This is our last full week in Long Boat Key before we head out for Kilmarnock VA. Next weekend we are planning on driving home to return the car, get the house opened up and running, as we are meeting Katie and Max who are flying in from San Francisco …
Still in Point Clear
It was very windy and rough on the bay all day so we weren’t able to leave as planned, maybe tomorrow will be OK, but the forecast isn’t good for then either. Being marooned here would be perfect if I was still a golf nut, there are two great courses…
April 25, 2010
Whew! That was a long week! Somehow I neglected to update before we left for New York on March 25th and here it is, that same date in April. My, my, how the time does fly when you’re having fun! The AZ Mangelsdorf
Point Clear
Grand Kids Harrison, Madison and Hayden at Point Clear Resort’s beach.Joshua ,Sunshine, and the boys left Saturday afternoon after Joshua and Christopher played a round of golf. Not long after they finished their game the winds picked up and it started…
April 21-22, 2010 Titusville and Kennedy Space Center
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- The winged orbiter (shuttle) has approximately 24,000 silica tiles attached to its thin, aluminum body. The tiles protect the orbiter and crew from the heat of re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. These specifically designed, reusable silica tiles are made of 90% air and 10% refined sand.
- At lift-off, the large orange-colored external tank (ET) holds over 500,000 gallons of cryogenic fuel – liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The Shuttle’s three main engines consume this fuel in about 8.5 minutes.
- The two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) contain solid fuel, which is consumed at the rate of 10 tons each second at launch. The SRBs have the thrust of 35 Boeing 747s and are jettisoned after 2 minutes, 4 seconds of flight. Later they are retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean.
- Prior to launch the Space Shuttle weighs 4.5 million pounds: 3.8 million pounds are propellants consumed in 8.5 minutes.
- The orbiter travels at 17,500 MPH – 5 miles a second. At that speed the astronauts circle the planet every 90 minutes!
After the bus tour we watched a 3-D IMAX presentation of the Hubble Telescope. Amazing and having not watched 3-D since we were children we were delighted with that aspect.
We would highly recommend visiting the KennedySpaceCenter if you are in the area. We were not able to see and experience everything – although we could have used our admission tickets another day (within a week). NASA has manned space flights planned for the future if funding continues. That may be in jeopardy.
Thursday turned out to be a perfect day for a rocket launch. We were prepared with tripod and the BIG camera lens. Well, we didn’t hear it, but suddenly it was high in the air before we realized it. The sound came later. As we returned to Grateful, others commented to us how lucky we were to see all three stages of the rocket. I believe I saw the third stage – a couple of little sparkles just as the rocket went out of sight. Good Stuff!!
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Fun NASA websites:
The dollars invested in the space program yield many new products, technologies and processes – many that I was not aware of. These “spin-offs” include computers, microchips, freeze-dried foods, satellite communications, weather study predictions and many more. I love to read about the advances in medicine. Go to the following websites:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff.html
http://technology.ksc.nasa.gov
If you would like to know when the ISS will be flying over your hometown, check out this website:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station
This site tells the status of launches and landings with video:
April 21-22, 2010 Titusville and Kennedy Space Center
NASA Kennedy Space CenterWhat a terrific visit we had in Titusville! The marina and staff were wonderful, and the location was great to get to the Kennedy Space Center. We rented a car from Enterprise and got upgraded to a full size car so that was …
DC Cherry Blossom Festival
We arrived at National Harbor Marina on April 6 a few days before the conclusion of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Much to our disappointment, we learned that the ‘peak’ bloom was about a week earlier but we thought there might be enough blo…
Lessons learned building a semi-custom trawler
The seminar
schedule for Trawler Fest in Anacortes,
WA has been posted. This year we’ll be presenting on Thursday May 20th at
10:30am on our experience in purchasing, configuring and building a Nordhavn
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We attended our first Trawler Fes…