My Final Thoughts on the GRAIL NASA Tweetup

Thanks a bunch for reading all about my wonderful perfect experience. If you are on Twitter, follow me @catahouligan

Just some additional thoughts:
You can't predict the things that will happen in life. I went into this knowing it was going to be special. Truly though, I had no idea. Really, nothing could have prepared me for this. I feel like I have come out of this a different person, with this amazing network of people, with knowledge, with more drive. I feel like I have been told a secret that very few people will ever get to know. This was something I very much needed for a number of reasons that I won't get into here.

You also can't predict who the people you will meet are. All you can do is be so, so thankful when your path crosses with awesome people that you mesh with instantly and hope that you get to cross paths again!

So enough sentimental stuff- basically, if I had to sum this up in one Sherry-type sentence-

The GRAIL NASA Tweetup was the most fantastic event I have ever attended and THANK YOU NASA, Stephanie Schierholz, and everyone else that took part in that week- my head is now full of  memories I will cherish for the rest of my life!!!

Hope to see you all at MSL!! :)


(I will update this with more stuff as I remember or get the time to post pics, videos, transcripts, etc. And all my future launch stuff will go here now too, I kind of put a lot of work into this, so might as well.)

Launch Day!

Saturday morning at 4am, we woke up and left the hotel by 5:30am to meet up with the bus for launch attempt number two. Our group size was half of what it was Thursday since many could not stay. (Sadly, guys. Hope I get to see a lot of you at MSL time!)

We did not go to the causeway again, from what I heard because of the wind direction, they were worried about hazardous stuff in the air coming that way, so they took us over to KARS park. In my opinion, it was a way better view anyway- head on and the surrounding scenery was photogenic to the max.

They scrubbed launch attempt number one, again. Everyone was on pins and needles because this was the last launch attempt NASA could accommodate us for. For me, it is not a big deal, I decided that I was done chasing this rocket if it didn't go off that morning, I was spending way too much in gas to go back and forth. But I felt really bad for people who were sitting there waiting to see their first launch ever, who spent tons of money and came halfway around the world to see it.

Before the second launch attempt, we all sat around talking and laughing. I have never felt so close to such a large amount of people in such a short period of time. It was intense, like you suddenly have this new family you are sharing this amazing experience with. I feel like I have known some of these people my entire life. It is like you all have this really special secret that you can try to explain all you want, but people won't quite 'get it' until they have been a part of it. It bonds you all together.

Anyway, while we were waiting, I ate peanut butter out of a jar and tried to tell @fidget02 that the fire ant bites she got when she stepped in a pile of the beasts, would calm down in ten minutes. We actually have this on video and I still have to upload it to youtube. I have this thing for foreign accents and unfamiliar words, so I was torturing her, making her tell me funny British words. When I wasn't harassing her, I was petting manatees.

There were these two manatees (sea cows) hanging out by the dock because someone turned on the fresh water and they LOVE to drink the fresh water. I went over and was just a few feet from them, and I decided that how often does this happen and figured I would try to pet their little cute noses. So I laid down on the dock and reached down- Manatee #1 wasn't having any of it, he kept ducking under, but Manatee #2 actually LOVED getting its nose scratched and I think it was actually having a hard time decided between drinking the fresh water and getting its nose scratched. Little CUTIES!!!!! That has always been on my bucket list, and I am really excited that I got to do that. They are gentle, amazing creatures, and it was an honor and a privilege that it trusted me to let me do that. 

This killed all the time up until the second launch attempt number two. We all waited in suspense and yes, it was GO!!!! :)

As always, my hands were shaking and I decided since I had to lean over the water, it was not a good idea to hold my phone out to video (trust me, I would have dropped it!). So I only took photos, but they were FABULOUS!! My photos came out so neat, I still have to edit them and get them on a public album, but if you are on Facebook, you can find the originals on there.

So 3-2-1...and the Delta II launched GRAIL off on their journey to the moon!

The crowd energy...indescribable!

After the launch, we all took pics with each other, through this whole thing, I did not take many people pictures, and I realized it and tried to get as many as I could before we got back on the bus.

We got back to the parking lot, said our goodbyes. Then @Iamtay and I got back to her hotel and we said our goodbyes. I actually got really teary eyed on the way home. I am such a nerd, but I really had the most amazing week.

Preview of the launch, photographically.

