Posted on 09/01/2013 10:04:19 AM PDT by csvset
NASA's first deep-space mission to launch from Virginia's Eastern Shore is scheduled for Friday, and while all eyes are on the sky, most of the uncertainty swirls around what will happen on the ground, on tiny Chincoteague Island, where hotels, restaurants and traffic cops must deal with thousands of spectators.
On one hand, the town has experience: every summer, it deals with an estimated 15,000 tourists who come for the famous pony roundup. But Friday's spectacle is different in so many ways.
NASA's visitor center on Va. 175, a popular spot for watching rocket launches from the Wallops Flight Facility, will be closed to the public to accommodate at least 1,000 VIPs expected by the space agency. In addition, the beaches of adjacent Assateague Island - which can park 989 vehicles - will be closed because the rocket's trajectory places the shoreline in a hazard zone.
That leaves the island with two official viewing spots, limited parking and potentially thousands of spectators trying to cram in.
"Being that this is the first time for something like this, plus not having access to the beach parking, we just do not have any idea how many folks it's actually going to be," said Chincoteague Town Manager Robert Ritter. "It could be as big as Pony Penning, could be bigger, or maybe we're overplanning. I don't think we're overplanning."
This could be just the beginning for space tourism on the Eastern Shore. Following Friday's launch of a moon orbiter will be the Sept. 17 launch of a cargo vessel to the International Space Station, the first of eight such launches for the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft.
A test launch of Antares in April drew so many spectators, the highway into Chincoteague was clogged by vehicles parked on the shoulder.
No one is quite sure how many will come to see Friday's launch. But most folks are pretty sure that it could be the start of something big.
NASA has told the town to expect from the space agency at least 27 motor coaches of invited guests, but noted that 30,000 invitations have been extended, Ritter said. The acceptance rate, he's been told, is usually about 20 percent. Add to that interest from the general public who might drive their own vehicles, and the scope widens.
The town will run shuttle buses from the high school to the official viewing sites, one on the Assateague Bridge and one at Robert Reed Park on Main Street. The road to the bridge between the town and Assateague will be closed at 9 p.m. Friday to allow viewers to stand or sit along the pavement.
NASA will provide audio from mission control to both locations, and a live NASA video feed will be projected on a large screen at the park.
State police and the Accomack County Sheriff's Department will handle traffic leading up to Chincoteague on Va. 175, and the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will help patrol Assateague, Ritter said. Shuttle buses will run on three routes - directly to and from the high school, past the northern hotels, and past the southern hotels and campground.
"They've done a wonderful job with these shuttles during the pony swim, so I am sure handling a large crowd will work out fine," said Suzanne Taylor, executive director of Chincoteague's Chamber of Commerce. Island hotels have been sold out for weeks, she added.
"We're going to have lots of people here," Taylor said. "They're going to have to eat somewhere, and that's good for the local economy."
So is the expansion of NASA's facilities and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on nearby Wallops Island, which can now handle deep-space missions, beginning with Friday's launch.
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a groundbreaking mission for Wallops.
It is the first beyond Earth's orbit ever launched from that location, although the facility has been sending off small rockets since 1945. LADEE will ride on a new rocket, a five-stage Minotaur V provided by Orbital Sciences Corp., based in Dulles, Va. The Minotaur is a repurposed Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile which, by treaty with Russia, can be launched from only three locations - Alaska, California or Wallops, NASA said. Because the lunar mission requires a launch to the east, Wallops is the only choice.
Orbital is one of NASA's two commercial partners for sending supplies to and carrying waste from the space station. For the Cygnus launch on Sept. 17, NASA expects the visitor center and Assateague Beach to be open for spectators.
But first comes LADEE.
The orbiter will analyze lunar dust and the moon's "exosphere," which is an atmosphere so thin, its molecules and atoms never collide. The study will aid understanding of the many bodies in the solar system that have exospheres, NASA said, including Mercury, asteroids and the moons of other planets.
NASA says the study should be done now, while the exosphere is relatively undisturbed, because future moon landings will stir up dust. China plans to land a probe on the moon by year's end.
In addition, the $280 million LADEE mission will attempt to solve a mystery nearly 50 years old. Apollo astronauts and unmanned 1960s spacecraft saw a bright glow and "streamers" extending from the moon at sunrise. Scientists theorize that it was sunlight reflecting off dust particles forced into the exosphere by electrical charges.
LADEE is also a test of a modular spacecraft whose design could be reused for future missions, saving money and time, and it will demonstrate communication by laser beam instead of radio waves.
The launch is planned for 11:27 p.m. Friday. Should it be delayed, LADEE could launch between Sept. 7 and 11, later in the month, or in October. Tourism officials look for the silver lining in delays, hoping visitors will entertain themselves with other local attractions featured on the state's space tourism website, http://www.virginia.org/SpaceTourism/ [1].
Depending on weather conditions, the launch should be visible from most of the East Coast, including Hampton Roads, and west as far as Pittsburgh. To see it from Hampton Roads, look to the northeast for a fast-moving bright spot that will arc and disappear over the horizon.
"I think everybody's excited about it," said NASA Wallops spokesman Keith Koehler. "It's going to be a night launch, it's going to be highly visible. It's going to bring a lot of attention to not only Wallops, but to the Eastern Shore. A lot of people are going to be visiting the Shore for the first time. We're ready to go."
Diane Tennant, 757-446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com
Is this obama giving away one of our positions?
rollin me down the highway. Still here nsa.
Well i had no idea the moon was considered deep space
Ok, I'm sufficiently confused. I thought zero had re-purposed NASA to help muslims appreciate their contributions to the world.
So, does that mean that this rocket is supposed to explode in a populated city and kill a bunch of innocent people!??? After all, that's what muslims are contributing to the world these days.
Kind of like looking for the king of the avenue.
Will just kneel before the cross. No sense in running away from what each of us knows.
One less set of footsteps.
Launch sites in Alaska, California and Maryland? Why? We have poured billions in Cape Canaveral.
The Maryland site has been operational for decades.
Oops I mean VA. Its over the state line.
Wallops Island launch facility was opened in 1945, years before Cape Canaveral began development as a missile launch center in 1958.
Wallops History - Launching Excellence Through the Years Established in 1945 under NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), Wallops is one of the oldest launch sites in the world. Our support of scientific research and orbital and suborbital payloads places us at the center of NASA’s space and Earth sciences.
Built to conduct aeronautical research using rocket-propelled vehicles, Wallops launched its first rocket on July 4, 1945. Since then, we have fulfilled our mission with the launch of more than 14,000 rockets.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/about/history.html
IS NASA doing this to make sure the folks who control their funding can see the launch? Why else would this be going from VA instead of Canaveral, in FL?
The area between Odumbo’s ears is deep space.
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