NASA and Dayton

I’ve had notes on my desk for the last couple of weeks for a blog entry on NASA and the end of space shuttle flights.  Then just an hour ago this morning, Endeavour blasted off on its last voyage, piloted by Fairborn’s own Greg Johnson.  So I guess there’s no time like the present for a few remarks about NASA -- and Dayton. 

1.  First, a beautiful launch today of STS-134 Endeavour even on a rather cloudy Florida morning.  When Cindy and I were in Florida for the February 2010 Endeavour launch, weather was clear as a bell for the second launch attempt.  Story was orbiter engine glow was visible over 700 miles downrange, which put the spaceship and its crew on an east-west line with Cape Hatteras.  That was impressive!  Today, however, the ship disappeared into a low cloud cover within a few seconds of lift-off.  I hope the estimated 400,000 witnesses gathered to watch weren’t too disappointed with the view.

The commander of this voyage, as you probably know, is Mark Kelly, husband of Arizona U.S Representative Gabrielle Giffords.  Story was Ms. Giffords was able to travel to the Kennedy Space Center from her rehab work Houston yesterday to witness her husband and crew ride the space shuttle ‘candle’ on the fleet’s penultimate voyage.  I hear she was accompanied by Greg Johnson’s family and others on the flight from Texas.  

Best of luck to the Endeavour crew.  They have a few spacewalks to perform to outfit the International Space Station for the long haul, and the super-snazzy Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to install on the station.  The AMS will measure space particles that we never see on earth because our atmosphere eradicates ‘em on the way down.  Some cool science should come from this experiment, maybe even some new data on mysterious ‘dark energy.’  Some folks say what the AMS will show us might be comparable to what Hubble has done.  Now that’s a tall order!  We’ll just have to wait and see.

 2.  It’s an old topic now, but the National Museum of the United States Air Force here in Dayton was not awarded one of the orbiters going into retirement this summer.  Damn.  Sure was hoping for one of those, especially Atlantis, which has flown more Air Force payloads than either Discovery or Endeavour.   Sure would have been good to have had her in a hanger over at the Springfield Street museum.  Not to be, though.  

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown was very unhappy with the decision to pass on Dayton, to instead locate all four retired vehicles in facilities on an American coast (Washington DC, New York City, Kennedy Space Center, and Los Angeles).  I’m disappointed, too.  Too bad.  Senator Brown is asking for an investigation.  

Still, the AF Museum will get some engines, tires, and some trainer equipment.  If we had gotten Atlantis, as cool as that would have been, we would have been able to only stand and look at it, like so many other static exhibits at the museum.  This way, I’m hoping we’ll all get a chance to interact with shuttle apparatus when it gets here.  Besides, placing shuttles where they are going gives us Midwesterners other good destinations to visit on trips to the space coast of Florida, the Big Apple, the nation’s capital, and the City of Angels.  We’ll survive.  

 3.  It has always bothered me that Time Warner Cable, the cable monopoly that services Dayton, never offered NASA TV.  I mean, the government feed is free, for pete’s sake, and Dayton is the home of aviation, after all.  With all the junk on cable, I could never figure out why Time Warner opted not to offer NASA TV in this market.  An Air Force friend told me Time Warner didn’t even offer NASA TV in Houston.  Who knew?  

So for a year or so, Cindy let me acquire our home television signal from Dish Network, which offered NASA TV.  I want to tell you, I’d spend most days eating my lunch in front of the set getting caught up on whatever NASA wanted to show me.  Every day at 11 am Eastern, we’d get an hour update from the ISS, as well as getting a number of good science programs for kids.  And when a shuttle was in orbit, we’d get 24/7 coverage.  Very cool.  

But whenever it rained or snowed heavily, we’d lose the satellite signal and be without the Dish feed.  Seemed pretty goofy to lose the television feed when the weather got bad.  So back to Time Warner we went last summer. 

But I wrote Time Warner a letter, telling them what they were missing by not offering NASA TV.  A couple of times a got a person on the phone and I complained.  

‘Did you say, Nascar?  We offer Nascar,’  I heard more than once.  No, not Nascar.  NASA.  

Then one day just a month ago, we got a knock on the front door from a local Time Warner employee who wanted to stop by to tell us that NASA TV was now offered in the Dayton market.  It must have been his wife, also a company employee, who heard one of my complaints.  When she heard the company expanded offerings to include NASA TV, she wanted to be sure we got word personally. 

I was duly impressed.  I take back all the nasty stuff I’ve said about Time Warner not offering NASA for all these years.  True, we get charged an additional five bucks a month for NASA and the other few channels offered on that ‘tier,’ but I’ll take it!  

An extra special thanks, too, to those couple of Dayton neighbors working for Time Warner who went the extra mile to tell me personally about the new offering.  Who says big companies have to be impersonal?  Thanks again.

Today’s elder idea:  ...three, two, one, zero -- and liftoff for the final launch of Endeavour, expanding our knowledge and expanding our lives in space. 

NASA Television announcer

16 May 2011