Pretty Flowers

Our rosebushes outdid themselves this year. Here are a few pictures.



The pink ones always come out first. They are about halfway opened up when the yellow ones start coming out.



I got a pretty good up-close view of a pink one.



The wine-colored ones, dark red, start coming out after the pink and yellow pretty much expend themselves. So we get twice as long to enjoy them!



Here is a late evening photo. I love these bushes! It is sad that they only hang around for three or four weeks before going away. We will prune them to see if we can get another showing this year.

Space Age

So for work, I got to go to an Atlas V rocket launch. We were actually supposed to see the Shuttle launch also, but it was scrubbed until July 11. So we had to "settle" for the Atlas.

Before the launch day, we got to tour Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). These facilities do a lot of work behind the scenes.



The first places we got to go were the old sites for the Mercury and Apollo launches. This is the place where the Apollo I explosion occurred. It doesn't look like much but it holds a place of honor.



These small plaques appear on the concrete pillars holding up the structure in the picture above. The second one is pithier and perhaps captures the "spirit" better, but the first provides more details.



We were fortunate enough to be there while they were replacing tiles on one of the Shuttles. I kind of assumed that the Shuttle was painted black on the underside. It isn't paint at all. It's heat-resistant tile. They inspect and replace tiles that need it after every flight. You can see the markers where they expect to make a replacement. Each tile has a serial number.



Here are some people working on the Shuttle. While the Shuttle isn't in a clean room, they try to prevent as much FOD as possible from entering into the workspace.



Reminders of these three missions are everywhere. People have special reverence for these and the astronauts on them. It is also a motivator to do the job right, so we can minimize future risks. The monuments in Arlington National Cemetery aren't the only ones.



Here it is! YES! I really got that close!

(OK. I'm shooting the picture through a fence with a guard shack and barbed wire nearby. But it looks pretty good, doesn't it? No zoom!)



Here is the Atlas, from an ignominious little dirt road. Who knew you could get that great of a view? The Atlas V was carrying the LRO/LCROSS mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. NASA wants to go back to the Moon. Here's the first step. Everyone made fun of George W. Bush when he proposed it, yet here we are, quietly developing the plans!



KSC had a visitor center with a big pavilion that had some history and rockets on display. Here is a fun sign.

I had so much fun. It was really an excellent trip and I know I'm fortunate to have gone.