posted 06-19-2007 07:50 PM               

Just dropped each of you an e-mail regarding your Shuttle photos.

Thanks

posted 06-22-2007 05:58 PM               

I am a little surprised that no one has mentioned (unless I missed it) the very special giveaway that was provided for ticket package holders for the show (at least, for Platinum tickets). I was given a presentation piece with a square of FLOWN Kapton foil from the Apollo 11 Command Module (the Kapton is about 1/4" x 3/8"), signed and authenticated by our own Ken Havekotte!

It was a very nice surprise, and it only added to what I thought was an incredible weekend experience (my wife might differ on whether it was a good value ...).

So, I'll add my name to the list of those saying THANKS to Steve and Nolan for a great time -- and additional thanks for going the extra mile to set up the causeway tickets for the STS-117 launch -- absolutely AWESOME!!!

Did Gold/Silver ticket holders get a giveaway as well?

posted 06-23-2007 12:31 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by capoetc:
I am a little surprised that no one has mentioned (unless I missed it) the very special giveaway that was provided for ticket package holders for the show (at least, for Platinum tickets). I was given a presentation piece with a square of FLOWN Kapton foil from the Apollo 11 Command Module (the Kapton is about 1/4" x 3/8"), signed and authenticated by our own Ken Havekotte!

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Mike Feldser did take a wonderful photo of the evening contrails with Venus in it. I slightly enhanced the blues in photoshop and had it printed out today. It's an awesome photo, for sure.

posted 06-23-2007 06:47 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by divemaster:
Mike Feldser did take a wonderful photo of the evening contrails with Venus in it. I slightly enhanced the blues in photoshop and had it printed out today. It's an awesome photo, for sure.

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posted 06-23-2007 01:43 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by divemaster:
Mike Feldser did take a wonderful photo of the evening contrails with Venus in it.

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You can also see Venus in this image. I downloaded it and printed it out for my photo album too.

posted 06-23-2007 08:35 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
Hi John and Tracy--As part of my company's sponsorship for the UACC autograph show put on by Steve and Nolan, a special "flown in space" gift was included for the platinum, gold, and silver ticket buyers as they registered/picked up their credentials. As John pointed out, the platinum holders were given a flown piece of Kapton insulation that was a part of Apollo 11 Command Module #107 "Columbia" on man's first lunar landing mission. Gold ticket holders were given a COA that was signed in ink that came from a Fisher space pen that went around the moon during the ill-fated voyage of Apollo 13. The silver ticket buyers received a COA that contained a cut-strip of a flown payload bay liner that was part of Shuttle Discovery during a Hubble Space Telescope repair and service mission.

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This is news to me! I don't see any mention to this in the ticket packet descriptions. I've never heard anything about this from any level ticket holders. After waiting practically all day Wednesday to get the ticket packets right, I'm not surprised. Needless to aay, as a Gold Ticket holder I received none of this. I had to ask several people to even get the $15 gift certificate and that semed to be an afterthought when they reissued $25 credit tickets with $25 crossed out and marked $15. I'm sure there was no way to trace this since every ime I went to ther desk for credit tickets, I was offered the $15 credit ticket again. Naturally, I told them I had already received mine. I guess I'm just too honest for all this!

posted 06-24-2007 02:17 PM               

Thanks for mentioning the "gifts" at the KSC show. I was a Gold Pass holder as well and did not receive what has been mentioned. I'll drop Steve a note as well.

Thanks,

posted 06-25-2007 01:41 PM               

On Friday evening at the Cocoa Beach Holiday Inn the Platinum Pass holders and a number of the celebrity guests met for a buffet and drinks. To me as a newbie to these kinds of events it was just incredible to be at the same table as a quarter of all the moonwalkers.

Here Gene Cernan is pointing Charlie Duke and Buzz Aldrin the direction of the moon :-)

On Saturday I brought the pans I ordered from Moonpans.com to have them signed. Their visual impact seemed to bring back memories to the astronauts, prompting them to look for and point out details to me. Gene Cernan in particular liked the pan of Tracy's Rock. He really took his time to look at it and pointed out the LM to me and added "My Camelot on the moon" to his inscription. To me, the pan at Tracy's Rock is one of the most beautiful pictures of Apollo and so to be able to discuss it with Gene Cernan himself was a very special moment for me.

Later on Saturday Al Worden went around to have a lunar map signed, for the ASF auction that evening. It was great fun to see how he went about his business and to see the astronauts going over the map in search of their landing locations. At one point Edgar Mitchell had signed near Fra Mauro, with Charlie Duke looking over his shoulder, and Al Worden asked James Lovell to sign there as well and to add that that was the place he was SUPPOSED to have landed. Al was teasing a bit and Jim could take the joke, and it was very funny to see these men together as if they were having a reunion, but to me it was also a poignant reminder of how real the dangers were and how fate determined which of these two men could sign for an actual landing. Another moment I'll never forget.

posted 06-25-2007 04:09 PM               

It was a very funny few minutes.

posted 06-26-2007 01:51 AM            

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Originally posted by Leo:
After seeing the pictures of some of the other attendants I couldn't resist adding a few of my own.

