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#500 by nilsfr on 30 Apr, 2010 12:15
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Gator tours :
The KSC admission badge is a 2-day ticket and can be used on the consecutive day (transportation fees would apply) to see further aspects of the space center - IMAX movies and bus tours may not be available on launch day - therefore we would recommend you plan using the 2nd day of access of your ticket if you are unable to see them launch day.
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#501 by Furner on 30 Apr, 2010 12:23
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Do the vouchers have a # on them so for instance since I am on Dolphin Tours, and I highly doubt they would stop at the center in the event of a scrub, could I call the KSC number and buy LTT and pick them up at will call the next day?
Also I was thinking that maybe after the busses drop us off back at LBV at our hotel, we could drive back to KSC before it closes and pick up LTT to come back the next launch via car. (tour people do get vechicle cards for entry by car don't they?) Of course that raises questions about how long they have tickets, for instance do they hold LTT for the priority folks until the following day and then release to the public? If not the chances I get my two tickets before anyone else in line since I would be going to LBV and then back, at least 1 hour journey in normal traffic, seems quite small.
Best case scenario for all, this thing either launches on the 14th or it gets scrubbed before we all board a bus.
Based on their attitude during the initial sale of causeway tickets, all they care about is selling as quick as possible. I doubt they would hold any for you, and I have seen a picture of the voucher and it is just a photocopied slip of paper.
Something you all might want to consider if you are on a tour is to see if you can snag a single VC viewing ticket with vehicle pass. Dont have to use the VC viewing ticket and then you will have a vehicle pass that can be used in the event of a scrub.
This way you will get to ride the bus for the first attempt, and if you can somehow get a replacement LTT you will have a vehicle pass.
Might be worth it to skip the bus ride back to your car (so you can buy a replacement LTT) in the event of a scrub and either call a cab or see if you can hitch a ride with another NSF'er. -
#502 by dougmichel on 30 Apr, 2010 13:52
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I have thought of walking back to the VC or asking the bus driver to just let me off if they would and having my wife come back and pick me up after she is let off back in Orlando at the hotel if it comes to that. There has got to be a better system than what they use for all of this stuff.
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#503 by Furner on 30 Apr, 2010 13:57
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I have thought of walking back to the VC or asking the bus driver to just let me off if they would and having my wife come back and pick me up after she is let off back in Orlando at the hotel if it comes to that. There has got to be a better system than what they use for all of this stuff.
I dont know how there would be any way for them to "force" you to ride the gator/dolphin buses out, I think you should be able to go with the people who had regular LTTs and get to the VC that way. It would just be up to you to keep from getting stranded at that point. -
#504 by dougmichel on 30 Apr, 2010 14:02
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That is what I thought as well, and that is probably what I will end up doing if it comes to that. I am not driving all the way from Nebraska to have me and my family see our first launch of any kind, and last shot at a shuttle launch for us to have it scrub and then not see it from the best possible way after we paid for the shot simply because the tour group does not return to give us another shot. I had the chance to get regular VC viewing tickets the day they went on sale and passed, i wanted to pay more to see it from the causeway. My second choice in viewing is from Titusville anyway, not VC.
I wish KSC would sell an advanced LTT that covers all attempts of the STS mission in question. Maybe you pay 100 per person and you get a LTT for every attempt. If it goes up on the first shot you paid much more, if it takes 5 you break even. NASA probably would come out ahead, and they could still sell the normal ones too for people who want to go the way they do currently. Doing that would help accomodate people like me who are coming from a long way to see it, and would really help our international visitors with their viewing. -
#505 by spacedog71 on 30 Apr, 2010 14:26
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another protip: other than a few hours before a launch attempt, the KSCVC parking lot is just a parking lot.
when i found myself without a voucher after surrendering my gator LTT at the weather scrub of STS-128 on monday, august 24th, i just got in my rental car and drove up to KSCVC in the late afternoon of tuesday the 25th, parked, bought a replacement LTT at the door, and asked for one of the extra parking placards off of the stack they had at the box office to walk back out and put onto my dashboard.
along similar lines, returning to the gator bus to go back to orlando a few hours after STS-119's technical scrub, i stopped by the info booth just past the metal detectors and asked for one of the extra parking placards the nice folks there had in big stacks behind the desk.
remember, too, that the parking lot attendants go home right after a launch, but they also go home right after a scrub (the web site says that nobody will be let onto the site until an hour after launch, but the buses seem to take that long just to get off of the causeway).
if the KSCVC is set up the same way for STS-132 as they were for STS-129, which launched at about the same time, the visitor center will be open till around 7 pm that night.
again, your mileage may vary, and they may have escalated security and may no longer have stacks and stacks of extra parking placards for the taking any more, last launches and all. but i've never had a problem just asking for one at the KSCVC. -
#506 by dougmichel on 30 Apr, 2010 14:34
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Excellent info spacedog, thanks for the tips. Hopefully none of us have to worry!
