NASA invited me to the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to attend a special NASA Tweetup (#nasatweetup) for the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch of the STS-129 mission to the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle launched on Monday, November 16th at 2:28pm EST from launch pad 39A.
Here are my launch day photos & video that I uploaded live from the press center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which is located 3 miles from the launch pad.
As part of the NASA Tweetup, we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, stopping by the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF), Apollo / Saturn V Center and ended up with an amazing visit to a close up view of launch pad 39A with the Space Shuttle Orbiter in place on the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) ready for take off.
While touring Kennedy Space Center, we drove by a gigantic eagle’s nest (as big as king size bed) which has been home multiple generations of eagles for over 45 years. KSC is part of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is also home to alligators, wild boar, black bear, manatee, Florida panthers and over 330 species of birds.
Photo Gallery: NASA Tweetup Space Shuttle STS-129
NASA photographer Carla Cioffi has been shooting a bunch of great photos of the STS-129 NASA Tweetup and uploading them to NASA HQ Flickr account.
More Coverage:
photos by Scott Beale
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Awesome stuff Scott! Definitely one of the coolest tweetups I’ve seen.
That. Is. Fricking. Awesome!
S U H W E E E T
cheers, Scott!
=
c
I so would have loved to have been there! Thanks for sharing with us.
Did you get to go in the VAB? I remember touring it during the Apollo program, it was a most impressive building. Hard to fathom its size. Although the inside of the two huge former Navy Zeppelin hangers (in Akron and Sunnyvale) were, in some ways, more impressive (though not as large) given that they are one large room, whereas the VAB is many. But from the outside…
I would love to go into the VAB, but I doubt they would allow access so close to a launch. We did drive around it.
So so jealous. Wow.
What an exciting opportunity! Thanks for sharing it with us… I bet it was thrilling to be there.
Beautiful launch footage. I’m envious. Wow!
I wish I remembered to sign up for that thing, I would have loved to have gone to that tweetup.
The footage of the launch is absolutely spectacular! I especially liked seeing the space shuttle shooting through the clouds – wonderful colors and lighting effects. All of your photos are so clear and crisp – great photography skills and equipment. You are soooo fortunate to have been “invited” with access so close to the launch, WOW….
Wow that was pretty awesome would love to have seen that!
So glad you went! Sorry we didn’t meet up but it was fun knowing another fellow SFer was there to experience such an awesome thing. Great write-up Scott! My dad pointed out the bald eagle’s nest too. So wild.