STS-134 Space Shuttle Endeavour will launch into space for the very last time on Friday. This will be Endeavour‘s 25th flight, the 36th Space Shuttle flight to the International Space Station. Endeavour will carry her crew of six, as well as the primary cargo, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle physics detector, to orbit. Find out more about the mission timeline, crew, and payloads.
STS-134 crew
Just as exciting as the launch — our launch tweetup. Oh, the anticipation. I arrived today to help the team prep for our 150 space tweeps. They will descend on the Kennedy Space Center from 43 states and District of Columbia, Australia, Canada, Germany, San Juan, Switzerland, and the UK. (Do you think the Brits are escaping Royal Wedding fever…and replacing it with launch fever?)
STS-134 NASA tweetup badge
Here’s a sneak peek of where we’ll host them — our TWent (as we affectionately call our Tweetup Tent). This is our largest TWent so far, and we finally got a REAL floor. WooHoo!
STS-134 Tweetup Tent (TWent)
View from inside the STS-134 Tweetup Tent
Our first tweetup tent was on the press site parking lot (as @ageekmom reminded me). The press guys requested we move, to clear their camera view of launch. After we moved to the grassy site, we ordered a floor for the tent. The first time, the tent company didn’t have enough floor boards available when they set up (weddings took precedence, it seems) so we ended up with green grass shag carpet (and lots of ants). The next tweetup, we ordered the floor. Again, they didn’t have enough of what we ordered, so they brought rubber floor mats. A bit uneven, but better than the grassy shag experience. Voila! STS-134 floor. Ahhhhhh. So nice!
STS-134 Tweetup Tent floor!
The tweeps are getting excited. They’ve been buzzing ever since they received Stephanie Schierholz’ official NASA notification of their coveted slot in the Tweetup. And now, they’re all enroute to the Kennedy Space Center. We’ll meet some of them tomorrow at early registration. The rest on Thursday, L-1, and Friday, L-0 for the launch itself.
Launch tweetups are mind-blowing, life-altering, community-building events. I can’t wait to meet everyone, and hopefully we’ll all be cheering and hugging each other on Friday at 3:47 p.m. EDT for the last launch ever of Space Shuttle Endeavour.
Photo credit @carsonskinner
Bethbeck's Blog 
Thanks for sharing with us this pictures today! It created so much anticipation. I can’t wait to get there!
Dear Beth, your blog is my homepage until Endeavor comes home. Thanks for the outstanding coverage, the tweets… such excitement. No, I’m not in the tweetup officially ~ maybe next time? Good Luck to one and all on Friday. A
Thanks Karen. I’ll try to keep the updates coming. Need wifi to work. That simple post last night took 3 hours — one bar, four bars, no bars. The connection kept fading out — usually as I was uploading pics or saving updates. I have four bars now. Yay wifi!
I just LOVE how looking at these pictures brings the excitement of the impending tweetup to life. I may be biased but I have to say that the tweetups you’ve created with NASA must rank in the best things NASA has ever done. You rock!
We’ll miss you, of course!
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