CRS-3 Mission Patch
The worst case scenario has happened. Well, not really the worst case scenario, but a pretty crappy one nevertheless. Today, two days before I head out to Cape Canaveral and one day AFTER I flew out to Florida, I received notice from NASA and SpaceX that the launch of the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon CRS-3 capsule was cancelled for the 16th of March and rescheduled for the 30th of March. Yep. I have now flown about nine-tenths of the way across the country only to be denied from watching the launch a mere two days before liftoff. It really shouldn't surprise me, though.
After moving to Florida in 1987, I immediately became a space nerd. I've watched countless hours of the NASA Channel (you didn't know it existed, did you?), and have even had the pleasure of hearing the twin sonic booms that the Space Shuttle would make as it flew over our house on its final approach to Kennedy Space Center (KSC). I was such a space nerd, that by the time I was in 4th grade, I could recite the exact speed of the sound barrier (767 MPH for the uninitiated). My favorite volume of the encyclopedia was "S". You have two guesses to try to figure out why. There was even a point in 9th grade chemistry when I answered a rhetorical question that our teacher posed to the class, without even thinking of the answer. I don't remember the exact question or the context, but it had to do with the distance from the Earth to the Sun. I blurted out "93,000,000 miles" without even giving it second thought. Needless to say, our teacher was perplexed that I--or anyone else for that matter--knew how far the Earth was from the Sun. This did not increase my social status amongst my peers.
The bottom line is that I lived and breathed everything Space. With that being the case, you'd think that I would have a multitude of live launches under my belt. Well, you'd be wrong. To be clear, I have seen live launches... Just not from anywhere near KSC. Sure I had seen some from my backyard, and my dad and I went to an empty soccer field to watch the Shuttle blast-off at 3am. But I have never seen a launch from anywhere where you can feel the thrust in your chest. I have never been able to get a good feel for the speed of it all. And to top it all of, every single trip that we had planned to go see one live was usually scrubbed, delayed, or flat out canceled for one reason or another. Every. Single. Time. I was ready to put a gigantic 'Hell yes' sized check mark next to that accomplishment on my bucket list. Alas, it'll have to wait for another time. I'm starting to think it's me... Maybe I'm the bad luck that NASA tries to avoid?
Scientific Progress "Boink"
As much as I wanted this to happen, you just can't predict every little thing that can go wrong with these machines. When the Space Shuttle was flying, it was dubbed the most technologically complex thing that man had ever created. Each one had 2 and 1/2 MILLION moving parts... and they built five of them (six if you count Enterprise). It was a marvel that something the size of a 737 could be stood up on its tail, strapped to what was essentially a gigantic bomb, and sent into the heavens to study anything and everything. Sometimes, to quote Hobbes, "Scientific progress goes 'BOINK'." Sometimes, as much as you prepare and try to prevent any delays, something goes wrong and blows up all your plans. Launching stuff into space is a complex process (duh), and the probability that something could have gone wrong was pretty high. While the Falcon rocket is not nearly as complex as the Space Shuttle, there are still plenty of things that can cause a delay. Maybe there was a problem with one of the new landing legs (which by the way, this was going to be the first launch using them)? Maybe it was something as simple as some random bolt? Whatever the case, this is not the kind of thing that you just say, "Screw it. Lets do it any way."
Sure, I'm disappointed. Hell, I'm more than disappointed, I'm straight up sad. But, all hope is not lost. I still have a ridiculously awesome experience coming my way this weekend. I still get to go see NASA from a vantage point not usually given to the general public. I'll still get to meet some interesting people that are just as passionate (if not more) about all things Space as I am. NASA has already notified us that our credentials are good for the actual launch--whenever that may be. So it's not all bad news, just not the news I was expecting to hear.
Eventually, I'll get to check "Watch a live launch" off my list... I just have to figure out a way to get back to Florida.
-C.
