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Roberto Gonzalez / Getty Images
Photographers and observers place their cameras at the base of the space shuttle Endeavour's launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for Friday's scheduled liftoff.
The wild weather that is sweeping through America's Southeast has had a mild impact on the outlook for the shuttle Endeavour's final flight, with forecasters raising the chances of a delay in Friday's launch from 20 to 30 percent.
Right now, the weather is the only question mark about a flight that's expected to attract upwards of 700,000 spectators, including notables ranging from President Barack Obama and wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to "Star Trek" actor LeVar Burton and gamer/astronaut Richard Garriott.
The skies over Kennedy Space Center in Florida were mostly sunny this morning, but chief weather officer Kathy Winters said that the tail end of a storm system that left a trail of destruction through Alabama was headed for the Florida coast.
"The weather is expected to get a little bit bad this evening," Winters told reporters.
If low clouds are still hanging around when it's time to launch, at 3:47 p.m. ET Friday, the launch would have to be delayed at least 24 hours. The potential cloud ceiling, added to the chance of unacceptably high crosswinds, led Winters and her fellow forecasters to downgrade the weather outlook from 80 percent positive to 70 percent positive. Which is still pretty positive, as weather forecasts go.
NASA test director Jeff Spaulding said the countdown was proceeding without any technical hitches. But if the launch has to be put on hold on Friday, whether for weather or for other reasons, Spaulding said NASA would still have at least three more opportunities for liftoff over the next week.
Notable launch
This launch is notable for several reasons: It marks Endeavour's final space outing before it heads for retirement at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. It'll be the second-to-last shuttle launch ever, setting the stage for Atlantis to close out the 30-year shuttle program this summer. Endeavour will be bringing up the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, one of the biggest physics experiments ever launched into orbit. And perhaps most poignantly, the launch is the focus of a love story involving Giffords and her husband, Endeavour commander Mark Kelly.
Giffords, an Arizona Democrat who is recovering from a grave head wound sustained in January during a shooting attack in Tucson, was flown to Florida from her rehabilitation center in Houston to see the launch and take part in family festivities.
President Obama, along with his wife and two daughters, are due to witness the launch from the space center as well, in between a visit to storm-stricken Alabama and a commencement address at Miami Dade College. The last sitting president to attend a shuttle launch was Bill Clinton, who came to the Cape to see off senator-astronaut John Glenn in 1998. It's not yet clear whether the Obamas will be with Giffords or at a different secure location for the launch.
"We will be ready to accommodate, wherever that location is," Spaulding said.
Tweeters in attendance
Other celebrities in attendance this time around include LeVar Burton, who played Geordi LaForge on "Star Trek: Next Generation"; and Seth Green, who has appeared in the "Austin Power" movies and a host of other films and TV shows. The actors are among 150 Twitter users who were invited to the launch to participate in a NASA tweetup, and they traded tweets for their own meetup at the Cape.
"Where are you, man?" Burton tweeted to the red-haired Green. "My Ginger detector is on the fritz?"
"Less than 20 feet away from you!" Green replied. "Why won't you say hi to me?!?"
Richard Garriott, the millionaire video-game developer who became the first son of a NASA astronaut to go into space himself in 2008, also tweeted that he was heading down to Florida to see the launch.
Spaulding told reporters that he and the rest of the launch team weren't changing their routine just because a high-profile audience was hoping to see Endeavour rise on Friday. "We do the exact same level of effort" in advance of every liftoff, he said, and there'd be no pressure to put on a show.
"Our team is really focused in on what we're doing here," he said.
More about the shuttle's final days:
Stay tuned for further updates from Kennedy Space Center, in Cosmic Log as well as in msnbc.com's space news section. You can join the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Worst idea I heard all day.
Now ya all know I just love a good physics experiment!!...Go endeavour!!...while reading I could not help but note the nearly 3/4 million visitors converging on florida for the launch...surely if each one of them brings a measly 1.25 to florida, THATS roughly a million dollars added to the FLA economy!!...and surely, I mean, surely boy, they goanna bring a lot more than a measly buck and a quarter with them!!...and many will of traveled through the states that just got walloped by the storms!!..bringing, most likely, much needed business to states ravaged by the storms this week, perhaps no windfall, but surely welcome!!....naw, the shuttle launches HAVE been good for America, I doubt anyone can even possibly put a number on it in monetary funds...sure, on a cold hard fiducary sheet, we spent a lot of money on THE COOLEST SPACE SHIP AROUND!!...but what we have got back does not always show up on a double coulmn accounting ledger, now does it? Yes sir amighty, get that magnet up there cause we got stuff we gotta know, and after that maybe they can see iffuns ye ole big magnet has a dual purpose!!...glad to see the president WANTS HIS KIDS to see REAL science in action!!...we CAN afford the space program, what we can't afford is mediocracy and political manipulation of the core engine of progress in our highly advanced technological society....We finally have a smart president, wish he was smart enough to know when his advisors were not....go ahead, some idiot out there just dare me with a bush was smart too comment..go ahead.....ya I see ya fumblin at the keyboard cheny ole boy....so sad.
Pray that the clear sky will come tomorrow.
And, pray that they have the nice and safe launch.
Shouldn't Obama's kids be in school? Oh yea, they get special treatment unlike my children. I would love to take them out of school to watch the launch.
I personally find it humorous that the President wants to be there at all..... I guess it's a fun photo op. Mind you his administration is killing the program and not replacing it (other than paying the Russians etc. to fly for us). So, how do we intend to further science now? Science fairs?? NASA pushed the development of carbon fiber technology, kevlar, computer circuitry, high/low temp materials, etc. etc. The money invested not only had massive returns to the general public, but it also INSPIRED many to go into science and develop better new stuff. I think it's a foolhardy thing to shut down NASA as we know it and not have a fully developed plan for afterwards.