{"id":117,"date":"2014-12-10T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T07:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/12\/10\/i-witnessed-orions-first-flight\/"},"modified":"2014-12-10T23:59:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T07:59:00","slug":"i-witnessed-orions-first-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/12\/10\/i-witnessed-orions-first-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"I Witnessed Orion&#8217;s First Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was beautiful and awe-inspiring, and I hope to see more space flights soon. Our future is up there.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not you believe all the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/content\/nasas-journey-to-mars\/\">#JourneyToMars<\/a> hype, no matter how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/health_and_science\/space_20\/2014\/12\/orion_test_launch_success_will_the_space_launch_system_succeed_for_crewed.single.html\">critical<\/a> you might be of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/exploration\/systems\/sls\/\">Space Launch System (SLS)<\/a>&mdash;if you don&#8217;t feel <i>something<\/i> when you watch a rocket launch, please consult a medical professional, you freaking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0060345\/combined\">Grinch<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6Hn8qnsucwo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/6Hn8qnsucwo\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/6Hn8qnsucwo<\/a><\/small><\/div>\n<p>I cried when Orion lifted off&mdash;even more than I did <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/lX_fZP6UROc\">when DeeAnn and I watched the STS-124 launch<\/a> in May of 2008. Last Friday, when that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Delta_IV_Heavy\">Delta IV Heavy<\/a> hit its second launch window, I was standing less than three miles from the pad. <i>I felt the heat from the engines<\/i>. For a moment, I honestly couldn&#8217;t decide whether I should just watch the blurry scene through my tears, or blink and risk missing any of it.<\/p>\n<p>Others in my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/connect\/social\/\">NASA Social<\/a> group got brilliant recordings of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Exploration_Flight_Test_1\">EFT-1<\/a> launch&mdash;I didn&#8217;t even try. Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/groups\/2752780@N20\/\">our photo pool on Flickr<\/a>, some of which I daresay rival NASA&#8217;s official images:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote lang=\"en\">\n<p>Favorite of the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Orion?src=hash\">#Orion<\/a> EFT-1 launch photos I took. You can see the shock diamonds in the rocket exhaust <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NASASocial?src=hash\">#NASASocial<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/sMGzxPjYsL\">pic.twitter.com\/sMGzxPjYsL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Denny Atkin (@dennya) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dennya\/status\/541831308490457088\">December 8, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/div>\n<p>Don&#8217;t even get me started on how great our amateur videographers are:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2siA3sOS61A\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/2siA3sOS61A\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/2siA3sOS61A<\/a><\/small><\/div>\n<p>And for a real treat, listen to <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/thesuss-2\/eft-1-launch-from-nasa-causeway\">Danny Sussman&#8217;s audio recording<\/a> with headphones on:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/180887327&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>But what I&#8217;m <i>really<\/i> looking forward to is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alisonwilgus.com\/\">Alison Wilgus<\/a>&#8216; forthcoming comic about the event. Alison is a fantastic writer and artist, and she was one of my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clarionwest.org\/2014\/03\/27\/introducing-the-clarion-west-class-of-2014\/\">Clarion West<\/a> classmates this summer. It was a complete coincidence that we both got into this NASA Social&mdash;we live on opposite coasts, and I didn&#8217;t even know she had applied until we were tweeting at each other about the movie <i>Interstellar<\/i> and other space-related topics. Second-best <a href=\"http:\/\/hotsheet.snout.org\/2013\/10\/snoutcast-190-this-was-40.html\">surprise<\/a> ever!<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote lang=\"en\">\n<p>Just made travel arrangements for my 1st <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASASocial\">@NASASocial<\/a> trip, can&#39;t decide if I&#39;m more excited about seeing <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA_Orion\">@NASA_Orion<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aliwilgus\">@aliwilgus<\/a> XD<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Curtis C. Chen (@curtiscchen) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/curtiscchen\/status\/533439333664309248\">November 15, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/div>\n<p>Alison drew <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alisonwilgus.com\/comics\/visitingnasa.html\">a wonderful comic<\/a> about her previous NASA Social rocket launch experience, the <a href=\"http:\/\/hotsheet.snout.org\/Tracking%20and%20Data%20Relay%20Satellite-K\">Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-K (TDRS-K) launch<\/a> in January of 2013. Incidentally, this is possibly my favorite single panel from that comic, because I&#8217;m a weirdo:<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-JZPa6p2Tbso\/VIlevBYCL8I\/AAAAAAABxYM\/x0mmHE-Rjxg\/s1600\/wilgus_tdrsk_10-2.png\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-JZPa6p2Tbso\/VIlevBYCL8I\/AAAAAAABxYM\/x0mmHE-Rjxg\/s1600\/wilgus_tdrsk_10-2.png\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>You can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alisonwilgus.com\/comics\/visitingnasa.html\">read the entire comic on Alison&#8217;s web site<\/a>. And if you enjoy it, <a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/AlisonWilgus\">sign up for Alison&#8217;s newsletter<\/a> to get updates on her future projects!<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t have much more to say about my NASA Social week. It was amazing, informative, and incredibly inspirational. I brought back some souvenirs, but nothing compares to the indelible memory of seeing that rocket rise from the ground and disappear into the clouds.<\/p>\n<p>One. More. Time:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/afWAw1cmJJU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/afWAw1cmJJU\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/afWAw1cmJJU<\/a><\/small><\/div>\n<p>If you have a couple of hours to spare, I recommend watching <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/Ca1gp-rjbe4\">our Orion pre-launch briefing<\/a>, which was video-conferenced between several NASA facilities around the country and included a lot of great information. My fellow NASA Social attendees asked some excellent questions about the future of America&#8217;s space program.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I threw together a slide show of my own photos from last week. They&#8217;re neither spectacular nor comprehensive, but should give you an idea of what the trip was like:<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"https:\/\/photos.gstatic.com\/media\/slideshow.swf\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" flashvars=\"host=picasaweb.google.com&#038;noautoplay=1&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feat=flashalbum&#038;RGB=0x000000&#038;feed=https%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2F116737692309729475506%2Falbumid%2F6091511971652905057%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26authkey%3DGv1sRgCL-o8POR38C3jQE%26hl%3Den_US\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\"><\/embed><\/div>\n<p>I was born after the Apollo missions ended. No people have walked on the Moon in my lifetime. I hope I live long enough to see human beings land on Mars. I really do.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote lang=\"en\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA_Orion\">@NASA_Orion<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ExploreSpaceKSC\">@ExploreSpaceKSC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA\">@NASA<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Space?src=hash\">#Space<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ToBoldlyGo?src=hash\">#ToBoldlyGo<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/OrionSplashdown?src=hash\">#OrionSplashdown<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/t.co\/Jf8R5KGuBU\">pic.twitter.com\/Jf8R5KGuBU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joe D (@Tooboldlygo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Tooboldlygo\/status\/540927234467721217\">December 5, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis\" title=\"Curtis\" border=\"0\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was beautiful and awe-inspiring, and I hope to see more space flights soon. Our future is up there. Whether or not you believe all the #JourneyToMars hype, no matter how critical you might be of the Space Launch System&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[62,73,72,40,32,33,16,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-intensespaceflightfeelings","category-nasasocial","category-photography","category-sci-tech","category-space","category-theiinmeat","category-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}