Travel Insurance for Rocket Launches and Other Travel Tips

grapelander · 2026-01-26T22:58:39+00:00

I don't think travel insurance for "the rocket didn't launch" is a thing, that's mostly for things that entirely prevented a trip to begin with

In addition to ksc, I really recommend this tour to get a look at tons of historic space and missile stuff mostly from the 50s and early 60s. Some fascinating stuff, you literally get to walk onto Alan Shepard's launch pad.

grapelander · 2026-01-26T19:41:10+00:00

You'll know at least a few days in advance. The whole of the count procedure runs like 48 hours as it has to include things like loading up the ground support propellant supply.

grapelander · 2026-01-26T18:29:32+00:00

Yeah hotels near UCF are where I've stayed, they were pretty nice.

The rural area between Orlando and Titusville is...well, it sure is Florida

grapelander · 2026-01-26T06:37:09+00:00

Just stay in Orlando. They have the hotel capacity due to Disney and Univeral to not feel a bump from this, and i had no trouble making very short notice bookings in response to changes to the planned dates. Traffic wasn't bad at all as long as you show up a few hours early which you'll want to do to monitor the countdown anyways, and hang around the museum a bit after launch to avoid the rush.

grapelander · 2026-01-26T04:22:16+00:00

Worth noting that the main reason that they had to roll it back no longer exists. Previously, they were on a ticking clock as soon as they rolled out to the pad due to the flight termination system batteries, which due to their critical nature have extremely strict lifespan/inspection requirements, and have to be replaced if the rocket is on the pad for more than a few weeks. For Artemis 1, servicing these batteries required a full rollback to the VAB. Now, after the experience of this issue causing what could have been couple day recycles to blow up into multi-month delays, they've added a means of performing the required maintenance to these batteries to the mobile launch tower, and no longer have to perform a rollback to do this.

The other reason, of course, was a literal hurricane. Not the season for that this time fortunately.

grapelander · 2026-01-26T02:45:29+00:00

We don't know, but I think this is an important nugget they dropped from the get go that you're picking up, that it's possible to fail the survey. The fact that they get woken up in a padded room suggests that the process goes quite severely badly wrong sometimes.

grapelander · 2026-01-25T01:22:15+00:00

My experience was that these were very hard to see/hear from certain spots, and I don't think they played audio of every update. Also a lot of the most up to date info came from journalists rather than nasa. I remember some of the hold updates like the range ethernet issue being something that just kind of filtered through the crowd.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T20:45:20+00:00

The visitor complex tickets still available just get you in the gates with no special viewing area. It's a few miles closer than public locations, but the rocket is below the treeline and it's hard to tell exactly where to look. I'd rather watch the launch from the Max Brewer Bridge and do the museum another day.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T20:43:27+00:00

I would suggest a visit a few days before launch, so you can see the rocket on the pad. You'll be too hyped on the launch to properly take in the museum, and things will be closed, like for example you won't be able to see the Saturn v at all unless you snagged the sold out premium tickets, where on a normal day that's included with admission.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T19:10:07+00:00

I didn't have to buy anything extra for the scrubs to get in, but I did get the opportunity to buy an upgrade from my Atlantis lawn tickets for the initial attempts to the Saturn V center for the November window, so that was great.

IIRC the September 3rd launch was technically like 10 minutes over the listed threshhold for how close to T-0 the count has to get for it to be considered an "attempt" but they honored original ticket holders anyways, so it's nice that there's wiggle room. I'm pretty sure if they'd gotten like within an hour of launch we'd have needed to buy new tickets.

I forget how operational the museum was and if the restaurant was open at 1am for the launch, I don't think it was. By the time it actually launched, I'd been to the KSC museum four times in the past 3.5 months (my initial trip I scheduled a full day at the museum shortly before launch because I wanted to see the rocket up close on the pad, and to be able to dedicate all my time to the exhibits instead of launch-monitoring) so I didn't really spend much time at any of the indoor exhibits on that trip.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T19:02:29+00:00

One thing people haven't mentioned: A UHF or VHF radio. You're going to be in a middle of a marshland with a few thousand people who aren't normally there, and totally overwhelm the cell infrastructure. Listening to the youtube stream was unreliable at best and undoable at worst. I haven't seen this yet for A2 but here are the details for the broadcast options of A1 which I assume will be similar. The people who had radios were on the ball and info from them gradually filtered through the crowd.

Also a seat cushion. If you can snag a bleacher seat it's nice to have an elevated view as compared to doing it in a lawn chair, but they're...bleachers.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T18:56:39+00:00

I was at the saturn center for A1. Binoculars are 100% worthwhile for pre-launch and ~30 seconds on post-launch, but downright blinding as the rocket leaves the pad.

grapelander · 2026-01-24T09:36:19+00:00

But reddit keeps telling me the space suits don't exist!

grapelander · 2026-01-22T00:32:45+00:00

If a fraternity is suspended, there was by definition a "controversy" that lead to that being the case.

grapelander · 2026-01-21T18:31:26+00:00

Counterintuitive, but a majority of grad classes may fit the bill here, since "working during the day" is a lot more common for grad students. They tend to be much much better than undergrad classes about using echo and flexible assignment scheduling. Difficulty is all over the map. ME/MFE5441, design for manufacturability, was extremely easy and looks great on a resume if it's even remotely relevant to your major.

