Chasing the space shuttle...
2005-08-04
So we had gotten NBC interested in getting live pictures of the space shuttle Discovery when it was re-entering at the end of its last mission. So after a bunch of work we started on our trek. It started by flying to Orlando to get some stuff from storage we needed that we had set up in Florida after videoing the lift off from Florida. NBC had arranged for us a van, but we also got a driver which we thought wasn't really all that useful. But he drove us up to our storage place and it was actually helpful since he could watch the van and the equipment there that we had while we were digging through the storage room.
The driver then took us up to FedEx so we could get some items that we shipped to ourselves and then off to the shippers that was taking our equipment to Costa Rica which is where we were going to video the re-entry. While unloading the van we accidentally bumped one of the desktop computers we brought that wasn't in any packaging at the time and it fell about 3 feet onto the asphalt. We had no way to test it at that point as the rest of the computer (monitor, keyboard, etc) had already been shipped. The driver then took us to our hotel and he went on his way. We then got a rental car so we could do some small errands, as we weren't going to have this driver to go to walmart and home depot and such. We went to get some dinner at our favorite sushi place in Orlando at the moment.
2005-08-05
After a good nights sleep at the hotel we then drove over to the home depot to get some extra bolts and such and headed over to the airport. We were flying to Miami and then onto San Jose, Costa Rica. Flying was pretty uneventful, saw some nice thunderstorms and lighting from the plane. The Miami to San Jose flight was delayed about 2 hours as they fixed a computer in the A320. We ended up being only about 90 minutes late into San Jose. After standing in the long line for immigration we started looking for our luggage. Couldn't find it on any of the luggage belts, but eventually find one of our NBC contacts piling up our equipment. Costa Rican customs let us right through with our 4 carts of baggage and we met 2 buses that NBC had rented and they took all our equipment and ourselves to the Real Intercontinental hotel in San Jose. After getting some dinner in the hotel we headed to bed.
2005-08-06
Got up at like 7am for breakfast where we met our other NBC contact who is the head of the Mexico City NBC branch. We discussed where in Costa Rica we wanted to go and then headed out to where we were going. After about a 2 hour bus ride we found a Marriot hotel resort and stopped there to see if it'd work for the re-entry. We decided that it wouldn't but we got lunch there and then drove up the mountain that was near the hotel as we were told there were houses and such up there. We got to the top of the road and found a set of gates. After 10-15 minutes, someone who lived inside the complex let us in and we drove down into complex. After driving around a bit we settled on a small field we found. After waiting about 30 minutes to get permission from the owners, and getting access to the house next store and permission to use that as well we started setting up our equipment. The NBC people setup the satellite uplink dish and we started sorting out where we wanted our tripod and one of the vans which we were going to convert into a control room. As we were setting up it started to rain pretty heavily so we decided to call it an early night and get some good sleep and start early the next morning setting up. We went to bed at around 11pm.
2005-08-07
We got up around 6:30 and met everyone else and headed back to the field. We setup our equipment, getting the telescope mount on the tripod, getting our 4 telescopes setup, our 6 cameras, and the control room in the van. The computer that we dropped ended up being still in full working order other than the case itself no longer being square and the side panels not really fitting right anymore. The NBC folk got the satellite uplink working and one of the local Costa Rican TV stations also showed up to be an additional backup uplink and just to cover what we were doing. There was passing thunderstorms, clouds and clear skies teasing us all night long.
