I stood baffled in front of the entrance to Building 30 at Johnson Space Center. I was happy to now be finally holding my name badge for the Tweetup, but I sensed something bizarre had been going on prior to my arrival as Marlene stood smiling in front of me.
Apparently, Marlene had been originally told she was accepted to the Tweetup, but later received an email stating something to the effect of “we’re sorry, we accidently told you that you were accepted for the Tweetup, but really you’re not” – although I’m sure it was worded much better than that. There had been a lot of confusion with the email notifications that had gone out, including my late notice of acceptance the week prior. Apparently Marlene had worse luck than me with these email notifications.
Since Marlene had already begun making arrangements for the Tweetup and began participating online with the other attendees, being told later that she really wasn’t an attendee was a blow to her morale. Since she was local to the Houston area, she figured she would at least attend the pre-Tweetup dinner the night before to at least have a chance to mingle with the fellow space tweeps she had already begun to connect with. However, as the evening proceeded and she began hearing of my troubled travels which would at the least leave me delayed for the Tweetup, she started to wonder if there might be an open spot.
With the encouragement of other attendees of the Tweetup, Marlene got up early the morning of the Tweetup, saw that my arrival was becoming more and more delayed and drove to the Gilruth Center where the Tweetup was about to get under way. Since she had been to the pre-Tweetup dinner the night before, the attendees all welcomed her and even had her pose in some initial group photos. Of course, this got a bit confusing for our hosts as she was not on the list of attendees.
According to an email I received from Marlene after the Tweetup:
“Once there of course, so many knew me from the night before including Camilla SDO (the rubber chicken mascot of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Laboratory). She sat on my shoulder for a photo op and the people in charge wondered who the heck I was. While they searched and asked those in charge, the embrace of so many told those at JSC to ‘accept @Omaflinger’.
Your name tag was there. I assured them, you were on your way but many many miles away.
I could fill in, use your badge….and I would leave upon your arrival.”
Fortunately for Marlene, our JSC hosts agreed and Marlene was assigned my spot along with my badge. Since I was so incredibly late to arrive, Marlene was now a part of the full Tweetup experience. It would have been more trouble than it would have been worth to bus her out of the JSC facility anyway, so she was allowed to complete the Tweetup with us.
It still wasn’t until about an hour or two later that Marlene’s experience finally began to sink in for me. I was still in a bit of a daze from my travels and lack of sleep and food and water intake. However, while standing and listening to her, I managed to finally connect my first dot as to who she was from my JSC135 Tweetup perspective, “Oh, you’re the one with the profile photo that looks like a cup of coffee – we’ve talked a few times on Twitter.” I was so happy at this first sign that my brain was settling in.
- Marlene, my name badge and Astronaut Clay Anderson
From 8am that morning until approximately 3pm that afternoon, Marlene was me. Wearing my name badge, she flew the actual shuttle simulator that all the shuttle astronauts have used to hone their skills. Wearing my badge, she met JSC staff and mingled with astronauts. Wearing my badge, she toured the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. Wearing my badge, she formed early bonds with the other Tweetup attendees that I had yet to meet in person. Through me, Marlene was able to experience something she otherwise would have been denied. Through Marlene, I had actually been a full-time participant in the JSC135 Tweetup. What a cool final outcome to the pains of my journey. Sometimes, you just have to accept when things seem to be going bad, something else good is in the making. Marlene’s story is the happiest ending I could have ever imagined for my travel adventure to Houston.
With my first acquired friend from the Tweetup, we entered Building 30 into its large lobby. While we waited for our tour to begin I was able to talk to more of the attendees that were around me. I took note of a gentleman near me that was wearing a GoPro video camera around his neck, attached to his badge lanyard. GoPro cameras are very small and lite and mostly used as helmet cameras to capture motorcycle, biking or skiing action shots. This attendee had it set to take one frame of footage every 5 seconds. Then he would have full day of footage that he would playback at a very high rate of speed – sort of like those stop-action scenes of the sun going across the sky in only a few seconds, with clouds whizzing by as if they are traveling hundreds of miles per hour. I was impressed with this attendee’s cleverness and proceeded to look at his name badge, “Oh, you’re @JoeCLucas!” Joe was one of the last accepted for the Tweetup, if not the last (not counting the unofficial Marlene, of course). Joe squeaked in under the final deadline with only minutes to spare as his acceptance email was even later to get to him than mine was.
Joe was attending the Tweetup with his wife Sarah (@selucas) who by good fortune was also picked as an attendee. We had one husband and wife dual attendees at the Space Camp Tweetup two weeks earlier, so I found it quite the coincidence to have yet another. However, standing next to us as I admired Joe’s clever stop-motion camera was yet another husband and wife Tweetup combo of Bill (@buffalobill1) and Elissa (@elissabflo). Bill joined in on the stop-motion camera discussion, asking detailed questions about how it worked and what technical aspects where involved with converting the footage and producing the final output. I definitely had a sense that Bill was analytically minded and probably had been asking other smart and probing questions throughout the day.
