pdx ✈️ mco, august 2018

So I was rummaging around in old photos recently and found another set of window seat photos, this time from August 2018 when I flew into Orlando on my way to watch a large rocket send a small robot to the sun. The photos are in reverse order because I thought some of the ones just before landing were kind of striking. It was a stormy summer afternoon, with dark clouds and beams of sunlight glinting off the many lakes in the area.

Because I was in sort of a space nerd frame of mind at the time, the scene reminded me of the lakes on Saturn's moon Titan, though honestly that's quite a stretch. For one thing, the lakes on Titan are filled with liquid methane, ethane, propane, and other very cold hydrocarbons instead of swamp water, pesticides, and golf balls. And if you happened to land in a lake on Titan, you'd freeze solid almost immediately, instead of being eaten by backyard tigers or bath salts zombies, or randomly whacked by the cartels. And that's if you aren't shot out of the sky first for violating HOA airspace. The only probe to land on Titan so far (as of 2023) managed to land successfully and then sent data for another half hour without being tasered or eaten, which seems to rule out the presence of HOAs and tigers, so there's that. Exo-cartels are still a possibility, though, especially if they had a someone on the inside at NASA or ESA and knew exactly when to lie low. We should have a better idea about this after 2034 when the next robot gets there.

Miami Beach, Summer 2018

And here we have a few more hot, summery Florida photos to go with the summer 2018 Miami photos I just posted. This time the photos are from wandering around Miami Beach, which involves a surprisingly long bus ride from Miami proper. Again, it was a fun and interesting place to wander around playing tourist. I just don't have any very deep thoughts about the place. But hey, not every post here has to be me trying to theorize about something for twenty paragraphs, especially when it's New Years Eve and I'm just a post or two short of how many I did back in 2016. I'm sure nobody else cares about that particular goal besides me. Just putting it out there for full disclosure.

I will say that having this many Art Deco buildings in one place, with the usual Miami Deco color scheme, the overall effect gets to be a bit silly after a while. The smattering of 1980s postmodern buildings in the same color scheme, like the first photo above, somehow makes the overall effect even sillier. I said no theories, but my theory about that is that what architects' clients really wanted in the 80s were brand new Art Deco buildings, but with modern wiring and plumbing and so on, and they wanted that right up until they saw what all that attention to detail would cost in 1988. Also no architect under 40 wanted to work on paper anymore and things had advanced so you could get most of the job done on a decked-out Mac IIci, at least so long as you limited the design to a few simple shapes and colors. And out of necessity, a whole new style was born, along with dense art jargon explaining why it's the new One True Way. That's my theory, anyway.

Said theory is based largely on my own experience of trying to do creative stuff on a Mac back then. You'd have this feeling of unlimited possibilities -- and there really was a lot you could do even back then -- but inevitably you'd run into hardware limitations and have to scale things back until the machine would meet you kind of halfway. Wireframes that won't render. Spell checkers that get exponentially slower if your document is too big. Spending hours in PageMaker creating a concert poster for a coworker who needed one, scaling elaborate band logos just right, adjusting fonts by tenths of points, and so on, only to find that the office's low-end laser printer wasn't up to the job. Too many fonts, too much clip art, a few individual band logos that were way too rad and xtreme to be printable at any size. There was talk of going to Kinko's and trying to print from there, but that was Very Expensive, and the poster layout wouldn't quite fit on a floppy anyway, and I think the job eventually got done the old-school way, with tape and a photocopier.

Miami, Summer 2018

For anyone who's tired of all the cold and gloom this time of year, here are some warm summery photos I took in Miami back in 2018. I was in Florida for the launch of the Parker Solar Probe, and had (wisely, as it turned out) built a few extra days into my travel plans in case of launch delays. Ultimately the launch only slipped by a day and then went off without a hitch, so I had a couple of days to burn before flying home. I decided to head south since I'd never been there before, and did a little sightseeing. So this set of photos is from Miami itself, as in the mainland, actual city part. I did wander over to Miami Beach one day, and took another day to go see the Everglades, but those are separate posts I haven't posted yet. Some of these are from walking around (albeit not very far, because heat & humidity), with a few swanky hotel balcony photos mixed in. Overall it was a fun side trip, though I can't say I have any unique or intersting insights to share about the place. So, er, enjoy the photos.