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Robert's added a couple of mine to the Sightings page, including a (cropped) one of Ed and Hoot Gibson together. When I mentioned to them both that I knew of no photo of the "Gibson Brothers" together, they got excited, and asked me to head out into the rocket garden with both their and my cameras to get shots for everyone. To their recollection, they never had a photo taken together before.

posted 06-26-2007 12:06 PM               

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Originally posted by FFrench:
Robert's added a couple of mine to the Sightings page, including a (cropped) one of Ed and Hoot Gibson together.

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posted 06-27-2007 10:48 AM               

As a first timer to the show I just wanted to say it was awesome, getting to meet five of the men who walked on the moon left me with a high that lasted quite awhile.

Highlights for me were Charlie Duke and Alan Bean, both took tremendous time with my family and never acted rused or hurried to "keep the line moving". In fact, when I commented to Charlie that we were holding the line up he still never rushed us. What was neat (I don't know if others have had this experience) was I found myself talking about everything but actually walking on the moon when I met them. Charlie and my family talked about St. Petersburg, Florida and his alma mater. Alan Bean talked with my wife and I about his thoughts on Dave Foley's performance as him in "From the Earth to the Moon".

I also would like to mention what great guys Ed Gibson and Jerry Carr were. Both gave my son a Skylab label pen and appointed him an offical crew member of Skylab three, but I didn't add him to their crew signed photo Ed also suprised us with a vintage litho with a long inscription to my son as a bonus.

Lastly, anyone else make a run for a copy of Last Man on the Moon at the gift shop only to find a run had occurred. I managed to get a copy delivered from the Saturn Five Center right at the close of business and race back for a free one from Gene (who was also exceptionally nice and looks fit enough to go up again today). I almost had a rarity as Gene accidentally inscribed the book with Roman Numeral 16 as his mission but did catch it at the last minute, would have made it interesting to say the least.

posted 06-27-2007 08:52 PM               

Thanks to Sims/Hankow for inviting us

If anyone might have any photos or video of the Q&A after the screening with Ed Mitchell, can you contact me

posted 07-01-2007 08:34 PM               

e-mail to me at divemaster@pobox.com

posted 07-02-2007 02:12 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Machodoc:
I bought the lunar map in the photo above, and Linn LeBlanc was kind enough to send me that photo plus six or seven other ones of the guys signing it as well!

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posted 07-06-2007 10:31 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Leslie: Francis French, (Much success with the book Francis)

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Embarrassingly, I don't think I ever thanked you for that very kind sentiment. Thanks Leslie!!

posted 07-13-2007 04:32 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by divemaster:
Mark is considering a run for congress in CA.

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...and the relevance to space is....

Paul

posted 07-13-2007 05:19 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by gliderpilotuk:
...and the relevance to space is....

Paul

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I think it's interesting to hear that someone enthusiastic enough about space to attend the event (and post a dozen great pictures on that blog) is considering entering politics. It was just a quick sentence, not a long speech endorsing him.

posted 07-13-2007 06:24 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by 4allmankind:
Steve H - My envelope arrived today. You are a man of your word. Thank you very much for doing that.
Jay

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I received my certificates yesterday. Great Cs Steve. Customer Service that is.

posted 07-17-2007 07:56 AM               

I received the COA that was signed in ink that came from a Fisher space pen that went around the moon during the ill-fated voyage of Apollo 13 as part of my Gold Ticket plan. It's going to be a nice addition to my Apollo 13 wall.

posted 08-06-2007 05:52 AM               

Sharon and I travelled over from New Zealand again this year and, as with previous trips fitted some additional touring around the show. One of the great things about this show moving around the US every year is that it gives us a chance to see more of the country than we would get if we were coming back to the same place every time.

We knew it would be something special when the Qantas flight left Auckland and I found that the inflight on-demand programmes included all four episodes of "Space Race" as well as Apollo 13. Perhaps a little worrying was that 3 minutes into Apollo 13 the on-demand system in my seat packed up, never to play again...

Our Outbound flight was a 34 hour journey consisting Wellington-Auckland-LA-New York (via Chicago), and we got off to a bad start with the Auckland-LA flight being delayed from Auckland meaning it missed its slot at LAX. After parking miles from anywhere it was a cross-tarmac trip on the bus and we made our connecting flight with less than 1 minute to spare.

With good local advice from Rob Blanc we had a fabulous four days in New York before heading over to Florida, arriving very late on the Wednesday night prior to the show.

Thursday was the excellent KSC tour (although we never figured how to get on the bus with Guenter helping the tour guide), followed by the talks and then The Wonder of It All in the evening.

I have to say that it was a bit emotional for me walking up to the gates at Kennedy — for as long as I can remember this was 'the place' I had dreamed about as a young kid, and to finally arrive there after 35+ years of reading about it, watching it on movies and documentaries, and imagining what it would be like, it was really something to actually be standing half-way across the world about to arrive there. Some very mixed feelings, both in terms of the simple wonder of getting there, but also the realisation that once you have been there for real, it changes for you forever.