This was the sunrise view we had of SLC 17-- see the two big towers to the left? The Delta II rocket carrying GRAIL is to the right of the right hand tower. It was stunning. Even the birds came out for the view!

Unedited launch photo. The sound went through my body.

Follow the white contrail all the way up past the clouds- Delta II is going, going, gone......see where it splits off a dark line? That is the shadow of the contrail! It was so neat, sometimes the clouds mess up your view of the rocket but give you great photo ops!

NASA Tweetup, Part 7? The Endless BBQ and The Planetarium

This is the story of a BBQ that is Endlessly awesome. A tradition after the launches, it is put on by a couple of awesome "spacetweeps" (clever name for space loving Twitter people), who provide a ton of food and beer. I went to the one after the launch for 135 and I remember someone saying they had about 200 people in and out of the house that night, I remember seeing every beer and liquor imaginable there, on a help yourself basis.

For the Endless BBQ after the GRAIL launch, Cocoa Beach Brewing Company offered up their facility, with their newly built deck out back. This place is the cutest bar I have ever seen. If you walked in not knowing where you were, you would think you were in a really cute coffee shop. I can't remember what kind of beer was in the keg, (help me out here guys) but I know I drank a lot of it. The food was great, the company was great. At what party can you sit around drinking lots of beer and talking math and physics and space? Endless BBQ, that's where!

I can't remember half the conversations I had that night, but I remember meeting some fabulous people, hearing awesome music, drinking wonderful beer and having a super good time.

One of the people attending GRAIL so generously offered to let me share her hotel room on Cocoa beach with her since I was absolutely not going to drive back to Orlando after this. The next morning, I woke up and walked over to the beach in the dark, and watched the our star rise over the Atlantic. It was spectacular, I love walking on the beach and I love sunrises.

Back up though. The night before as we were going to sleep, an email came through to our phones saying the Friday morning launch attempt was canceled, but NASA so generously offered to accommodate us for one more launch attempt Saturday morning. So that meant Friday was a free day. This is why I was on the beach Friday morning and not out chasing rocket launches...

I came home that day, relaxed, played with Pupples (it missed me so!) and got ready to head back out to Cocoa. It was announced that Dr. Randii Wessen from JPL would be speaking at the Brevard Planetarium though that evening, and I definitely wanted to go to that. So I headed back out and showed up there about an hour before the talk to do some homework.

Well, Dr. Wessen was already there along with the head of the Astronomy/Physics department, Dr. Fiorella Terenzi (they are both on Wikipedia, look them up). I sat and talked with them, such interesting people. Dr. Wessen's talk was so interesting, especially the part that explained how Curiosity (the Mars rover about to launch in November) would land on Mars.

After the lecture, there was a "reception" out in the science center part of the planetarium. They had all sorts of fun stuff there for kids to learn about scientific concepts, lots of "toys" that even us (yes, me) adults had fun with.

As I was speaking to the lady from NASA with the moon rock, (I apologize for not remembering names here), Dr. Terenzi invited me to dinner with herself, Dr. Wessen, and a bunch of other people.

It was an awesome evening with awesome, intellectual conversation- I there were several other NASA folks there as well, along with a student of Dr. Terenzis and a fellow Tweetup attendee.

From L to R: Tamre, Dr. Terenzi, Dr. Wessen, Me, Lisa

(My phone was dying so no flash, poor lighting)

Also, Dr. Wessen worked with Carl Sagan and on the Voyagers. If you are not aware, Carl Sagan is my hero and the Voyagers are my absolute favorite thing to read about. I love learning about their backstories, I love hearing anything about them. I was at a loss for thoughts though, I was so curious about them and what it was like to work with Dr. Sagan, yet I couldn't really think of anything to ask him about them. Really, it was just a nice dinner, with really intelligent people. And they had me try smoked salmon, which I had never had, and I am now hooked on! :)

I love good conversations. I am a talker, I am very inquisitive and I LOVE to learn and laugh. Meeting people with the passion for/or knowledge of Physics, Space, Math is rare. So it is like a flood gate opening when I am around people who I can talk about this stuff with and not get eye rolls or sighs of impatience. I was in my element, and I honestly drove away from dinner so happy. I didn't want this awesome week to end.

After dinner, I went back my friend's hotel and crashed. We had to be up at 4am to meet up with the tour bus at 6am for the final launch attempt we could view from NASA property!