Despite the cleverness of Joe’s camera setup, one thing that he couldn’t overcome was the tendency of the little camera to flop over on the lanyard so that it was pointing towards his body (like most lanyard hung ID’s tend to do too). ”I keep looking down and realizing it is pointing at me, so I have to flip it back over again. I have a feeling most of the footage will be of my shirt.”
- Shuttle Mission Control Center
Our hosts began our tour as we entered a stairwell through a door from the lobby and proceeded up. Exiting the stairs at a higher floor we passed the first of the multiple mission control rooms we would see. I don’t recall the duties this control room had served as it wasn’t a stop on our tour as we continued to proceed past it. However, shortly after it, we entered a door that put us at the top of approximately 8 rows of bleacher style seating. The verbal expressions of those in front of me told me that we were in the active Mission Control Center before I was able to see for myself. Looking down the steep incline of the stadium seating was the busy computerize lair of the shuttle Mission Control Center, separated from us only by a large sheet of glass. It was an amazing sight. Here the final mission of the space shuttle was being controlled. Every detail of the mission went through this room and the 30 or so flight controllers manning their stations. On the large display at the front of the room was a graphic of the shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station flying in close proximity together over South Africa.
One of the flight controllers was available to greet us and give us an overview of the activities within the room. Her name was Sarah and she handled the rendezvous operations. Atlantis had already undocked from the ISS so her tasks for the mission were complete. Sarah pointed out the various consoles and what their roles were. Looking around, I immediately spotted a familiar face manning the CAPCOM console – it was famed shuttle astronaut Shannon Lucid. Shannon had set a record at the time as being the American astronaut with the most total days in space (223 days!) via 5 shuttle missions and an extended stay on the Russian MIR space station.
Sarah finished her overview of the consoles in the control room and was answering questions when suddenly a cell phone rang.
“Ring! Ring!”
It was made very clear to us that there was no flash photography and no cell phones during the tour. So why do I hear a cell phone ringing?
“Hello?”
Even if our hosts hadn’t make a point about no cell phones, I still felt it very rude for someone to be taking a cell call during our Mission Control tour.
Suddenly everyone’s attention changed drastically as Ameko announced ”Sorry to interrupt… we have 30 seconds of coverage, can everybody hear? I have Ron Garan on line with us from the International Space Station.”
Ok, I stand corrected on that whole cell phone business – a ringing cell phone from an astronaut in outer space is never a rude interruption!
Everyone abandoned their seat and ran to the top of the stairs to huddle around the iPhone on speaker mode to hear Ron’s voice and to have the opportunity to speak with him. Now that direct message on Twitter a few hours earlier from @ageekmom about Ron Garan needing a number finally made sense. She was passing along the fact that Ron was going to be calling us at some point during the Tweetup and he needed a phone number.
As our Tweetup crowd huddled around the cell phone everyone gave a quick “Hi Ron” and then somebody had the sense to state, “Atlantis, this is Houston.” Unfortunately, the crowd around the cell phone was pretty well thick and I was one of the furthest from the conversation, but here is what my video camera mic picked up:
Tweetup: “Ron, this is @absolutespaceguy, we wish you the best.”
Ron Garan: “Thanks, I hope you all are having a good time.”
Tweetup: “We are.” ”Are you having fun?”
Ron Garan: “I am….” (too faint for me to hear from position further back)
Tweetup: (Laughter) ”You’re in trouble.” ”This is @Chariot401, we’re actually taking pictures of the phone.” (Laughter) ”How’s the food.”
Ron Garan: “The food is not bad…” (too faint) ”I can’t complain…” (too faint)
Tweetup: “You’re doing a great job – thank you!”
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear)
Tweetup: (Laughter) ”Thanks for calling us.”
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear) ”…sorry I think I’m going to lose you in a few seconds here….” (to faint to hear) ”…I hope you enjoy your stay.”
Tweetup: “Fragile Oasis is a……”
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear)
Tweetup: “Thank you!” ”Have a great reentry.” ”And thank you for answering our questions.” ”And happy 100 days!” ”Yeah, Whooo!”
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear)
Tweetup: (Laughter) ”How many left?”
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear)
Tweetup: (Laughter)
Ron Garan: (too faint to hear) ”…take care.”
Tweetup: “Bye Ron!”
Not the most amazing dialog when viewed in printed form, but amazing in that we were communicating with an astronaut orbiting the Earth 220 miles above.