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#507 by jthodges on 30 Apr, 2010 14:53
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i'm curious -- how long ago were those launches? i see from ysuindy's post in the STS-128 viewing thread that they were enforcing the one-ticket-per-voucher policy at the box office as far back as STS-127's many, many scrubs, and only selling the leftovers to the public the next morning.
The one where we drove back in was STS-127. The one where we bought an extra ticket and didn't provide our vouchers was STS-130. I think you're probably right, the demand on these last missions is probably going to change how these things work dramatically. I would take any assumptions that are based on how things worked for people in the past with a grain of salt, and only count on them as a backup. -
#508 by spacedog71 on 30 Apr, 2010 16:35
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I have thought of walking back to the VC or asking the bus driver to just let me off if they would and having my wife come back and pick me up after she is let off back in Orlando at the hotel if it comes to that. There has got to be a better system than what they use for all of this stuff.
I dont know how there would be any way for them to "force" you to ride the gator/dolphin buses out, I think you should be able to go with the people who had regular LTTs and get to the VC that way. It would just be up to you to keep from getting stranded at that point.
this... just... no. abandon this line of thinking. it leads nowhere you want to be.
they used to let the general public drive their vehicles onto the causeway, just like they used to let people play frisbee on certain lawns in washington, dc that now have big fences around them. now they not only don't let you bring laser pointers or nail clippers with knife blades onto the property, they search the buses with guard dogs while you're off riding the shuttle launch experience.
it's not nasa.org, it's nasa.gov. you're not just a guest on private property, you're in a secured government facility. you can no more walk back from the causeway or not go out with the same group you came in with than you can wander around an air force base, and you'd probably meet the same kinds of sanctions if you were to try.
look, i know this whole "you might not get a replacement LTT after a scrub" thing has people spooked. i've been there. scroll back through the other "Viewing" threads for previous launches, you'll see the same questions asked and answered every time.
what you have to remember is that LTTs are completely sold out. this means that every seat on every bus has already been spoken for. (this also means there won't be any empty seats on the buses heading back from the causeway to the KSCVC either.)
all of the kennedyspacecenter.com ticket holders get their tickets sent out in the mail weeks before a launch attempt. likewise, all of the gator and dolphin and florida bus drivers get an envelope full of LTTs and two day visitor center tickets for each of their customers when they picked up their bus that morning.
see, here's a thing that's really not intuitive at all: they don't actually sell launch tickets at the KSCVC the day they go on sale. they might have in the past, but they sure don't any more. if a friend back home hadn't ordered my STS-131 LTT for me through the web site, i wouldn't have gotten one -- and i was actually at the KSCVC on february 11th to see the SDO launch. there were no launch tickets sold on-site that day -- and, yes, it's true, NASA's visitor center has no public wireless internet access. (see "secured government facility".) my only path to a launch ticket on site that day would have been via cell phone.
so if all of the launch tickets were never at the physical KSCVC box office booths to begin with, and they all sell out the day they go on sale, and they're all mailed out ahead of time, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the vouchers exchanged for replacement LTTs on site right after a scrub are simply swapped out for the very same LTTs that were handed over in the first place. there's no reason to print out additional tickets if they're being handed box loads of them that same night.
which means there very probably simply aren't any physical replacement tickets -- not at the causeway, not at the KSCVC -- to sell to someone who didn't get their ticket from kennedyspacecenter.com in the first place. as your original tickets came from the bus companies, it's to the bus companies your replacements would be sent.
