While On Vacation We Saw a NASA Rocket Launch!

Last Thursday, we returned home from our family vacation. Here are some pictures from the NASA portion our trip to Chincoteague Island, Virginia.

On Saturday, August 12th we visited the Wallops Island, Virginia NASA visitor center to get ourselves ready to watch the rocket launch. The rocket launch was originally scheduled for Tuesday, August 15th but ended up being rescheduled for Wednesday, August 16th due to the possibility of inclement weather.

Here is a picture of soon to be Kindergarten Nugget while we visited the NASA visitor center at Wallops Island, Virginia.

We ended up spending a few hours at the visitors center and having a great time. While we were visiting, we participated in a live Kahoot trivia contest and a scavenger hunt about the planet Mars. NASA recently announced the Artemis program which will include a planned mission to the moon with the purpose of learning about the lunar surface with the intent of a future manned landing on Mars.

Here is a picture of the pin and sticker we won at the NASA Wallops Island Mars Scavenger Hunt. The pin features a parachute from the sample return mission of the **OSIRIS-REx** sample return mission which is expected to touch down in September of 2023. The parachute will be bringing a sample of an asteroid that was created during the birth of our solar system.

Here is a picture of Kindergartener Nugget on the observation desk at the NASA visitor center. It was a hot and humid day and almost nobody wanted to be in a picture.

Mr. Man has fun building with some boys he just met in one of the NASA visitor center exhibit rooms.

On Wednesday, August 15th we woke up in the five o’clock hour and drove from Chincoteague, VA out to the Assateague Island beach, just a few miles away, to watch the launch of two sounding rockets.

I don’t have any pictures from the rocket in the sky because rockets go up very quickly. We had a great time getting up before the sunrise and hanging out at the beach to wait for the launch. Mr. Man has been a fan of a Youtuber named Mark Rober, who is a former NASA engineer, for a while now. He has an interest in engineering and NASA in general so making this a part of our vacation was special for us all.

While on vacation I happened to be reading the book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, author The Martian the book the Matt Damon movie was based on. Project Hail Mary deals with space travel and a international mission to save the earth life from extinction. It was nice that my pleasure reading happened to be lining up with what I was learning about at the NASA visitor center.

Here is a picture of the Assateague Island beach when we arrived at dawn.

This picture was taken from our rocket launch watching blank across the road from the earlier pictures.

Here are Kindergarten Nugget and Mr. Katie waiting for the launch. Pro tip: If you go to the beach to watch a rocket launch near the sand dunes, bring bug spray. Those suckers like to bite.

Waiting is hard work. Mr. Katie is following the updates on the NASA rocket livestream on Youtube.

If you look in the distance you can faintly see the sounding rocket launching. It was more obvious to see in-person.

A second sounding rocket was also supposed to be launching that morning. We waited and listened to the Youtube live stream from the launch site at Wallops Island. About a half hour after the first rocket went up, NASA announced the the second launch had been canceled for that morning. We saw later that NASA reported an anomaly when the first rocket was launched.

All and all, we had a great experience making NASA part of our beach vacation. I recommend checking out the NASA visitor center at Wallops Island and looking into timing your beach get away with a scheduled rocket launch.

Here is a picture of me “horsing around” while waiting to find out if the second launch was a go.

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While On Vacation We Saw a NASA Rocket Launch!

Published by Katie Nicholson

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