Last Shuttle flight launched to Hubble Space telescope is this one, the STS-125 launched May 11th at 2:01 Eastern time. We were on the causeway which is the closest they allow the general public. It was 95 degrees and like 90% humidity and we were DYING out in the sun all day. It was sooo hazy and even with an incredible lens its hard to avoid the sketchy pix, but this is what we got:

Launch shot settings:
Canon 350D w 400mm f/5.6 lens and 1.4x TC
560mm
f/8.0
1/2500th sec
ISO 200

Sitting on the pad:


Few seconds after launch; "liftoff"!






We got to hang out at the KSC in the morning before we headed out to the launch:


apollo center:


Model of the control room during the apollo missions:




Model of an actual saturn v rocket. it was so tall!




Ive been to florida over a dozen times and lived here now for awhile and this is the first alligator ive seen since being here LOL


International Space Station center they had "pods" we could walk thru and see what the astronauts work and live in.


ISS model


Look familiar?


Some of the nations involved with the ISS


Model of actual Shuttle


Model of the rocket boosters


bird nests in the shuttle model

 

Great pics!

 

good pictures of the launch. even with the haze.

A little nostalgia here: My wife's dad was the chief mechanical engineer in charge of all the ac and plumbing during the building of the vertical assembly building at the cape. Everytime we go to cape it s like seeing a memorial to him.

Wife grew up in Melborne, She said she got so used to launches that she would only watch the ones thate were manned. During the heyday of the sixties, something launched almost every day.

I can remember back in the sixties that on weekends you could do a self guided driving tour of the cape and patrick AFB with little or no security.

I got to see one of the saturn V moon launches. from over 10 miles away, it felt like someone was thumping you in the chest. Incredible power. A very distinct memory. Every time I have gone ovet to see a shuttle launch, it got scrubbed so I ahve never seen one up close. I have seen lots of shuttle launches from home here in Bradenton including the loss of the Challenger.

 

I would want nothing more than to work for NASA.

 

i wish they still had some of those up close VIP tours i definitely would have done one. the security is suuuuuper tight there and the closest they let you get is at the causeway, which is 6 miles away. There are guided bus tours to some other parts of the station, like the assembly building etc (i was sitting on the wrong side of the bus to get any pix ) but its very brief and very controlled. I couldnt imagine being able to actually do work for them. there was a son who took his dad to the launch who used to work for NASA back in the 60s. i thought that was really sweet, they flew all the way from CO for the launch. his dad was so happy to finally see a launch in person that he had tears in his eyes.

you have pix of some of the launches you can see from bradenton? that isnt too far must be pretty kool. all the way down here in the cape u can barely see anything until its about halfway up in the sky and its just a faint trail:

 

He actually worked for Pan-am who was the general contractor to Nasa. On one of our boat trips down to the Abacos we found a small island that was part of the downrange tracking stations. We found pan-am artifacts which we saved and later Jan's mom told us he visited the island quite often (Carter's Cay for anyone interested)

 

I figured that sounded like a sub-contractor job. That's what I do now, except we mostly get jobs from GE and the US military. It's funny the other day I saw a car with a big Pan-Am bumper sticker that said gone but not forgotten.

 

hahaha pan-am wow that takes me back

 

Great Pics!

I once got a back stage tour from an Engineering contact I knew (now retired), it is a neat story that got me within 1/4 mile of a shuttle on the launce pad a few days before the launch. It was an awesome site!

I also stood on one of the Appolo launch pads that was over grown with weeds and looked up to the sky thur the launch ring.

We ended up almost getting locked up when 2 jeeps with mounted guns blocked us in on a road and drew down on us. Seems our "guide" was in areas even he wasn't authorized to be in. Thank God e was golfing buddies with one of the security force.

 

whew wow barry i cant imagine being up close to it. must feel like a mouse next to it haha. you guys get any pix?

i love when you know ppl in high places