My name is Monty Icenogle, and I normally reside in Southern California, not to far from Edwards Air Force Base. I’m totally blind, and have been interested in the space shuttle since I happened to hear my first launch on a local radio station back in 1988, when I was just 8 years old.
On May 4, 1989, I got to see the landing of space shuttle Atlantis I believe it was, in person at Edwards.
From that point on, I knew I’d want to get the chance to experience a space shuttle launch viewing in person, but figured I’d never get that chance, because I don’t get the chance to go very many places. And I certainly don’t get the chance to go anywhere outside of California. In fact, in my entire life, I’ve only been out of state twice. Once last year when I went to AZ, and the second time is now in FL.
During my junior high and early high school years, I met a friend of mine who like me was really in to the space shuttle. His family even had one of those big C band satellite dishes to allow him to pull in NASA TV then called NASA select. Since we for a time went to the same school, I decided one space shuttle launch weekend to spend the weekend at his place so I could watch live mission coverage and record as much as I could.
That was in October, 1994. On August 18, 1994, I was once again at my friend’s place, and this time we were hoping to see the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-68. We were both quite excited as the final moments of the countdown approached. We were about to watch a launch together, something we’d tried to due with the initial launch attempt of STS-71 which was scrubbed due to bad weather. All we got from our STS-71 launch attempt was lots of impressive thunder.
But this time with STS-68, we were launching, and the countdown was now at t-31 seconds with Endeavour’s computers now in control.
15 seconds… 10 seconds, nothing could go wrong now, I thought. The excitement couldn’t be thicker.
And then… “We have 3 main engines up and burning, 3, 2, 1, and… have main engine cutoff… GLS safing is in progress.”
An RSLS abort had just occurred, and our second attempt to watch a launch together ended in a scrub. You can imagine how frustrated we both were!
I’ve lost contact with my old space shuttle friend, but if he knew I was now in FL attempting to see STS-127 in person, he’d be cheering me on, I know it.
Anyway, now on to my experience with STS-127.
A friend of mine named Joey who lives in Sanford and I have been talking about meeting one another since sometime in Mid April. I’d saved up some money, and was considering coming down for the STS-128 launch in August. He said that June would work better, so I planned my trip in such a way as to ensure I’d be here for the STS-127 launch on June 13. I made my flight reservation and purchased our 3 launch viewing tickets. As both Joey and I are blind, his wonderful wife Traci would be the third person going with us to KSC, in-fact she’d be taking us there, as it’s not quite safe for us to be driving ourselves, grinn.
On the morning of June 13, I was excited and could hardly sleep. My plan was to wake up at about 2:30, and check the launch status. I woke up at 2:44 AM, and checked my tweets, and the first thing I saw was that the launch postponement briefing was on. My heart sank, as I knew there wouldn’t be a launch this day.
So when 3 AM came around, I called Joey’s cell in the next room to wake him up and inform him of the scrub due to the hydrogen leak. We were both disappointed but were confident we’d see a launch within the current launch window. Since Joey had to have a minor out patient surgery done on his leg on June 18, we were hoping for a launch on either June 17 or 20.
When word came that we’d see an attempt to launch Endeavour on June 17, the excitement began to build again.
Things were looking in our favor. The weather wouldn’t be much of a factor for launch, and the launch would be on a day we could all make it to KSC!
I had totally forgotten however that weather could delay fueling of the orbiter, and as I watched the delay get longer and longer, I began to worry that yet again we’d have a scrub this time because weather would prevent the shuttle from being fueled. I prayed that the weather would clear in time for tanking to begin.
When the announcement came that fueling was a go, and we were now beginning tanking, I couldn’t've been more excited.
This time, we were going to see a launch in person, something I never thought I’d ever get the chance to do.
And then, I heard the announcement that engineers were monitoring a leak in the same general area as before. I honestly didn’t believe what I was hearing at first, and actually thought they were recapping why Saturday’s launch attempt had been scrubbed.
When I heard that they were cycling valves, and that they’d stopped the flow of liquid Hydrogen to the tank in order to troubleshoot, I was again getting concerned, but I couldn’t follow developments anymore, because we had to leave our place in order to be sure we arrived at KSC by our designated arrival time of 3:30 AM.
So, we headed out for Kennedy Space Center, hoping the issue would be able to be resolved, and we’d still see a launch yet.
This is where I’d wished there were a phone number I could call that I could listen live to NASA TV. When we were about 5 minutes out from KSC, Traci got breaking news on her phone from our local TV station, that the launch had been scrubbed.
This is what I feared would happen, I mean the traffic headed down to the Cape was flowing a bit too smoothly.
So we turned around and headed back home, disappointed once again that the launch was again scrubbed, and for the exact same reason as Saturday’s attempt, leaking hydrogen!
I came home, and watched the post scrub press conference in disgust, and then went to bed.
With all the effort I’ve put in to making sure I’m in Florida for a shuttle launch, am I not meant to experience a launch before the shuttle retires?
With the limited funds I have, it’d be some time before I could again make a trip down to FL.
You can imagine that I’m now as interested as NASA engineers are in knowing why we’ve had hydrogen leaks on 3 of the last 5 tanking operations. There have been 126 previous shuttle flights, and only these recent flights STS-119 and STS-127 have had these issues. One friend of mine speculated that perhaps sabotage is involved. He believes that workers fearing they’ll be out of a job following the shuttle program are trying to purposely delay the last few flights.
I don’t think I believe that, but whatever the cause, I hope it can be fixed! I’m not due to leave Florida until Mid July, so I hope NASA won’t let me down, and that the third time can be July 11, and that this time we’ll make it all the way to KSC and get to experience a launch viewing. I plan to post audio and if possible video of the experience, assuming I get to experience a launch in person. With my luck though, who knows what’ll happen.
Monty