About 3 months ago, I noted that they had scheduled the Hubble mission (STS-125) right over top of STS – 127 in May. This seemed odd to me as it’s impossible to launch two shuttles at the same time. I decided it must mean they were going to delay one of the two missions into the summer gap. I found out the double schedule was because the Hubble mission was not for sure yet. NASA didn’t want to commit to it in case the Hubble broke down again (as it did last year right before they had tried to launch this mission). If that happened, then the Hubble mission was off, and STS-127 would be in May and there would potentially be no summer launch for me to go see. If the Hubble mission did go ahead, the STS-127 mission would delay to June 13th.
Perfect, right in the middle of the summer. Now I had my potential date, but nothing is for sure with NASA. Dad and I made several plans, but couldn’t solidify any of them until the Hubble mission actually launched and we could be fairly sure that STS-127 would be in June.
On Monday I watched with great excitement the launch of STS-125, the Hubble mission. I was happy, not only because I like watching shuttle launches, but because this began to pave the way for me to view the June 13th launch. On another front, I had been watching Allegiant Air’s ticket prices from Cedar Rapids to Orlando for the June 11th flight. They had been as high as $149 per person per way and had been steadily coming down as the 30 day mark came closer. I had watched the site enough to know that they usually went to $69 per person per day about 30 days out and that was about as good as you were going to get.
Sure enough, last week they went to $69. But the launch hadn’t happened yet, I didn’t want to order my tickets and then have the Hubble mission get delayed. So this week, after we had a successful Hubble mission launch, I ordered my tickets and Dad reserved the resort. I reserved a car the next day which only left the actual tickets for viewing the launch left to buy.
I happened to go to the site that was selling the tickets on Tuesday, the day after the Hubble mission launched. Now I had been to the site before, but it had always be advertising tickets for the Hubble mission, and they don’t sell tickets for any other mission except the one that’s coming up next. Tuesday they finally updated their site to get ready for the STS-127 ticket sale event. It is, in fact, an event similar to buying tickets to see a really really good movie that has been anticipated for about 5 years. The reason being is that they only sell about 2000 tickets per launch. “Two thousand, that sounds like a lot” you say. I thought that too, until I read some people’s stories online about trying to buy tickets and having them sell out within minutes – MINUTES – of going on sale. Also, people warned that you have to get ALL THE WAY through the purchase process and get a confirmation email before you’re guaranteed to have your tickets. In other words, clicking buy doesn’t reserve the tickets for you. Clicking confirm at the end of the purchase form does. So you have to get all the way through the form before everyone else does in order to get your tickets.
The message on the site Tuesday said “Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday at 9:00 AM EST.” I figured the whole “selling out in minutes” was probably an exaggeration, but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I got in to work at my usual 7:15 this morning and first thing set an alarm for 7:55. I wrote out all my information into a notepad document and double checked it all so that I could just copy and paste the fields into the order form when it became available. I went to the website and hit refresh a couple of times. I got the “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message again so I knew I had to wait.
7:55 came and my alarm went off.
I pulled up an online clock of Greenwich mean time adjusted to central standard time so I would know exactly when it went to 8:00AM (9:00 EST). I hit refresh every minute and got the same “Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST” message. At 7:59 I started hitting refresh every 20 seconds, just in case they let us in early.
“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”
At 7:59:50 I hit refresh every second.
“Tickets will go on sale at 9:00 AM EST”
I remembered what people had said about being part of the way through buying their tickets and having them sell out. My hands began to shake as I held the mouse.
I hit refresh at 8:00 AM – the page changed. The message now said “Buy Now!” I selected the ticket I wanted and the purchase form came up.
Now my hands were really shaking. I realized in my haste to have everything ready, I had totally forgotten to type my address out beforehand. Quickly I typed and double checked my address. I copy and pasted my credit card information and selected 2 tickets (one for me, and one for Laura).
I hit submit.
I looked at the clock – it was 8:03AM
I waited for two seconds.
Then, the confirmation page came up. I checked my email, and sure enough, I was confirmed two tickets had been purchased. I double checked everything again just to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake in my haste but everything looked good.
Phew well I guess those people saying everything sells out in two minutes were exaggerating right?
I went back to the main page and hit refresh again – the page now read SOLD OUT
It was 8:04AM
I am the 2nd born of 4 children in the family (see image below). Being an analytical type by nature, I sometimes analyze myself and one way to do that is to try to figure out if I fit into the Middle Child stereotypeor (because I’m actually the eldest boy on top of being the second child) do I take more of a first born role?
The Siblings - Note these are actual photos taken of the children as much as 30 years before they were born!
Henry T. Stein developed some basics of children behavior. Here’s his summary of the positions that may apply to me and my thoughts:
Second
| He has a pacemaker. There is always someone ahead. | Is more competitive, wants to overtake older child. May become a rebel or try to outdo everyone. Competition can deteriorate into rivalry. |
Jenna is my elder sister, so she’s the one that was “always ahead” of me. I’m not sure if Dr. Stein meant “peacemaker” rather than “pacemaker” but either applies really. I don’t like conflict and tried to keep my siblings from fighting. Unless we were fighting Alex (my younger brother), he was fair game. I never felt very competitive, but maybe I was in the depths of my brain. I’m still not competitive at all, but I am a better driver than Jenna and I’m taller than her too, not to mention I’m more dashing and stronger.
Eldest
| Dethroned by next child. Has to learn to share. Parent expectations are usually very high. Often given responsibility and expected to set an example. | May become authoritarian or strict. Feels power is his right. Can become helpful if encouraged. May turn to father after birth of next child. |
This is a stretch since I’m just the eldest boy, not the eldest child, and it was 4 years after I was born until the next boy (Alex) was born. So I didn’t feel very “dethroned” by him since I was far Superior. Maaaybee I was kinda strict and authoritarian towards him, but you’ll have to ask him – either way I think he’s cool now. I like the part about being helpful, that’s me to a T
Middle
| Is “sandwiched” in. May feel squeezed out of a position of privilege and significance. | May be even-tempered, “take it or leave it” attitude. May have trouble finding a place or become a fighter of injustice. |
Ashley (Sister) and I are both middle children, so we were both squeezed out of privilege and significance. This could be remedied by larger portions of the parents will, but I’m probably still out of the will and will therefore have to get back in before I can get any extras. The even-tempered is a good description of me. I usually only get riled up after several days of repeated abuse from my siblings.
Only Boy Among Girls
| Usually with women all the time, if father is away. | May try to prove he is the man in the family, or become effeminate. |
This applied for the first 4 years of my life and, truthfully, Dad was not “away” all that much so I had a good man figure despite my sisters attempts to make me “effeminate.” No high heels here. I’m sure there’s probably deep underlying scars from having to live 4 years without a brother for support though. They probably will become evident when I go through my midlife crisis.
Most of those characteristics seem to focus on the negatives of each position. So here’s some positives of being the second/middle/eldest boy/among girls for 4 years born in the family: I wasn’t the Guinea pig like Jenna, I got Dad’s attention all to myself, I learned how to relate to girls early in life, I had Sister as a fellow middle child to play with, I got to do more cool guy stuff than Jenna did.
