Hummingbird

Coming to you live from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California! Well, okay, not entirely live by the time this gets posted to the blog... but when tremendously exciting opportunities befall my unsuspecting existence, it makes for melodramatic verbiage.

To truly get a LIVE experience, follow me on Twitter for the next few days while I cover the Atlas-LandSat launch from the AFB! I was in San Francisco just a few minutes ago. Ask me how I got to Vandenberg so fast. G'head, ask.

Checking the oil in the Piper Cherokee Plane

My friend Susan Bell, a badass Spacetweep with a pilot license, flew us from Oakland's north airfield down to the Lompoc area, in a cool 90 minutes. Wow, so much better than being bored stupid on Interstate-5!

Today we are enjoying a visit to the fantastic Santa Maria Museum of Flight and Rocketeer Café.  Well, okay we cheated a little because the Rocketeer joint only served hot dogs, and we opted instead for the larger Mexican restaurant near Baggage Claim, but... we did get to see the original movie props display with the Rocketeer helmet and jet pack! Oh, and there were some jets lying around.

On the goooood ship, Hummingbird...
Evil grin: Yeah, that's my ride. Shotgun!

All in all, a pretty awesome day of flying down the length of my home state, and a great afternoon meeting up with spacetweeps for meals and museum fun. 

Tomorrow morning, we will be having a Rogue Tweetup at the Providence Park Landing. I love the area of Lompoc holding the launch celebration -- check out their spacey street names!

Click to embiggen

For the precise launch countdown, follow the NASA LandSat page.  We shall be braving the frost advisory in the early hours with coats and gloves and blankets to see our precious Atlas V take to the skies! To keep up with photographic goodness of the #NASASocial, Launch Party, museums and flight fun, go to the Pillownaut Picasa Gallery.