Flipping off Mar-a-Lago

Ok, here are a few photos I took back in August 2018 and saved for a special occasion that turned out to be today. I was in Florida to watch the Parker Solar Probe launch and had some free time afterward before I had to fly home, so I figured I'd go wander around Miami and the Everglades for a few days since I'd never been there before. (And, um, I'm bound to finish those blog posts eventually, but that's a whole separate issue.) On the way back, I made a little side trip out to Palm Beach to indulge one of my more petty hobbies, flipping off properties that belong to a certain soon-to-be ex-President. I have only actually done this twice (because it's a silly hobby and I'm not going to invest a lot of time or gas money into it): First for his ugly Waikiki hotel, and then this set of photos for Mar-a-Lago, his infamous private club near the beach.

Taking these wasn't eventful at all; I just sort of rolled by, took my photos without stopping, and continued on my way back to Orlando. I can't say it was a highlight of the trip as a whole, but it broke up the monotony of the drive, and it was mildly fascinating to see it in person. It's hard to explain, but as tacky as the place looks here, it's somehow even more tacky in person. In particular, the famous tower on top looks like one of the decorative faux-Spanish towers at a thousand California minimalls, maybe a bit toward the upscale end. It also felt weirdly menacing; it's tough to disentangle the building and its owner, of course, but looking at it it's easy to imagine that really bad things have happened there, and other bad things have been planned there, and that this badness is ongoing, maybe escalating. Honestly the whole surrounding area felt that way, as if his personality had bled into the soil like a leaky septic tank.

One weird detail about the place is that before Trump owned it, it spent a number of years as the most useless and expensive white elephant in the US national park system, deemed unusable as a presidential retreat or as a museum open to the general public, but with exorbitant maintenance costs anyway. They were happy to be rid of it -- which almost never happens -- and almost certainly won't want it back once Trump is done with it. So while it's bound to remain a pilgrimage spot for the world's nazis and braying dipshits, at least it won't happen at taxpayer expense. And given the local geography they'll need scuba gear to visit within a few more decades. Maybe at that point any part of the tower that isn't underwater could be repurposed as a sort of monument to climate denial, I dunno.

Anyway, good riddance.

Parker Solar Probe launch, August 12th 2018

Space Shuttle Endeavour, KSC

Here's a slideshow of something nobody will ever see again. Back in 2011 I was in Florida for the launch of the Mars rover Curiosity, and as part of the event we went on a tour around Kennedy Space Center. One stop on the tour was a visit inside the vast Vehicle Assembly Building, where the Saturn V and Space Shuttle were readied for launch. The space shuttle program had ended just a few months earlier, and several of the shuttles were still at KSC while being prepped for their final voyages to various museums around the country. It turned out that Space shuttle Endeavour was parked in one of the VAB bays, with a few parts disassembled, so we all stopped and took photos and generally paid our respects. It just so happened that our guide on the tour had been the lead engineer responsible for Endeavour. She lived in Florida when the shuttle was here, in California if it happened to land at Edwards Air Force Base, and in Houston while it was in orbit. She referred to the shuttle a couple of times, half-jokingly, as her "baby", and may not have been joking at all. As I recall she was a little choked up at this point on the tour.

Other than the launch itself, a lot of the event had a weird, downbeat sort of feel to it. The analogy I often use is that it felt like a Northwest timber town after the local sawmill closed. My photos of the shuttle seemed especially gloomy, I suppose due to the combination of the partial disassembly, the light, and just knowing its flying days were over. I think that's the main reason I didn't post them before now, but it occurred to me that, gloomy or not, they're kind of an interesting historical document. Endeavour is a museum exhibit in Los Angeles now, and I can't think of any reason it would ever be back in the VAB again. Moving it would be a problem now, since the modified Boeing 747 planes used to transport the shuttles are also museum pieces these days. They'd probably have to move the shuttle by boat or something if they ever wanted to move it again.

