didja at least bring a hammock?

 

Day 3 - As of 7 AM
28 deg North Latitude
124 deg West Longitude
Present speed 11.30 knots
481 miles travelled
2384 remaining to launch site

Well peoples.

It looks like we finally broke out of the cloud cover and into some sun. Not quite suntan weather yet but close. All my systems are running great and lets hope they stay that way. A boring trip is a good trip!

I took a long cruise around the ship today for some good photos. I went up onto the Helodeck which is about 9 decks above my office (no elevator on this badboy). Must be well over 200 feet above the surface of the ocean. Snapped a few photos while up there to convince you this ain't no pleasure cruise. I'd give my left nut for a hottie suntanning on this garbage scow.

 

Ahhhh, memories...................

I spent 27 months (9 months at a time) on cruise in the Marine Corp. Nothing like having a 12" JP4 fuel line running through your stateroom. All that to say I feel your pain!

To add insult to injury, I flew to Tokyo and back since you started this thread!

Thanks for the updates, & BTW what is the lat/long of the launch site?

Cheers

 

WOW! I didn't have any idea that anyone was doing this!! Very cool! But I have been out at sea most of the past 10 yrs driving oceanographic research ships.. This is really fascinating though.. I grew up in Brevard County FL, and my stepfather worked at Cape Canaveral for many years (NASA) I have done some recovery ops for NASA as well... the Challenger as well as several satellites as my org has 3 manned submersibles http://www.hboi.edu/index_01.html I looked at the website, but couldn't find out if your vessels were US flagged/crewed.. It would almost be worth moving to the left coast to work for your org. I'd appreciate any info you might want to share, Mike

 

way cool pics and update! best of luck and enjoy too!

 

Captain Mike,

Sea Launch is a joint venture partnership between 4 companies. Boeing, Yuzhnoye/Yuzmash, Energia and Kvaerner Maritime. All marine operations are run by Kvaerner. The ships officers are Norwegian and the crew are Filipinos. The Yuzhnoye/Yuhzmash Ukrainians handle the 1st and 2nd stages of the rocket, the Russians from Energia provide the 3rd stage Block-DM unit, and Boeing provides payload accommodations and program integration duties. Ships are flagged Liberian.

I slacked on a few days of updates but here is the latest...

Day 7 - Echostar 9 launch campaign
as of 0700 this morning

14 deg N latitude, 139 deg W longitude
Speed :12.1 knots
distance travelled = 1639 nm
distance remaining to Launch site = 1226 nm

Absolutely nothing going on. All systems are running to perfection so nothing for me to do but hit the gym and surf the net. I am bored out of my skull. I played an entire Civilization 3 game at maximum difficulty and won it in 32 hours of gaming.

There is nothing out here except big honkin flying fish. No boats, no islands, no birds, nothing. Thats one of the reasons we launch from out here.

 

That's awsome man! Looks like fun! Can you get pics of the actual launch too, or will you be busy? Hehehe, I'd love to see that bad boy taking flight.

 

0 deg N, 154 deg W

 

Thanks for the reply, pretty fascinating stuff, I know what you mean about the central pacific, did a side scan mapping job out there in 96 for 4 months and only saw 2 ships the entire trip, plenty of flying fish though!, Just came back across the Atlantic last month ... was gone 5 months..22 straight days of Civilization III.. I still usually get my but kicked at the Diety level though,

Sure did miss my car!! oh yeah, and my GF too

 

Day 12
Well we finally are at the launch site. 0 deg N, 154 W, exactly. I can stand in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres at the same time.

The Launch Platform is ballasted down about 70 feet and the dynamic positioning system is running to keep us rock steady and positioned correctly. Launch preps are underway.

Launch will be about 8 PM PST on August 7th. Live webcast on our website or better yet it will be live on Dish Network Channel 101 since we are launching their next satellite.

Here are a couple of old photos from our departure from Long Beach. TrojanHorse is the guy in the extreme upper left corner.