With a media pass, Jen gets to attend a science briefing, the pre-launch briefing and the post-launch briefing. And, with the social media push, there’s going to be a Google Hangout this afternoon from 1-1:30.
The Google Hangout is going to be with the CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. They’ll be talking about the mission in general, and how this will be the first time since the decomissioning of the space shuttle program that the US will be able to take supplies into space.
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The science briefing on Saturday will feature Julie Robinson, program scientist for the International Space Station, Timothy Yateman, interim chief scientist for CSA, Shelia Nielsen-Preiss, scientist for Montana University, and Scott Smith, a NASA scientist.
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Also on Saturday, there will be a prelaunch news conference. The news conference will feature Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, Sam Scimemi, director of the International Space Station, Mike Suffredini, program manager of the ISS at the Johnson Space Center, Gywnne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, and Mike McAleenan, the launch weather officer.
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On Sunday, there will be a post-launch briefing (as long as the weather is good), again with Sam Scimemi and Gwynne Shotwell.
There’s also a chance to get a picture of the Falcon9 before liftoff on Sunday, which I plan to take full advantage of!
The epic smoke of the Shuttle was also the epic fail of the Shuttle. Its cause by Solid rocket bseotors SRB’s. Oversized Estes model rocket engines and unsophisticated. Solid fuel explodes about 2% of the time because of air bubbles in production. One of the reasons Werner Von Braun left NASA was that he was against using solid fuel with manned rockets. SRB’s cannot be turned off once started. After the Challenger accident, it turned out that Werner Von Braun was right.