Pics: St. Augustine, FL

Here's another slideshow from St. Augustine, Florida. You've already seen Castillo de San Marcos and the Flagler College campus; this slideshow is everything else, or at least everything else I have photos of. The historic City Hall, various old churches, and a few city streets in the touristy Old Town area. Sadly I had to drive back to Cocoa Beach that afternoon and couldn't explore the city's frozen daiquiri bars or go on a cheesy "ghost hunting tour" or anything. So I'm pretty sure I didn't get the full St. Augustine experience, for good or ill. I suppose I could go back again, although at this point I've finally seen the old fort, and Vegas is a lot closer if I just want a giant daiquiri.

Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida

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When I was in Florida back in 2011 for a Mars rover launch, I made a side trip up to the town of St. Augustine to visit Castillo de San Marcos, a centuries-old Spanish fort I'd tried and failed to visit on two previous occasions. Since I was there anyway, I wandered around the historic (if heavily touristed) downtown for a bit, taking photos of anything that looked old. One of the highlights of the area is Flagler College a small private liberal arts college built around the former Ponce de Leon Hotel. The ornate hotel building is nowhere near as old as the Spanish fort; it was built in 1888 by railroad oligarch Henry Flagler, in a sort of Spanish-Moorish fantasia style. I didn't go inside to look around, but apparently the interior is a bit over the top as well. The building's actually a concrete structure, with electricity designed in from the beginning. Which is a bit more forward-thinking than you'd expect for the year 1888. As you might imagine it's on the National Register of Historic Places, a fake-historic building that's become historic in its own right with the slow passage of time.

Mars Rover Models, Kennedy Space Center

When I was in Florida back in 2011 for the launch of the Mars rover Curiosity, the Kennedy Space Center visitor center had a display showing three generations of Mars rovers. From largest to smallest, they are: Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity (2011); Mars Exploration Rovers/Spirit & Opportunity (2003), and Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner (1997). Both Curiosity and Opportunity are currently operating, the latter now a few months into its tenth Earth year on Mars.

In addition to these rovers, and garnering much less publicity, there has also been a series of Mars orbiters over the same time period. In fact, beginning July 4th, 1997 there has always been at least one operating spacecraft at Mars, either on the surface or in orbit. In fall 2015, the annual Beloit College Mindset List can say that within the lifetimes of incoming college freshmen, there have always been robots at Mars. That's pretty amazing, if you ask me.

MSL, 2 years ago

Two Black Fridays ago, I was in Florida for the launch of the Curiosity mars rover. I've posted launch photos, photos of the rocket, etc, before, but just recently I remembered I'd posted a series of phone photos on Yfrog as part of the tweeting component of the tweetup. I had to do a bit of searching to find my old Yfrog account, which I really haven't used since I upgraded to an Instagram-capable Android phone. So these were all taken with a rather subpar Blackberry camera, but they still sort of capture the spirit of the event.

Apollo 14

Couple of photos of the Apollo 14 command module Kitty Hawk, on display in a side gallery at the Apollo Saturn V Center at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Rocket Garden

A slideshow from the Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center visitor center, an outdoor exhibit of eight rockets mostly from the pre-Apollo era. It's an interesting historical display; I just wish it didn't cut off before I was born. It would be interesting to see a modern Falcon 9 or Atlas V (like the MSL one) next to these old rockets for comparison, particularly in a few years when these contemporary rockets begin carrying people. I realize this would be rather expensive as a tourist attraction, but it seems like it would be to the benefit of future historians as well. Imagine, a century from now, trying to reconstruct the history of early rocket technology, and realizing there are no surviving copies of anything post-1970 or so except the Space Shuttle. That doesn't seem quite right. It also might help reorient the visitor experience away from 1960s nostalgia and toward more of a "Hey, here's the next cool thing we're doing". Which I imagine would broaden the appeal to people like myself who weren't around in the 60s.

