On Tuesday Dave and I took off the entire day of work to watch the static (test) launch of the DM-1 Rocket at the ATK facility in Promontory. If you know Dave, you know it takes something pretty big for him to take off work...if its not a vacation you can pretty much count on the fact that he is not going to take the day off....(even if he is throwing up). So this was a BIG deal for him. It doesn't take much for me to want to take the day off, so when he asked if I wanted to come it was an easy decision. This was exciting for dave for a lot of reasons...he works for ATK and he LOVES rockets and anything that has to do with them. The thought of watching a rocket launch made him more excited than you would imagine. So on Tuesday morning we both went into work early and got a few hours in before we headed up to promontory. We left around 8:45am because were told you needed to be there 3 hours early if you wanted to have a good seat. We got there at 9:45am. The launch was not scheduled until 1:00pm....that meant 3 hours of waiting. Since we had never been to one of these things before we didnt really know what to expect. Luckily we brought two camping chairs, an umbrella and a cooler with lunch and drinks. We set up our chairs and started the long 3 hour wait. If it had not been 100 degrees outside with the sun blaring down, it wouldnt have been so bad...but after an hour and a half of baking in the sun, we had to take cover in the car. We ate our lunch in the comfort of air conditioning and then both took a short nap. At 12:30 we went back to our spot and sat around waiting for the count down. Finally the clock started to move...we were sweating our butts off and ready to see what we had come for. T minus 60 seconds.... T minus 45 seconds.... T minus 20 seconds.......the clock froze. There was some sort of complication. We waited...and waited....and waited..... 25 minutes later the announcer came over the speakers and told us there was a problem with some sort of something and the launch had been canceled. yup. 5 hours and 45 minutes later, an entire day off of work...and an hour and a half commute ahead or us, the launch had been canceled. It was sad. Mostly for dave. It was fun for me to take the day off and hang out together...but he was so disappointed. I guess this is something he has looked forward to his entire life. He was a sad little boy. He picked his heart up off the floor and we headed out of there. It took over an hour to get out to the parking lot and then we had another hour drive to get home. It turned out to be an 8 hour adventure. We were pretty bummed about not seeing the action, but all in all it was a fun experience and we were glad that we got to spend the day together. Here are a few pictures of us "patiently" waiting for blast off.... Hopefully dave will have another chance to see a launch sometime very soon!
That is so funny. I had to read it to Austin because that sounds like something he would want to do and the fact that it got canceled also sounds like something that would happen to us. Hopefully Dave can see one soon.
Oh man how sad. What a bummer to be so excited just to not have it happen. But maybe next time it will be way cooler because you had to wait so long. We seriously need to do something soon! For real!
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That is so funny. I had to read it to Austin because that sounds like something he would want to do and the fact that it got canceled also sounds like something that would happen to us. Hopefully Dave can see one soon.
Oh man how sad. What a bummer to be so excited just to not have it happen. But maybe next time it will be way cooler because you had to wait so long. We seriously need to do something soon! For real!
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