[editing to add: the different kinds of bus tickets are also different colors. orange tickets are what get sold through kennedyspacecenter.com; purple tickets are what get handed out through gator; yellow tickets are VIP tickets for banana creek. not sure what brown and green go to (dolphin and florida tours?). so it's much simpler than just "to whom do these LTTs go to?" orange LTTs are collected on site; orange replacement tickets are what's exchanged for the vouchers. if you're a gator customer, your tickets and your replacement tickets are both purple -- a color the KSCVC box office probably doesn't ever traffic in at all.]
will there be the high attrition rates reported in the past, leaving them with plenty of extra tickets to sell the next day? probably not for 132 and 133 and 134. i've heard estimates as high as 25% not showing up for previous 24 hour scrubs and 75% for subsequent 48 hour scrubs. but, for an orbiter's last scheduled launch, up against a weekend like this? i'd not expect more than 15% of the people showing up on friday to recuse themselves from showing up on saturday, whatever the reason.
but there still might be extra tickets sold at the box office the next day, possibly that night. and you can grab a parking placard on your way back out to the causeway if you want the option of driving back to the KSCVC and inquiring at the door. it's a sure bet you'll simply have to take the bus back to orlando first, though. i can't imagine any circumstance where a tour bus driver would have the authority to drive into any kind of .gov facility with 30 tourists and drive out with 29.
the bottom line is that it's not in delaware north's best interests to keep people from being able to buy replacement tickets to the causeway. if it's physically possible to get boxes of new LTTs from NASA to the gator and dolphin and florida buses within 24 hours to make another launch attempt, that's surely what they're going to do. you'll probably know one way or another by the time the bus returns to the parking lot with your car; if not, call the 800 number for your tour line and check kennedyspacecenter.com and hope for the best. -
#509 by dougmichel on 30 Apr, 2010 16:43
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Yea I figured there would be no way to walk back, and it looks like a good hike anyway, so that option is clearly bad. I was not sure about getting on a different bus either, but the one thing that I thought this may be an option was that the tour company says to be on time back to the bus after the launch or you are stranded. Surely you can get back to the VC at the very least.
Next week when I call Dolphin to confirm my pickup location I will ask them about all this we are discussing to see what they do. It does seem silly to not have a way to get replacement LTT for those companies. Last resort is of course to try to drive back to KSC after the tour bus drops us off in Orlando and see about getting a replacement that way and just drive back for the launch.
As a planner I like to have all my bases covered ahead of time so that if something goes awry I already have an idea what needs to be done. I don't like getting hit with something and then trying to figure stuff out then if possible. Thanks for the additional info! -
#510 by Nick on 30 Apr, 2010 17:37
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Next week when I call Dolphin to confirm my pickup location I will ask them about all this we are discussing to see what they do. It does seem silly to not have a way to get replacement LTT for those companies.
I'm a bit lost here.... Surely Gator/Dolphin will be more than happy to sell you a ticket to one of their tours for the rescheduled launch? They can't possibly be sold out at that stage.
It'll cost more than an LTT direct from the VC, sure, but it will get you in. And probably be a lot less bother than having people driving back and forth from Orlando.
Or am I missing something? -
#511 by dougmichel on 30 Apr, 2010 17:57
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Next week when I call Dolphin to confirm my pickup location I will ask them about all this we are discussing to see what they do. It does seem silly to not have a way to get replacement LTT for those companies.
I'm a bit lost here.... Surely Gator/Dolphin will be more than happy to sell you a ticket to one of their tours for the rescheduled launch? They can't possibly be sold out at that stage.
It'll cost more than an LTT direct from the VC, sure, but it will get you in. And probably be a lot less bother than having people driving back and forth from Orlando.
Or am I missing something?
I am certain they must have some way to do it, but someone I talked to on another webiste has used them 4 times and one of them was scrubbed for weather after they were at the causeway and he didn't get LTT for the rescheduled launch since the bus doesnt return to the VC. Now what he didn't tell me was if the company offered completely new tickets for the full price to return. This is something I am willing to pay for if there is a scrub, the guy I was chatting with has seen 6 launches or something so he probably would be unwilling. -
#512 by Yegor on 30 Apr, 2010 19:01
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Does anyone know if I could use my VC ticket to visit KSC before the launch to take the tour? I was hoping to see the shuttle on the pad before the launch.
No one know the answer to this one?