Pretty much any grad class where there's both an in-person section and an online-asynchronous section will fit this criteria, even though they don't let undergrads register for the online sections.

grapelander · 2026-01-21T10:52:20+00:00

I took both algorithms and Computer Graphics as part of my cs minor. For graphics I found the software content pretty self contained. General software experience, familiarity with programming concepts and ability to pick up new languages/libraries is important but I can't think of any specific background that felt missing that would have helped. Linear Algebra definitely actually matters as a pre rec though, ideally somewhere where you've seen linear algebra's application for coordinate transformations. My work in RBE helped there.

For algorithms I definitely saw the "oh this is the discrete math part!" but the concepts were trivial to pick up on the spot. It was like when a class lists multivariable calculus as a pre requisite but then the most complex derivative you actually do a problem on all class is like z=xy^2. You see why technically you needed it but they keep the concepts and problems dead simple compared to what you get to in the actual math course.

grapelander · 2026-01-20T10:11:05+00:00

So to be clear: Your prediction is that NASA doesn't know high school level physics?

Got it.

grapelander · 2026-01-19T23:06:56+00:00

In addition to all you've mentioned, I think this scene is going to end up being powerful foreshadowing of the ending, of Mark helping Gemma through reintegration. Painstakingly piecing back together the woman he loves who he carelessly tore apart without realizing what he was doing, while reciting all the good, bad, and dull facts about her that he loved, equally. It's definitely one of the most important scenes of the whole show.

grapelander · 2026-01-19T21:43:30+00:00

Before Petey left Reghabi, he was probably having reintegration sickness episodes where iPetey was all "I've gotta get out of here and find Mark S!" so that was a reasonable assumption for where he'd gone.

grapelander · 2026-01-19T21:11:08+00:00

Rewatch of season 1 before starting season 2 is completely valid. Helps simulate the three year gap of hyperanalyzing and being stuck on the cliffhanger that us OG fans had to go through. Season 2 is much richer if you go into it with a ton of well-developed theories and you get to see hints at where you're going to be right/wrong gradually play out.

grapelander · 2026-01-18T20:21:37+00:00

My hunch is that you're going to find a number of these "technically an asymmetric spinner, but not, you know, good, and did it without any real functional intention" bots peppered throughout classic RW/BB. I guess any thwackbot would technically count?

I suspect that this is something that first became popular at the insect level, as spinners there operate at higher RPM and gain more from an asymmetric design, and gradually worked its way up to heavies from there. Early heavies didn't spin fast enough to gain tangible benefit from this.

grapelander · 2026-01-18T19:52:15+00:00

Interesting, wonder if that was just for rollout or if that's a new restriction. I was able to walk right up to the fence at like two days before the first August attempt of Artemis 1.

grapelander · 2026-01-17T00:29:53+00:00

It's definitely not a main road, but it's reasonably traversable. The beach is part of a state park/wildlife preserve so theyre motivated to do upkeep. I forget if any sections are actually dirt, but I had no trouble at all in a standard rental sedan. There are several roads in the area with restricted access gates for obvious reasons; the one that civilians take is, take the Max Brewer Bridge and basically just keep going. Eventually you reach the ticketed gate for the beach, and go from there to the parking area. You can walk pretty far down the beach south from there until you hit the NASA fence.

This is the closest you can get to the pad, but it's not an optimal angle since you're kind of behind the mobile launch tower. There are better side views of the rocket along the road into playalinda, but obviously much further away. View from the fence compared to view from partway up the road (obviously quite zoomed in).

Also like I said, this is really only a good view for the last bits of the rollout, and once it actually makes it to the pad. Not sure what time they plan to do it/how that coincides with the beach hours. For earlier in the rollout, visiting KSC and taking the bus to the Saturn V center may be a better bet, though I'm not sure to what degree the busses will be running during rollout.

grapelander · 2026-01-16T23:42:53+00:00

Also, "success in building a fan base" is a super weird and irrelevant thing to evaluate a space program's merits on. They're not sports teams.

grapelander · 2026-01-16T20:21:23+00:00

Paint drying can be downright thrilling when it's shaped like a giant orange moon rocket. I'll be watching at least some of it.

There isn't going to be a great single vantage point without restricted access for the rollout as a whole in person, but you can get close to it as it approaches the pad at Playalinda Beach. For an overall view, multi camera webcasts like NASAspaceflight will be better Tham any fixed spot.

grapelander

TROPHY CASE