2005-08-08
As the night went on the clouds came and went, and as the time for re-entry approached it didn't look too favorable. Then our NBC people got the news that the first KSC landing attempt had been waved off. So we stopped doing work and relaxed for a bit. The house we had access to had a DirectTV dish and we eventually found NASA TV and waited to see if they landed on the second KSC attempt on the next orbit, which was too far away for us to see. They ended up waving that one off as well, both were called off because of unfavorable weather conditions. At that point (3:15a CST) we started taking everything down and started packing. We had everything packed and ready to go by 8am and we headed back to San Jose to try to catch an 11:30am flight to Miami to go to Cancun Mexico. The next KSC landing attempt went in over the Yucatan peninsula. The bus drivers we had must have driven pretty seriously as we made it to San Jose airport in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Most of us slept on the bus ride as we'd been up all night long. We got to the airport with our combined 41 bags of checked luggage and with some help from our NBC people we got all those bags checked without too much trouble. Unfortunately the NBC camera guy who was with us couldn't come since he was an Argentinean living in Mexico and we didn't have a transit visa for the US, so couldn't fly though Miami with us, even though he lives in Mexico. We got some more sleep on the plane going to Miami. When we arrived in Miami we had to go though US Customs and then back through security again. We got some food and then caught our flight to Cancun.
When we arrived in Cancun our NBC contact jumped to the front of the custom's line and talked to someone there and go us though without having to wait in line, and we then waited at the luggage belt for our 41 pieces of luggage. After collecting all our luggage, we then had to wait for the airport security to match all our bags to the bag tags we had which took forever. But after that we took all our equipment to customs, who x-rayed each box but otherwise let them through without any issue. We then collected them onto 3 van's that NBC had gotten us and after only about an hour at the airport we were on our way towards Xcan, Mexico. After driving about an hour, we came to a town and stopped at a open area that had 2 basketball courts, which was still 20-30 miles from Xcan but after running the numbers for the site ended up working just fine. There were a lot of kids there playing and being curious about us.
2005-08-09
So we started to setup again, being cautious that none of our stuff walked off with anyone. The setup went really fast this time, as we had separated our stuff into A and B piles while packing, A having what we needed and B being extra stuff. The satellite uplink wasn't working as well this time and wasn't working correctly. Though at 3:15a CDT we got the news that they waved off that KSC landing attempt because of weather, and that was the end of our chances of getting the re-entry since we pretty much knew that they'd take the landing attempts at Edwards if the second KSC landing was waved off. One of the locals made us some chicken, rice, and bean paste which was really quite good.
We then started to pack up which was hard because we were all very tired at this point. Much to our annoyance the NBC people packed up and left us there with just 2 of the 3 vehicles and 2 drivers. One of the vehicles was simply a taxi who had a full sized van. Neither of them spoke very good English and the NBC folk were going to find a hotel for us to stay at and have one of the drivers call them to see where to go. They also weren't useful in helping to pack or anything but we finally finished packing around 5am CDT. We got to the hotel at around 6am, me in the taxi and R & J in the other van. After getting to the hotel, the other van didn't show up for like 20 minutes. The driver of that van went right past the hotel and got lost or something.
We got our rooms, watched some TV to hear about the landing and then I got some sleep from about 7am till 9am. R worked on getting us earlyish flights out, as NBC had gotten us 4pm tickets thinking we wanted to sleep. R got them to change them to a 12:30p flight and we went back down to get our taxi. It was no where to be found. Y was leaving earlier than us and we guessed he used the taxi to go to the airport which we later found out was the case, however the taxi had all our equipment in it. Thankfully none of us had left our passports in the taxi and we had them on us. I had all my personal luggage but R didn't have much other than his laptop bag and a small suitcase that didn't have much in it. In some way the taxi being missing for the time being was good, as NBC wanted us to take them all as checked baggage which would have been difficult without the local/native speaker. So we just went to the airport with what we had.
When we got to the airport, we checked in and when we got our boarding passes my flight was for the 12:30 flight, but R's was still the 4pm flight. After taking 5 people to watch/work on changing R's ticket it ended up only being $109 to change it. We got though security and got some food and flew home via Charlotte. And then we were home. I slept about 13 hours after getting home.
Even though we never saw the shuttle, we were quite pleased that we were ready for each pass and we were very confident that we would have successfully imaged the shuttle unless weather got in the way. It was a good learning experience on how to do this for next time.
So the short version:
We flew BOS -> MCO -> MIA -> SJO -> MIA -> CUN -> CLT -> BOS over 6 days, got very little sleep, worked a lot, and for the most part had fun doing it all. Also got some nice time laps of us building and taking down the setup in Costa Rica.