So the tour was great — standing in the blockhouses, getting a real sense of the proportion and size of it all, and just being there. It was really something and very difficult to describe — the sense that comes with realising who has stood where you are standing and what has happened there — it's a very real sense of connecting to something bigger that yourself and it was very humbling.

The first day of the show was busy — while there wasn't too much I was needing signed this year there were great chances to talk to most of the signers, and I was looking forward to the chance to meet Jim Lovell and Charlie Duke for the first time. At the 2006 show a few of the astronauts had remembered me from 2005 but that didn't seem to happen this year, and I think my only disappointment of the show was that, for some reason this year there weren't any really good conversations I had with any of the astronauts. In other years there were always at least 3-4 really good discussions or interchanges that just seemed to happen, but for some reason it didn't click for me this year. I guess in some respects it points to how lucky I've been in other years, but I was sorry not to come away with that 'memorable' short conversation from the show floor this time.

The launch was — well — amazing. It was the first one I've seen live and everything people said it would be — it was — and better. We'd caught up with Mike and Miranda earlier on the Thursday tour and travelled out to the film with them — we seemed to keep crossing paths throughout our time at KSC — this time we ran into each other heading for the busses out to the causeway so went out together.

I had written to the crew shortly after the announcement that the launch was scheduled for the Friday and has a reply from Lee Archambault. I know that he wouldn't know me from Adam and he no doubt received and replied to bags of letters prior to the launch, but it made the launch all the better having made and received that contact.

After the show we joined the slow traffic back to the Holiday Inn and the reception which was fun — it appears that the Brits and Kiwis had (by proportion of numbers anyway) the best staying power and after a great time spent with Hoot Gibson around the ‘replica' shuttle upstairs at the Holiday Inn I wasn't the last to leave when I finally called it a night at about 3am.

Saturday Sharon and I mostly spent doing odd jobs for Steve and Nolan which was great, and a good chance to say thanks to them for the wonderful job they do in bringing these shown on every year. Steve was ‘kind' enough to give me my first opportunity to drive in the US when he asked me to move the van. Think he was re-evaluating that decision when he heard me asking what side of the road I should be heading toward...

Having the dinner in the Saturn V center was a brilliant idea and a great experience. We were fortunate to have been able to sit at Gene Cernan's table with Sharon being placed next to Claire. Sharon had spent most of the afternoon managing the line for Gene's table so had already gotten to spend time chatting with Claire and I got the impression they were both enjoying the chance to catch up again at dinner.

The dinner was a great way to plan the end of the show, and afterward I was fortunate to end up at the sports bar over the road from the hotel with the some more of the British contingent, Tracy, Steve and Charlie Duke. This was indeed the "Star Wars Bar" you have read about earlier in the thread so I shan't repeat the story again here, other than to categorically deny that I am in any way to be confused with a ‘rich European' (Tracy and Steve will appreciate the full ‘horror' of that piece of mistaken identity).

Sunday saw us take the plunge and rent a car to get from Cocoa Beach over to KSC for our chance to try the Launch Experience (and run into Mike and Miranda again!), before doing the Then and Now tour, and then spending more time around the Visitor's Centre. Our last day at KSC was the Monday where we took the Up Close tour, and then headed off to try one of the local airboat rides. It was fantastic — although a little weird having been taken out to see the ‘gators, frogs, and fish, only to come back and have the deep fried wildlife lunch of ‘gator, frog's legs, and catfish.

We closed out with a few days in Phoenix with my cousin and her family and, for Sharon , the chance to de-space for a little while before we got back home and straight off to work. Not before, of course, the obligatory meeting at the LAX bar with Dan Weston to collect multiple boxes and enjoy multiple margaritas.

It was a fantastic trip, an amazing show, and we had a ball. I can only say a huge thank you to Steve and Nolan for all they do to make these shows really work, and this year they pulled one out of the bag with KSC, the launch, and the wonderful guests again.

And I'll say it again too — the cS community is fantastic — it is always great to catch up with people I've met on-line and to renew friendships struck up on the boards and over the different shows. Thanks to everyone who made this such a memorable trip — it is always good to be in the United States and always good to be at a UACC show!

Cheers

posted 09-13-2007 04:07 AM               

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Originally posted by marshallspacerx:
Here is my reflections from the show.

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I think without my offering the type of over the top spin/fanfare seen elsewhere, the quality of OUR experience was evidenced through feedback from our attendees and celebrities alike. Though we've been producing these events for several years, this was our "shining star" for a number of obvious reasons and to that end believe it was the event which will long be considered a standard by which all others will be measured. Thanks again for that awesome clip and to everyone who supported us with your presence at KSC....

posted 09-13-2007 09:46 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by marshallspacerx:
Here is my reflections from the show.

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posted 09-24-2007 11:11 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by freshspot:
Nice job with the video. I recognize one of my photos.

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