When I first found out that I got accepted for the NASA tweetup for Juno, I couldn't even think straight. I ran to shove the email in my husband's face, I called my best friend, my parents, and told everyone who would listen about how excited I was. No one seemed quite as excited as I was, but to be honest I didn't care. I've been a space geek for a long time now and I've learned that most people don't really want to talk about stuff that 1. doesn't seem to have a personal tie to them, or 2. they don't really understand.
Once I joined the facebook group, google group, and started tweeting back and forth with the other 149 people that were chosen to be part of this, I realized that they were my people. Nerds who loved space. Geeks who cared about and actually knew what NASA was doing now that there aren't shuttles flying anymore. People to whom I didn't have to explain a tweetup. It was exciting. Now that I know them personally and not just electronically, I can honestly say that there are a few of them that I hope I never lose touch with.
On Wednesday, I drove out to Kennedy Space Center's press accreditation building to pick up my credentials. It was unreal. I had never before taken that sort of "back way" into KSC. It felt like I was part of something bigger than me. It was amazing. I hung out at the Visitor's Center for awhile because it's one of my favorite places to be, then I went to meet up with some of the people I'd be spending the next 2 days with for dinner at Dixie Crossroads. Not only was dinner amazing, but I have never in my life had a conversation like that with so many people. It was so much fun to talk about education with people who actually knew what they were talking about. It was fun to talk about astronauts with people who actually knew you were talking about an astronaut by just saying a name. The other table's conversations strayed to shuttle launches, comic books, and all kinds of other nerdy things. It was awesome.
Wednesday night when I got home, I felt like a little kid on Christmas eve. I managed a few hours of sleep, and headed out to KSC bright and early Thursday morning. I had the same feeling Thursday as I did on Wednesday when I was driving in, but it really hit me when I handed my driver's license and badge to the security guard and he actually let me in. Never in my life did I think I'd be driving on Kennedy Parkway, making a left on Saturn Causeway and parking in front of the Vehicle Assembly Building. But I did. It was awesome. As I got out of the car, I looked around and all the other people getting out of their cars had exactly the same look on their face as I did. Awe, excitement, disbelief.
Our program Thursday morning was full of people smarter than me, both in the seats with me and speaking on the stage. I'm glad it re-aired on NASAtv and that NASA posted it on youtube, because there was so much information, so many funny stories, and lots of amazing questions and answers that I think I would have forgotten it if I didn't have the chance to hear it again. Our tour was probably the best part of the day though. Though I had been inside the Vehicle Assembly Building before (VAB, or that ridiculously huge building with the flag on one side and NASA on the other, for my non nerdy readers) it was an amazing experience, yet again. Most of the fun came from the fact that I was with about 40 people who had never been there before and the fact that I was able to stand about 20 feet away from Discovery. Not going to lie, even though I'm a little sad that the space shuttle is retired, seeing it up close made me realize it was probably time. She looked pretty worn out. She was getting some major work done for her trip to Washington, DC, so I'm excited to see how Atlantis ends up when it's finally put on display at KSC. The most exciting part of my tour was being able to see places on the Air Force Base/Cape Canaveral side. (For those of you who may not know, the Cape is where unmanned missions launch from, Kennedy is where the manned missions launch from.) It's no big secret that my historical dream man/rocket scientist crush is Wernher von Braun. Any time I get to be at a place that he probably visited or worked from, I can't help myself and get really, really giggly and excited. Our tour guide was a man name George, who turned out to be much, much more than a tour guide. He had amazing stories, much like most of the people who I've spoken to that work for NASA. He is Florida's oldest firefighter, was part of the rescue team for launches, and trained astronauts from Apollo 11 all the way through the last shuttle on emergency egress procedures.
I honestly, truly thought that after Thursday I could die happy, without having even seen the launch or hearing Bill Nye the science guy speak, but now I realize how ridiculously wrong I was. I obviously was looking forward to Bill Nye and the launch the most, but I think the highlight of my tweetup experience ended up being neither of those. One of the coolest things about the tweetup that I noticed very early on was that the speakers (who all were NASA employees/inventors/engineers and ridiculously smart) obviously realized they were talking to a bunch of people who didn't need their information to be watered down to understand it. They all seemed very genuinely excited to talk to us, but cut what they had to say short just so they had time to take as many questions as they could. It seems crazy to me that people like that who have so much knowledge don't really get to share it with people as much as they should or could.
I had been wanting to ask my question all day Wednesday, but once Charles Bolden (NASA administrator/shuttle astronaut/man who put the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit/guy who talks on the video for the shuttle launch experience) began to speak, I knew he was the one I should ask.
me- "I'm a science teacher, and I was just wondering what you might say to students who would maybe want to have your job one day."
Bolden- "I would say be careful what you ask for!"
After the laughter from 150 people who would obviously die to have his job, he graciously looked right at me and my iPod that was recording his answer and told my students to do their best in class everyday and get as much information from me as they possibly could. I couldn't stop shaking. I was close to tears as I called my father and then my husband and told them what happened. I don't think anything that cool will ever happen to me again. At first I didn't really know how to describe how I was feeling, but now the best way I can describe it is that I was totally and completely starstruck. Then, of course, we still had presentations from the person who developed the coolest 3D website ever inside the KSC press briefing room and I got to speak to the woman who tweets as @CassiniSaturn. I heard a presentation from the man who designed the camera on Juno and the one for Mars Science lab, then I got to hold the cameras. I heard a presentation from the man who runs NASA's Launch Services Program, then heard stories from him about a woman who used to work with Wernher von Braun as we were waiting from the launch. I got to hear Bill Nye speak, then got his autograph and a photo with him. I also won a piece of the insulation from Juno from the man who tweets as @NASA Juno, and when I told him I was a teacher, he gave me pieces of Cassini and Galileo as well. (I must say, there are times when being a teacher has its perks.) I got to share the day with amazing people who were just as excited, thrilled, blessed and thankful to have the opportunity as I was.
And last, but certainly not least, I watched Juno launch. Though my words for the rest of this post flowed much easier than expected, I just can't describe the launch. Here's the video. (If you listen close, you can hear me crying.)
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