So we had gotten NBC interested in getting live pictures of the space shuttle Discovery when it was re-entering at the end of its last mission. So after a bunch of work we started on our trek. It started by flying to Orlando to get some stuff from storage we needed that we had set up in Florida after videoing the lift off from Florida. NBC had arranged for us a van, but we also got a driver which we thought wasn't really all that useful. But he drove us up to our storage place and it was actually helpful since he could watch the van and the equipment there that we had while we were digging through the storage room.
The driver then took us up to FedEx so we could get some items that we shipped to ourselves and then off to the shippers that was taking our equipment to Costa Rica which is where we were going to video the re-entry. While unloading the van we accidentally bumped one of the desktop computers we brought that wasn't in any packaging at the time and it fell about 3 feet onto the asphalt. We had no way to test it at that point as the rest of the computer (monitor, keyboard, etc) had already been shipped. The driver then took us to our hotel and he went on his way. We then got a rental car so we could do some small errands, as we weren't going to have this driver to go to walmart and home depot and such. We went to get some dinner at our favorite sushi place in Orlando at the moment.
2005-08-05
After a good nights sleep at the hotel we then drove over to the home depot to get some extra bolts and such and headed over to the airport. We were flying to Miami and then onto San Jose, Costa Rica. Flying was pretty uneventful, saw some nice thunderstorms and lighting from the plane. The Miami to San Jose flight was delayed about 2 hours as they fixed a computer in the A320. We ended up being only about 90 minutes late into San Jose. After standing in the long line for immigration we started looking for our luggage. Couldn't find it on any of the luggage belts, but eventually find one of our NBC contacts piling up our equipment. Costa Rican customs let us right through with our 4 carts of baggage and we met 2 buses that NBC had rented and they took all our equipment and ourselves to the Real Intercontinental hotel in San Jose. After getting some dinner in the hotel we headed to bed.
2005-08-06
Got up at like 7am for breakfast where we met our other NBC contact who is the head of the Mexico City NBC branch. We discussed where in Costa Rica we wanted to go and then headed out to where we were going. After about a 2 hour bus ride we found a Marriot hotel resort and stopped there to see if it'd work for the re-entry. We decided that it wouldn't but we got lunch there and then drove up the mountain that was near the hotel as we were told there were houses and such up there. We got to the top of the road and found a set of gates. After 10-15 minutes, someone who lived inside the complex let us in and we drove down into complex. After driving around a bit we settled on a small field we found. After waiting about 30 minutes to get permission from the owners, and getting access to the house next store and permission to use that as well we started setting up our equipment. The NBC people setup the satellite uplink dish and we started sorting out where we wanted our tripod and one of the vans which we were going to convert into a control room. As we were setting up it started to rain pretty heavily so we decided to call it an early night and get some good sleep and start early the next morning setting up. We went to bed at around 11pm.
2005-08-07
We got up around 6:30 and met everyone else and headed back to the field. We setup our equipment, getting the telescope mount on the tripod, getting our 4 telescopes setup, our 6 cameras, and the control room in the van. The computer that we dropped ended up being still in full working order other than the case itself no longer being square and the side panels not really fitting right anymore. The NBC folk got the satellite uplink working and one of the local Costa Rican TV stations also showed up to be an additional backup uplink and just to cover what we were doing. There was passing thunderstorms, clouds and clear skies teasing us all night long.
2005-08-08
As the night went on the clouds came and went, and as the time for re-entry approached it didn't look too favorable. Then our NBC people got the news that the first KSC landing attempt had been waved off. So we stopped doing work and relaxed for a bit. The house we had access to had a DirectTV dish and we eventually found NASA TV and waited to see if they landed on the second KSC attempt on the next orbit, which was too far away for us to see. They ended up waving that one off as well, both were called off because of unfavorable weather conditions. At that point (3:15a CST) we started taking everything down and started packing. We had everything packed and ready to go by 8am and we headed back to San Jose to try to catch an 11:30am flight to Miami to go to Cancun Mexico. The next KSC landing attempt went in over the Yucatan peninsula. The bus drivers we had must have driven pretty seriously as we made it to San Jose airport in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Most of us slept on the bus ride as we'd been up all night long. We got to the airport with our combined 41 bags of checked luggage and with some help from our NBC people we got all those bags checked without too much trouble. Unfortunately the NBC camera guy who was with us couldn't come since he was an Argentinean living in Mexico and we didn't have a transit visa for the US, so couldn't fly though Miami with us, even though he lives in Mexico. We got some more sleep on the plane going to Miami. When we arrived in Miami we had to go though US Customs and then back through security again. We got some food and then caught our flight to Cancun.