The phone call now over, everyone slowly migrated back to their seats in a gleeful stupor. Sarah was even a bit noticeably shell shocked as our attention returned to her. She jokingly recaptured our attention by sarcastically stating, “So, as ‘I’ was saying…” We laughed as she mentioned, “That was cool. I totally can’t upstage that!”
Sarah went back to answering our questions when all the flight controllers suddenly got up from their seats and exited the control room. We all were a little baffled – “Shift change?” somebody asked
Sarah answered, “It’s a ZOE (Zone of Exclusion) where we don’t have coverage with the shuttle, so it’s a great excuse for everyone to get up and stretch your legs, go to the bathroom…”
NASA Public Affairs Officer and Spokesman, Josh Byerly, was also on hand to speak with us and gave us his insight on providing live commentary on shuttle missions as the voice of NASA.
While the Mission Control Center was a big room, it wasn’t as big as it had looked on TV. The ceiling was very high, but it wasn’t as wide as expected which actually made it feel like the side walls were too close together. From front to back the room was long, which further accentuated the compact feel of the side walls. Not that any of this mattered, but I found it interesting.
Our tour at Mission Control wrapped up and we were whisked off to our next destination within Building 30. We maneuvered through the halls and more stairs until we came to a door in the middle of a long hallway. The hallway was rather bland and offered no hints as to what lay beyond the door we were about to go through. The door was opened and a larger and more expansive than expect room lied inside. We entered and immediately recognized the tiered floor with the large avocado green consoles that lined each tier, each tier rising higher towards the rear. This was the Apollo Mission Control Center, fully restored to its original Apollo-era configuration.
The room looked and felt completely different from the shuttle Mission Control Center we had just left. For one, it was obviously dated in appearance with it’s drab colors and 40 year old computer consoles. However, it had more of the expanse I had come to expect of a NASA command center, not the tight closet feel where the shuttle flight directors were operating.
- The most rest I’ve had in the last 32 hours!
We were free to roam so I took the path of least resistance towards the back while admittedly also striving to be the king of the control room hill on it’s highest tier. Suddenly I saw the rows of bewildered faces that looked as if they belonged to a junior high field trip class. They were on the opposite side of a large glass window sitting in the stadium seating of the observation room at the rear of the control room. It was a bit of an awkward moment as I now realized I was on the other side of the glass and all eyes were now watching me. Just 15 minutes earlier, we were on the other side of that glass of the shuttle control room. Since I was the closest person now to them as I approached the glass on my way to the rear of the control room I felt the looming stare of all those eyes. They had the look of “why the heck are we on this side of the glass and those dorks get to be on that side?” It seemed too weird to not even acknowledge them so I raised my hand and waved and took their picture. A few of them laughed, but overall it was a tough crowd. The rectangular shape of the glass window reminded me of a glass side you place under a microscope – I was the tiny amoeba being analyzed in someone’s science project.
Awkward once again and only a few feet from the glass I did my best to carry on looking over the Apollo flight consoles before me. While the technology was definitely looking it’s age, what really stood out was all the rotary phone dials built into the consoles. While there was a rotary phone in our house as late as well into the 1980′s when I was a kid, it was still funny seeing a rotary dial on the computer console that was helping steer a spaceship to the moon. I was also surprised by all the CRT screens as I always envisioned the Apollo area control consoles having numerical LED displays and lots of lighted buttons as the primary visual interaction with the computers.
If you are in the Apollo Mission Control Center, surrounded by hardware that helped man land on the moon, what else are you going to do but have a seat. We were free reign so I took a seat at one of the Apollo chairs and rolled up to a console. While tempted, I refrained from touching any buttons. I found the seat quite comfortable so I leaned back and took it all in while looking around. Before me on the front wall were the three large display screens – the center screen showing an orbital map of the Earth with the two side screens rotated various images that were once displayed on them during those historic Apollo missions of the late 60′s and early 70′s.
All around me other attendees were excitedly viewing all the hardware and posing for photos in front of the consoles with the Flight Director’s desk being the most coveted spot. I continued to be amused by odd little things like all the “Government Property” stickers on the consoles, the aged texture of the paneling on the walls, the brighter than expected lighting in the room and the circular tubes inserted into slots in the consoles that I assumed to have blueprints of various mission hardware curled up inside. So much history made it hard to leave the seat when it was finally time to go.
Obviously, the Apollo Mission Control Center is no longer in use and serves now as a historically preserved museum. However, unless you are in a NASA Tweetup, you may not have the opportunity to be on our side of the viewing glass to observe it.
We exited the Apollo Mission Control Center as slowly as possible, taking in as much of its ambiance as possible, knowing this rare and wonderful opportunity was fleeting. However, our day at Johnson Space Center was not yet over…
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