NASA Tweetup-Part 6: 3-2-1..just kidding.

So I got home late the night before and before I went to sleep, I plugged all of my technologies in. I wanted to make sure I had full batteries for everything. I had a dream that I was late and missed the whole thing. It almost became a reality because I am an inept alarm clock setter, and I got lucky enough to be behind the only other (15 mph under the speed limit) person on the one lane part of Narcoosee Road at 4:45 in the morning.

When I pulled up, I saw a crowd had gathered around something. I walked up and there is Neil deGrasse Tyson with a laser pointer giving us a 6am astronomy lesson in the parking lot! It was fabulous! Shortly thereafter, we got on our bus and headed out to the causeway.

Once we got out there, I ended up with a group of about ten people at the far end of everyone else- but we had a full view of the rocket so we could see it clear the pad. In my opinion, that is the best part- watching it clear the pad. You can get a good view of it in the air anywhere- but seeing it clear the pad is the unique, awesome view being up close affords you. So we waited. We talked. Sang the "GO!" song up until the weather part- NO GO on weather! It was up and down- here is how it went.

GRAIL had two instantaneous launch windows. They were about an hour apart. If it wasn't ready to go at that second, it was a no go for launch because it HAD to be launched right then. See, usually launches have pretty big windows of time to fix any issues- like a person wandering into restricted areas, weather holds, etc. So they can basically reschedule the new launch time for sometime within that window. Not GRAIL- it had once chance and once chance only, twice each morning, precisely on the dot. So they scrubbed the first launch time that morning, and we waited for the second launch time. At this point, clouds started rolling in, and I predicted there was no WAY it was going to launch with clouds like that hanging out. I was right.

They scrubbed and we went back to KSC. They would try again tomorrow.

The cool thing was, we were each given a complimentary admission ticket to Kennedy Space Center, so many of us headed there after this because it was still really early.

I met up with some people and watched the "Hubble" IMAX movie in 3-D, which was SUPERB! Then I met up with some different people and went to the exhibit they had under the theater- had a lot of really cool space stuff in there, including a piece of the moon we were allowed to touch. Really neat to touch something that was once a part of the moon.

I will definitely say this, NASA goes all out when it comes to public education. They had some really neat people there, but I will get to that later, because I actually got to meet some of them at dinner the next night.

So that afternoon, Neil deGrasse Tyson was going to be speaking again at an informal q&a session. I definitely went. I got to ask him another question again, but I will be writing a separate post for that because I asked him a really neat question and got a really neat answer.

We then went and stood in line for Nichelle Nichols autograph. I was never a big Star Trek fan, I watched it when I was a kid, but never a junkie, but I have a friend who was, so I stood in line and got her to sign the back of my lanyard next to Neil deGrasse Tyson, and a GRAIL postcard for my friend.

The good thing about the launch being delayed is that it also delayed the end of the Tweetup. But sadly, about half of our people had to leave. I lucked out.

But, before some people left, it was Endless BBQ time---the LEGENDARY ENDLESS BBQ!! It really is legendary. It deserves it's own post as well. :)

Link to the NASA Tweetup Broadcast-Guest Speakers.

So if you missed the afternoon program on Ustream, here is the link. I can't watch it because I don't want to see myself on video or hear myself asking questions...I'm not a big fan of being behind a camera I am not controlling. Maybe eventually I will...:)

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tweetup

That is all of the speakers that I mentioned in yesterday's blog post. Neil deGrasse Tyson is at the very end. (PART TWO!) Oh and now I remember I also asked Jim Adams a question about the Voyagers but I can't remember now. I love those little Voyagers :).

So just some highlights during NDT's talk- again, it is in part two,

7:43- That is MY water bottle! :)It is still sitting on my desk...I can't throw it away...
15:20-His whipped cream story- "Either the laws of physics are different in your coffee shop...."
19:20- "We define who and what we are as a culture..."
21:51- "And adult field trip.."
22:41-"We become jaded, forget what it is to ask questions..." (This is also where he thought I called humans pathetic..haha)

GRAIL NASA Tweetup, Part 5- The Guest Speakers!

