I managed to snag tickets to the Artemis I launch at the end of the month. I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to get tickets for the Saturn V viewing area. I’m still looking forward to the launch.
The actual checkout experience was pretty good while extremely frustrating at the same time. I went to the website at the appointed time. Right at 11, the web site updated with ticket options. I mashed the buy button. That took me to a blank white page.
After an eternity, the page finally appeared to tell me that I was in line. The expected wait time as over one hour. After about an hour the only change was how far the little man had run across the screen. That’s when the line pause and then the message updated to say that the ticket the I wanted to buy was sold out. Dang.
Resolved to get the plan b option, I kept waiting. So the time remaining actually started to decrease. As time ran down, the little man ran across the screen that much further.
Just before the end of the second hour in line, it was my turn. I would have 10 minutes to get my shopping cart and check out. That’s when the next wrinkle hit. There was a limit of 6 tickets and I needed to get 8. Fortunately I had a coconspirator already in line a few minutes behind me to scoop up the last two tickets.
After checking out, my tickets were delivered in the form of a PDF file attached to an email. I planned to break the PDF up to distribute to the other 5 people but alas, the PDF was encrypted. I’m not sure what that was supposed to do. It was mildly annoying that I could not even copy text from the PDF (initially).
In the end, we have our tickets to watch the launch from the Atlantis north lawn. There’s no direct line of site to the launch pad so you only see it after it clears the tree line. The advantage is that you can hear and feel the roar of the engines.
I can only assume that I will try again for a future launch viewing from the Saturn Ⅴ pavilion. I had some hope that this being an unmanned launch would have reduced the interest. Sold out tickets and reports of 100,000 people planning to watch say differently. I have some ideas for what I could have done differently to improve my initial place in the line. Of course there’s no way to test my theory.