There is a KSC tour that takes you within 1 km from the launch pads but I am pretty sure that it is not be available on the day of launch because of the security (and because of Space Shuttle filled with explosive hydrogen) but may be (I do not know) you can take this tour the day before the launch. -
#513 by Yegor on 01 May, 2010 01:47
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I am not driving all the way from Nebraska to have me and my family see our first launch of any kind, and last shot at a shuttle launch for us to have it scrub and then not see it from the best possible way after we paid for the shot simply because the tour group does not return to give us another shot. I had the chance to get regular VC viewing tickets the day they went on sale and passed, i wanted to pay more to see it from the causeway. My second choice in viewing is from Titusville anyway, not VC.
I wish KSC would sell an advanced LTT that covers all attempts of the STS mission in question. Maybe you pay 100 per person and you get a LTT for every attempt. If it goes up on the first shot you paid much more, if it takes 5 you break even. NASA probably would come out ahead, and they could still sell the normal ones too for people who want to go the way they do currently. Doing that would help accomodate people like me who are coming from a long way to see it, and would really help our international visitors with their viewing.
Here! Here!
I am flying all the way from Canada, fueling $2000 in Florida economy in bad times. Cannot they organize it in a decent way so people will not get screwed for $2000 + a week of vacation time?
It is very frustrating
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#514 by Yegor on 01 May, 2010 03:27
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spacedog71,
Thank you for the great and valuable advise!
Nasaspaceflight.com rules!
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#515 by Nick on 01 May, 2010 07:33
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Does anyone know if I could use my VC ticket to visit KSC before the launch to take the tour? I was hoping to see the shuttle on the pad before the launch.
No one know the answer to this one?
There is a KSC tour that takes you within 1 km from the launch pads but I am pretty sure that it is not be available on the day of launch because of the security (and because of Space Shuttle filled with explosive hydrogen) but may be (I do not know) you can take this tour the day before the launch.
My recollection is that the KSC tours don't run on launch day at all. In addition, the day before launch, the tour only goes to the viewing site (I forget what it's called, the overgrown scaffolding tower they've built for the public to view the pads.)
Prior to that the tour goes a lot closer, so if the opportunity's available, I'd go in a couple of days before the launch.
There are also good views from the road down to Playalinda Beach (up until the time that is closed, obviously). -
#516 by Nick on 01 May, 2010 07:37
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This is something I am willing to pay for if there is a scrub, the guy I was chatting with has seen 6 launches or something so he probably would be unwilling.
I can understand that because it's $100+, not the $25 or so that a replacement KSC LTT costs. But if it's your one and only chance, not your sixth, money doesn't really come into it, does it?
I'd give Gator a ring and ask them how the situation is handled. Then you can be all geared up to ring their booking office straight away, or do whatever else is needed. -
#517 by Orbiter on 03 May, 2010 01:06
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I will be going to atleast 2 of the last 3 launches.
This will be my 7th launch in person if I go.
(STS-84, STS-90, STS-95, STS-114, STS-124, STS-128)
I've had these missions scrub on me
(STS-121 July 1st, STS-122 December 9th, STS-127 July 11th, STS-130 February 7th)
I will only go if there is either a 1-2 day delay in the processing on the pad or a 24-48 hour scrub. I can now only do a weekend launch.
Orbiter -
#518 by dougmichel on 03 May, 2010 16:13
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Just off the phone with Dolphin, they told me that in the event of a scrub and you have used your LTT, Dolphin does not acquire new LTT if they go on sale. The lady I talked to was not even aware that NASA sells them again for the next day. I guess if we get a scrub after the LTT is used I am going to have to drive back from Orlando and hope the VC still has some left and then drive back for the next launch myself.
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#519 by Yegor on 03 May, 2010 18:06
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Just off the phone with Dolphin, they told me that in the event of a scrub and you have used your LTT, Dolphin does not acquire new LTT if they go on sale. The lady I talked to was not even aware that NASA sells them again for the next day. I guess if we get a scrub after the LTT is used I am going to have to drive back from Orlando and hope the VC still has some left and then drive back for the next launch myself.
It looks like they have much less experience than Gator Tours. In that case let us explain to the bus driver and ask him/her to get the new LTT tickets for the next attempt.
In a case that we will not be able to get the new LTT tickets:
Dolphin has two pickup locations one in Orlando and another in Cocoa Beach. You can drive to Cocoa Beach pickup location (they told me that I can leave the car there) in this way it will be a shorter distance to drive back to VC.
