I'll be driving down the day before (the thursday) and can pick you up at
Orlando airport on thurs night or fri morning. We have to be at Kennedy
about 12:30am to be inspected for MACE and weapons. I'll be going in about
9am to look at the exhibits, since I'll already be in Orlando, so if you
come down on the friday morning, I'll need to pick you up at the airport by
about 8am. I can drop you off at the airport on the way back. I understand
that the traffic leaving is horrific (about 10,000 people); they tell you to
have a picnic afterwards. So don't plan on an early flight out.


We will spend about 8hr waiting (6 on the way in and 2 waiting to get out)
in the humidity and sun of FL for about 2 min of action (if there's no
clouds, less if there are low clouds).

You park your car and go through an inspection. What you're allowed to bring
is not clear, but coolers and backpacks are out.

(I have since found out that you aren't allowed to bring in anything which
is a threat to people's bodies or a threat to the financial gain of the on
site concessions, hence no coolers or grills. Why you can't bring in a
backpack I don't know. Chairs that fold up like an umbrella are OK. Those
that fold flat are not OK.)

AFAIK, you all have to be inspected and contained before they take the
astronauts to the shuttle. You're going to be inside for 6hrs before launch.
With 10,000 people there, it takes at least 1.5hrs for them to get out of
the parking lot afterwards, so expect to be there for 8hrs (ie get a late
flight back if you're not going to stay the night). Bring water, suntan
cream, broad brim hat... in I don't know what, a string bag?

The best info on the launch is here

http://www.lauderdalechristmas.com/nasa-shuttle-launch.htm

For the location, see the map just under

"Tips and strategies: Best locations to view a Space Shuttle Launch"

We'll be at KSC, where the launch platform is hidden by trees. You don't see
the shuttle till it clears the gantry (1 shuttle length, maybe 1sec). The
webpage describes this location as "steerage class". We aren't at the
causeway, which has a clear view of the gantry (a friend of mine who works
at NASA will be on the causeway).

As for what you're allowed to bring, in the section

"Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex General Viewing from Rocket Garden"

it says

"The Visitor Complex has a large lawn area in the Rocket Garden on the west
side, where you can setup your collapsible chairs to watch the launch but
folding chairs are not allowed. One saving grace for you is they do show the
launch on a jumbo screen, and you also have all the NASA audio piped in over
loudspeakers all over the theme park and creature comforts. If you have
little kids, they can play in the awesome Children's Playdome."


There is a chance that the launch will be rescheduled/scrubbed. It's already
happened once (which is how I got these tickets). Mardee Austin and I, have
already been to a scrubbed launch (we took the day off on a trip to
DisneyWorld and sat about 20miles south on the causeway on road A1A). We
spent the day sitting in the gloom and rain waiting. If the launch is
rescheduled before we leave home, you'll have plane tickets you can't use.
If the launch is scrubbed on the day (weather) and rescheduled for 2 weeks
later, you'll have had a nice trip to Cape Canaveral.

You're standing in a large flat area that has only launch towers and cement
or sedge/grass to the horizon. There is little to do while waiting and we'll
be at the mercy of the elements (sun, rain) for the time we're there. There
is a museum, which when I was there last had appallingly little to show
(everyone says it's better now, so I'll be going at 9am) and a fast food
restaurant (McD?) where the only thing we could eat was a salad. I expect
the restaurant only caters to the standard volume of daily visitors and will
be overwhelmed by the number of visitors (10k) at the launch, so bring
whatever you need for the day.

There is a cement memorial to the heroic astronauts who've died in service
to their nation. There's a lot more (at least double the number of) dead
heroic astronauts than I ever knew about. When you read about their demise,
you find that the extra ones off'ed themselves in car crashes, street racing
their Corvettes. I don't mind a plaque to Gus Grissom etc, but to have some
idiot who blew his chance to get into space, in a car wreck, being presented
as a hero of the nation is more than I can handle.

Summary: You get to spend 8hrs outside in FL, only bringing what survives a
TSA grade inspection, on a patch of lawn with 10k other people, for at most
2mins of shuttle launch. I can't imagine how they could make this anymore
unpleasant if they tried. However I've wanted to do this for 25yrs. I'm
going.