I am just going to make a list. I don't know how else to do this without getting more off track than I know I will as it is. Follow me!? Just a few notes first. So somehow I ended up on camera practically the entire time. I had people texting me during the program watching on UStream telling me to wave, commenting on how excited I looked, telling me to give them shout-outs, telling me to wake up. I did not realize the cameras would be right in my face, I thought they would be taping from behind us, and the speakers would be up on the podium. No. For  the most part, they speakers stood about two feet in front of me, or paced back and forth in front of me. Wanna talk self conscious? Ha. Try being out in the Florida heat all day, with serious makeup meltdown, while all tired from taking an anti-nausea pill whose main warning is drowsiness. But I am a champ. And it was nice and cold in the room, so I was able to just kinda curl up inside my rain jacket while I sat there. 

So the speakers: 

1. Charles Bolden (NASA Administrator)

2. Nichelle Nichols (surprise!) (Played Lt. Uhura on Star Trek)

3. Jim Adams (NASA Deputy Director, Planetary Science)

4. Maria Zuber (GRAIL Principal Investigator)

5. Sami Asmar (GRAIL Deputy Project Scientist, JPL)

6. Doug Ellison (Eyes on the Solar System demonstration)

7. Sally Ride Science team (MoonKam presentation)

8. Vern Thorp (Manager, NASA Programs, ULA)

9. Stu Spath,(Chief Spacecraft Engineer, Lockheed Martin)

10. NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON!!! (Astrophysicist, Frederick P. Rose Director at the Hayden Planetarium- this guy was Pluto's demise! :) 

So Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is what I aspire to be. This man has passion, he is a fireball, he is enthusiastic, he is realistic, logical, no-nonsense, etc. He is an ambassador for science/math literacy. He also used my water bottle for his demonstration, and in response to something he was saying about humans, I responded under my breath "Apathetic" and he heard me but thought I said "Pathetic" and the entire room got a laugh out of it. Including him. :) 

Also, Charles Bolden called me smart. He asked the room if anyone knew when the next manned spaceflight and cargo spaceflight were going to happen, and of course because I am an avid follower of SpaceX, my hand shot up and I told him 2014 for manned and November for cargo. He pointed his finger at me and said, this girl is smart. So I retorted with, good, give me a job, to which everyone, including him, laughed. And I responded again with, "No, I am serious I need a job!!!" 

:) 

I got to interact with them a lot. Sami Asmar and I got into a little discussion about an equation he had on his powerpoint during a break. Not often you get to talk math with a project scientist from NASA! 

Also, I LOVED the presentations on the MoonKam and Eyes on the Solar System. Two really, really cool projects- I will have to get links. I will likely do a blog with links and explanations to a lot of really neat stuff. I learned SO much in a matter of a few hours. 

After everything was over, we did a group photo under the mock Soyuz. Lots of our speakers even got in the picture! After that, I got to meet Neil deGrasse Tyson, have a picture with him and I had him sign my lanyard. He was SO SO SO nice. Down to earth, loved hugs, was just so involved with us. He didn't act like he was above us, he just educated us. It was fantastic and he is SUCH an awesome story teller. When I walked away from him, I told him to remember this face, I will be working with him one day! :) a

Again, I am sure as I finish this blog, there are details that are going to come up that I forgot, there was so much packed into the day. Just remember, starting with seeing Endeavour to this point is the entire day. It was almost intellectual overload, I felt like I was walking in a dream. I mean, if you know me, you know I was in my element to the max. 

So that was the official first day, or unofficial second day of the Tweetup. I headed home and got there around 9pm. And I had to be up at 4am the next morning to be back out at NASA to get on the tour bus to go to the launch...

One more thing- here are a few of my favorite quotes from the day:

"Math is extremely import. In fact if you don't study algebra, you're not setting the right path in my mind-you're not setting the right path for yourself. Regardless of whether you go into science or math... if you end up being an artist or poet... it is important you have the ability to understand the world around you and analyze that." 

-Jim Adams

"It will change our understanding of who we are in the universe."

-Jim Adams (Speaking about the possibility of finding life on Europa)

"It (Atlas V) leaped off the pad with authority and pushed Juno on to Jupiter, but in all my career I've never seen a rocket launch so beautiful, so powerful, as a Delta II launch"..."Delta 2 is like a tall lady pushing her babies off into space"

-Jim Adams

"He has at least forced the public dialogue" 

-Charlie Bolden (Speaking about Barack Obama)

"Nothing is impossible. If you can imagine it, dream it, you can do it."

-Nichelle Nichols