Months ago, I sent off a HUGE box of photos for scanning. I did this a couple years ago with a dozen reels of slides from my childhood and got great results, so this time I sent more than a thousand prints and negatives that span from the fall of 1997 through early 2002. I still keep in touch with many of the people in the photos, and see many of them on a daily basis, so I think it’ll be a lot of fun to share some of them here over the next few weeks or months.
To start? My first coop tour with NASA in Houston! It was the fall of 1997. I was 19 years old and had finished my freshman year at Georgia Tech. Little did I know what I was in for…
One big coop tradition was the infamous “Coop Beach Party.” We’d rent a big house down in Surfside for the weekend and anywhere from 30-60 coops would descend upon the house. You were lucky if you got a bed. There was always a lot of fun to be had — swimming, card games, hanging out, drinking (hey, it was a large group of college students) and general craziness.
This was taken one night when a bunch of us girls went out for a nice dinner and a show. I cannot for the life of me remember what show we saw. (I don’t think any of the people in the photo above read this blog, but I’m linked with all of them on Facebook. Perhaps I should post these on FB too.)
At an Astros game. In the ASTRODOME! Old school! We always sat in the outfield, and there was a guy dressed in an old military uniform who fired a cannon when the Astros hit a home run. Also, whoever took this photo did a crappy job of framing it. Oh well.
In September, a large group of us took a road trip to KSC to see the launch of STS-86. This was one of the shuttle-Mir flights, so that was pretty cool. This photo was taken in front of the KSC Visitor’s Center, where we had to meet to catch our VIP bus to the viewing site. I don’t remember how we got VIP status, but somehow we did.
Countdown clock! Yay! I was extremely excited to be seeing a shuttle launch. This is the first one of the three that I saw before the program ended this summer.
Here I am with all my excited coop friends in the bleachers before the launch.
Liftoff! Night launch! It was SO cool.
The day after the launch, we took a tour of some of the KSC facilities. I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know which space station module this is. It’s either Node 1 or Node 2. In September 1997, we were still a year away from launching the first components of the space station, so I’m guessing it’s Node 1. Pretty cool — I had totally forgotten we saw this, and now it’s been orbiting the Earth for more than 12 years.
I touched Endeavour in the Orbiter Processing Facility. I’m not sure if I was technically allowed to, but I did it anyway. This is the nose, below and in front of the cockpit windows. The entire nose propulsion section was removed at the time for processing.
The coops always liked to go to Amy’s Ice Cream, and apparently they had crazy hats that everyone wore? I haven’t been there in a while. Yum, though.
I don’t know why we’re making muscle poses. Mine is pretty pathetic. Ice skating though — fun!
We also played paintball that fall. I remember this day vividly because it was FREEZING outside and had been raining, and we were all crawling around in the mud trying not to get shot. I had ridden there with my friend Ron, and on the way home there was something wrong with the heat in his car so we shivered the whole way back.
Fall 1997! Fun times! I’ll post another installment of my trip down college memory lane sometime soon.
Look at all those young whipper-snappers! 🙂
Wow, those are fun to see. 🙂
Jen & Sarah, I’m pretty sure you guys will both make an appearance in future installments! 🙂