Saturn V

A slideshow of the enormous Saturn V rocket on exhibit at Kennedy Space Center. The rocket has its own building, off by itself away from the main KSC Visitor Center. You arrive by shuttle bus, and sit through a multimedia extravaganza about Apollo 8 before you're ushered in to see the rocket itself. The rocket lies on its side, suspended in midair above you; you enter at the base of the rocket, beneath its five F-1 engines, and can gaze up at it as you walk along over to the top. Historical displays detail all the Apollo and Skylab missions, and a side gallery includes some space suits and assorted hardware, plus the Apollo 14 capsule, almost as an afterthought. Naturally there's a gift shop and a snack bar, and I spent money at both while I was there. The Mars Science Laboratory launch was definitely the high point of the trip, but I did bring an ultra-wide angle lens along specifically to take photos of the Saturn V. You might notice that in several of the photos, the entire rocket fits in the frame. I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that, mostly because it makes me feel slightly less guilty about blowing all that money on a new lens.

This is one of three complete Saturn Vs on display; the others are at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the US Space & Rocket Center in Hunstsville, Alabama. Additionally, the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans has a S-IC first stage by itself. That Wikipedia page mentions the astonishing fact that not one but two ground-test copies of the first stage -- 138 feet long and 5 million pounds -- seem to have been misplaced somehow. One was last seen in Huntsville, but the current whereabouts or fate of both are unknown. Most likely they were quietly scrapped, as they weren't actual flight hardware. But it's fun to imagine them gathering dust in a huge forgotten warehouse somewhere, like the one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, just waiting to be rediscovered.

Kennedy's Apollo Saturn V Center is an amazing sight, but a disconcerting one too; they seem to have been aiming for a "holy cathedral of engineering" effect, and they certainly pull that off, but the giant, nearly half-century-old rocket suspended in midair also reminds me of dinosaur bones on display at a natural history museum. Which is probably not something they were aiming for. I should note that I was there just a few months after the last Shuttle flight, and both KSC itself and the surrounding region reminded me of an Oregon timber town whose sawmill had just closed. Hopefully things will turn around in a few years as the SLS/Orion program starts to ramp up, although that's far from guaranteed given the ongoing federal budget shenanigans. Interestingly, one proposal for the second generation SLS booster would resurrect and update the old F-1 engine as a side booster engine. I'm kind of rooting for that proposal out of purely sentimental reasons.

Castillo de San Marcos

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A slideshow from Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, the old Spanish fort in St. Augustine Florida. I took these last November when I was in Florida for the Curiosity Mars rover launch. This was actually my third time visiting the fort, but the previous two times I'd arrived just after the park closed for the day. This time I was bound and determined to actually go in the fort, and left as early as I could, and I still got there mid-afternoon. So the number one key thing to know about the place is that the ticket booth closes at 5pm sharp, and it's a surprisingly long drive from Orlando or Atlanta or other places a similar distance away, so be sure to start early.

The fort's very cool and medieval-looking, but it's really not all that big. So unless you have a really long attention span, the fort is good for probably an hour or two of exploring, tops, even if you give all the exhibits you rapt attention. This is actually ok though, since you can spend the balance of your time wandering around the historic center of town. Sure, it's touristy and tacky and all, but there's really nowhere else like it anywhere in the US, aside from Puerto Rico obviously. I have a few photos from around town that I'll probably post here sooner or later.

MSL Launch

The Mars Science Laboratory / Curiosity rover lands on Mars tomorrow at 10:30pm Pacific time, hopefully in one piece. This seemed like a good time to post some photos of the launch last November, which I had the good fortune to watch in person at a NASA tweetup.