When we arrived in Cancun our NBC contact jumped to the front of the custom's line and talked to someone there and go us though without having to wait in line, and we then waited at the luggage belt for our 41 pieces of luggage. After collecting all our luggage, we then had to wait for the airport security to match all our bags to the bag tags we had which took forever. But after that we took all our equipment to customs, who x-rayed each box but otherwise let them through without any issue. We then collected them onto 3 van's that NBC had gotten us and after only about an hour at the airport we were on our way towards Xcan, Mexico. After driving about an hour, we came to a town and stopped at a open area that had 2 basketball courts, which was still 20-30 miles from Xcan but after running the numbers for the site ended up working just fine. There were a lot of kids there playing and being curious about us.
2005-08-09
So we started to setup again, being cautious that none of our stuff walked off with anyone. The setup went really fast this time, as we had separated our stuff into A and B piles while packing, A having what we needed and B being extra stuff. The satellite uplink wasn't working as well this time and wasn't working correctly. Though at 3:15a CDT we got the news that they waved off that KSC landing attempt because of weather, and that was the end of our chances of getting the re-entry since we pretty much knew that they'd take the landing attempts at Edwards if the second KSC landing was waved off. One of the locals made us some chicken, rice, and bean paste which was really quite good.
We then started to pack up which was hard because we were all very tired at this point. Much to our annoyance the NBC people packed up and left us there with just 2 of the 3 vehicles and 2 drivers. One of the vehicles was simply a taxi who had a full sized van. Neither of them spoke very good English and the NBC folk were going to find a hotel for us to stay at and have one of the drivers call them to see where to go. They also weren't useful in helping to pack or anything but we finally finished packing around 5am CDT. We got to the hotel at around 6am, me in the taxi and R & J in the other van. After getting to the hotel, the other van didn't show up for like 20 minutes. The driver of that van went right past the hotel and got lost or something.
We got our rooms, watched some TV to hear about the landing and then I got some sleep from about 7am till 9am. R worked on getting us earlyish flights out, as NBC had gotten us 4pm tickets thinking we wanted to sleep. R got them to change them to a 12:30p flight and we went back down to get our taxi. It was no where to be found. Y was leaving earlier than us and we guessed he used the taxi to go to the airport which we later found out was the case, however the taxi had all our equipment in it. Thankfully none of us had left our passports in the taxi and we had them on us. I had all my personal luggage but R didn't have much other than his laptop bag and a small suitcase that didn't have much in it. In some way the taxi being missing for the time being was good, as NBC wanted us to take them all as checked baggage which would have been difficult without the local/native speaker. So we just went to the airport with what we had.
When we got to the airport, we checked in and when we got our boarding passes my flight was for the 12:30 flight, but R's was still the 4pm flight. After taking 5 people to watch/work on changing R's ticket it ended up only being $109 to change it. We got though security and got some food and flew home via Charlotte. And then we were home. I slept about 13 hours after getting home.
Even though we never saw the shuttle, we were quite pleased that we were ready for each pass and we were very confident that we would have successfully imaged the shuttle unless weather got in the way. It was a good learning experience on how to do this for next time.
So the short version:
We flew BOS -> MCO -> MIA -> SJO -> MIA -> CUN -> CLT -> BOS over 6 days, got very little sleep, worked a lot, and for the most part had fun doing it all. Also got some nice time laps of us building and taking down the setup in Costa Rica.