VISIT FLORIDA!

(Photo courtesy of Wayne Matchett)

It must be Fall

It's not cool in the mornings yet, but it must be Fall - the agenda for the 16th Annual Sea-Bean Symposium has been published. Mark your calendars for October 21 and 22, Cocoa Beach Library. More about the program, the speakers, the t-shirt (a Dawn Witherington original - the art shown here is on the pocket), and the fun later, but meanwhile, follow the link below for more information.

16th Annual Sea-Bean Symposium

Good Night (Hurricane) Irene

We are so fortunate that Hurricane Irene's path changed during the week and took her east of Brevard's coastline - she will pass about 200 miles offshore late tonight and tomorrow morning. We're having rain squalls and wind gusts, and I'm sure it will get worse, but all in all, we've dodged another bullet. The photo above is from the NASA web site, with a description as follows:

NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Irene's eye
directly over Crooked Island in the southern Bahamas on August 24, 2011 at 12:15
p.m. EDT.Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response

Seas are forecast to be 10-15 feet just offshore and there will be beach erosion (hopefully not much, what with sea turtle nests all over the place), higher than average tides, and rip currents. I thought you might be interested in a couple of web cams that will show you what a hurricane the size and intensity of Irene (Category 3 right now, and a huge footprint) can do, even a couple of hundred miles away.

Sebastian Inlet Web Cam
Cocoa Beach Pier Web Cam

Welcome Home, Atlantis!

Space shuttle Atlantis touched down at 5:57 a.m. at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the final time. STS-135 was the 33rd and final flight for Atlantis, which has spent 307 days in space, orbited Earth 4,848 times and traveled 125,935,769 miles. Those are pretty amazing statistics. The end of an era.

(Image courtesy of NASA/Kim Shiflett)

My favorite launch photos

The low-hanging clouds did not make for great viewing of Friday's launch, but it made for a great photograph. I love this view, with the launch pads and the beach and the ocean and the marshes. (NASA photo)

The Max Brewer Bridge leading to the Space Center had a few people on it watching the launch! (NASA photo)

We have liftoff

After a nearly perfect countdown on a day when the rain stayed away just long enough, we had a beautiful final shuttle launch. Godspeed, Atlantis! Job well done, NASA and contractors.
Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
July 8, 2011

Countdown to launch

Space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off 11:26 a.m. EDT tomorrow, Friday, July 8, but it looks as though rain may interfere with the launch plans. Meanwhile, friend David McRee, Blog the Beach, sent the following link to a 360 degree view of the space shuttle Discovery's flight deck. Cool stuff!

http://360vr.com/2011/06/22-discovery-flight-deck-opf_6236/index.html