I've already posted photos of the rocket, the nearby wildlife refuge & beaches, and even KSC's dumpy little Press Accreditation Office. But I never got around to posting launch photos earlier because of all the ugly sensor dust; I was extremely jetlagged that morning and left the camera on shutter priority mode during the launch, so it metered on the extremely bright rocket exhaust and stopped down all the way to f/32(!!!), instead of picking a shorter exposure time like it should have done. Stopping down that far means you see every single speck of dust if your sensor isn't pristine, which mine obviously wasn't thanks to an ill-advised lens change in the middle of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building the previous day. Naturally I was kind of disappointed when I realized how crappy my photos had turned out, but -- believe it or not -- my main goal was to watch & experience the launch in person, and the photos were an extra bonus. Even if these had turned out better, they still wouldn't capture how loud and fast and bright the launch was. Pretty sure there isn't a monitor that could display that accurately, not even your fancy Retina display.

Besides, the dust is actual NASA dust, so in a way the dust specks are really authentic. Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. In any case, I've already told people I promise to take better rocket launch photos next time, which is a thing that's going to happen sooner or later.

cocoa beach pier, november 2011

driving thru downtown orlando

[View Larger Map] A few low-grade photos of downtown Orlando, taken last November at the tail end of my trip to Florida for the Mars Science Lab launch tweetup. Before driving through, I wasn't entirely sure there was such a thing as downtown Orlando, and even now I'm pretty sure I couldn't describe the skyline to you. I didn't actually stop; I just drove through on my way to the airport and took a few photos at stoplights. So I'd be lying if I said I had any sort of feel for the place. But I do have a few photos, and here they are. Being from Portland, I tend to assume the downtown core of any city is the important part. I automatically head there first when visiting, and I judge the whole city by its center. I have a feeling that by doing so I missed the whole point of Orlando. But still, now I know that downtown Orlando exists, and this is more or less what it looks like.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

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Another Florida slideshow, this time from the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which borders and sort of overlaps the undeveloped parts of Kennedy Space Center. The tourist-friendly parts of the area ended up in the Canaveral National Seashore next door, so the wildlife refuge is mostly salt marshes and palmetto thickets, with no shortage of alligators, and mosquitoes beyond measure. I wasn't feeling much like a wilderness adventure that day, so these photos were all taken along the nature walk at the refuge's visitor center. Yeah, yeah, I know. Go ahead and make fun of me if you want.

One photo I want to point out is the taxidermied bird in a glass case. This is a Dusky Seaside Sparrow, which lived only in the Merritt Island area and went extinct in the late 1980s due to DDT and habitat loss. The bird on display looks outraged, and I can't say I blame it.

Canaveral National Seashore

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A slideshow with a few photos from Florida's Canaveral National Seashore, immediately north of Kennedy Space Center. It's a fairly untouched bit of barrier island beach, at least compared to most of coastal Florida, but in the distance you can see the Vehicle Assembly Building and both of the Launch Complex 39 launch pads (used for the Space Shuttle, and Saturn V rockets before that).

If the original plans for the launch complex had come to fruition, there would have been between one and three additional Saturn V launch pads in the area, and pad E would have been right about at the point where I took these photos, if I'm reading the old maps correctly. Longer-term, less definite plans envisioned additional launch pads further north for the Nova rocket, a cancelled, even larger successor to the Saturn V. So this area would likely be very different if we'd ended up sending people to Mars back in the 70s or 80s. It wouldn't necessarily be less natural; much of today's Kennedy Space Center, other than the actual launch pads and support buildings, is still in more or less a wild state. But you certainly wouldn't be able to drive in and wander around on the beach.

Launch Complex 34

A few photos of Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 34, site of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. Our tour guide described the place as "spooky" and "haunted" before we got there, so I realize was sort of primed to see it that way. But I think there's also something innately spooky, sort of Stonehenge-like, about the place even if you have no idea what it is or what happened here. Visiting at sunset probably helped. I keep thinking it was cold and windy at the time too, although I suspect it was actually around 70 degrees, this being Florida and all.