NASA, college football and the UCF-Houston fight for the skies

  • Dave Wilson Close Dave Wilson ESPN Staff Author Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously

      worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.Ryan McGee Close Ryan McGee ESPN Senior Writer Senior author for ESPN The Publication and ESPN.com 2-time Sports Emmy winner 2010, 2014 NMPA Author
    • of the Year Nov 22, 2023, 06:45 AM ET ON A WARM September night last
    • year, after a 27-10 UCF win over Georgia Tech, the crowd hung around to see something that only happens at the Bounce House.Shortly after the game ended, a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, about 35 miles due east from campus in Cape Canaveral, Fla. at NASA’s Introduce Complex 39A.

    Fans in the stadium got a perfect view of the launch due to the fact that, by design, UCF’s 50-yard-line sits on the very same latitude as the launch pad. As Elton John’s “Rocket Man”

    played over the stadium speakers, the video board showed a close-up of the spacecraft as it left the Earth’s atmosphere, with fans cheering along. Simply another day at SpaceU.UCF is all-in on space. Founded in 1963 as Florida Technological University with the motto”Grab Destiny,”it opened in 1968 with an emphasis on offering skill for America’s ambitious space program. Now, with UCF grads comprising about 30%of all Kennedy Space Center employees, the university is happily touting its space connections.To celebrate that tradition, the football group has actually played a hugely popular “Space Game”every year given that 2017, featuring alternate uniforms with their own unique color– called Canaveral Blue to reflect the coastal skies and water– and a small nod to

    the school’s original mascot, the Citronaut, a Florida orange wearing a space suit. It is among the coolest modern-day traditions in college football.But it did raise the eyebrows of a new conference enemy.”Some blue unis … Some Space City thing,”Houston coach Dana Holgorsen stated last week throughout his radio program.” I thought we were Space City.” Editor’s Picks Houston, which is playing its very first season in the Huge 12 along with UCF, represents a city that has long taken pride in its role as NASA’s nerve

    center at Johnson Area Center. Around the same time that UCF was being built, Houston was building the Astrodome, home to the Astros and another newfangled invention, Astroturf. (The Houston Rockets were really named while the franchise was based in San Diego, oddly enough ). So you’ll forgive Holgorsen if he needs to be informed when he’s informed that UCF’s claim as an area center is due to its proximity to NASA’s Release Control Center, when Houston is home to Mission Control, the website of one of the most popular lines in the history of the area race. “They don’t state’ Orlando, we’ve got a problem,'” Holgorsen said.With the upcoming departures of Texas and Oklahoma, two of the most storied teams in college football, the Huge 12 is desperately in need of some brand-new squabbles. Arizona and Arizona State will show up next

    year with the Territorial Cup on the line. BYU, a new addition this year, will reunite with Utah next year in a competition that’s been played 101 times.But while UCF and Houston might never end up being a heated competition due to their geographic separation on Earth, there’s an entire other frontier in the paradises. There is real school pride at stake. UCF fans are still rolling their eyes over the brief so-called”Civil dispute “that was forced upon them by UConn and essentially ended when the trophy went missing after 2 games. While Houston and UCF have played each other 10 times, none before 2005, this one means something due to their connective tissue with the area program, not to discuss they’re now conference opponents.”We’re accepting it, now,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn stated earlier this year.”Every one of our roadways on campus is named after a galaxy. The first month I got the job, I actually spoke to NASA on management and they had me Focused to both groups [in Florida and Texas]”And the eye in the sky is watching them also.

    “NASA has Space Act arrangements with both schools,”said Wayne Saxer, the agency’s lead for sports engagement.”We work collaboratively with universities across the country that bring innovative services and fresh perspectives to some of our biggest difficulties.” To commemorate both schools ‘roles supporting America’s area firm, NASA flew a freshly minted medallion featuring the logos of each school on opposing sides on CRS-29, a SpaceX objective to the International Spaceport station a number of months ago.Launched from Florida, guided by Houston, the medallion will return to Earth, where it will be framed and provided to the winning team.Welcome to the Area Wars. Mike Watters/USA TODAY Sports THE STRESS BETWEEN the folks in Houston and Orlando nearly precedes the cities themselves. It reaches back nearly a century before the United States got in space

    with the launch of the Explorer I satellite on February 1, 1958, from Cape Canaveral Introduce Complex 26. In 1865, Jules Verne published “From the Earth to the Moon”,

    a tale of post-Civil War Americans who build a spacecraft and releasing gadget to fling a trio of tourists off this mortal coil and towards our nearest celestial neighbor. The

    French author was renowned for his imagination, but also for the research study that kept his stories rooted in reality. He always consisted of just the right amount of actual science to make his fantastical fiction appear possible. The book’s tenth chapter is entitled”Florida and Texas.

    “Why? Since Verne anticipated that the best area for a launch site would be in between the equator and the 28th parallel, keeping it finest in line with the Moon’s orbital course. Plus, the launch website would require to be built alongside a large body of water, so that particles wouldn’t fall into populated areas in the case of an accident. With all of that in mind, Verne discusses sparring potential locations in Galveston Bay and “Tampa Town,”total with lobbying of the government to land the launch pad, protests and rallies in the streets and barbs publicly traded in between the two states.Verne pictured Florida papers writing of Texas:”A great bay; half-choked with sand!”And Texas reacting: “Choked yourselves! “Everything Verne composed from his home in Northern France came true nearly 100 years later on and 5,000 miles away. NASA was established after that Explorer I launch and established its main launch place at the Cape, where the very first variation of Mission Control was housed in bunkers around the spaceport.”It was essentially a lot of screens and microphones in a pillbox,”John Glenn, an original seven Mercury astronaut-turned-U.S. Senator, recalled in 2014.”When we were appointed to CapCom, to speak to our colleague inside the spacecraft, to be in there at the Cape and feel those rockets going up right there and after that in front of

    you, it was amazing on every level. However it was constrained for space. And yes, I realize the irony of using that word recently. “On September 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy doubled down on a difficulty that he had actually first pitched to a joint session of Congress one year previously, that an American need to set foot on the Moon before decade’s end.

    He said those words– in Houston– while basing on the field at Rice Stadium, famously including:”But why, some say, the Moon? Why pick this as our objective? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? … We select to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not since they are easy, however since they are difficult.”Once Kennedy revealed his moonshot, an actual overnight fight began regarding the area of NASA’s brand-new HQ, the area for Objective Control. Those already residing in Florida believed it ought to stay there– NASA could merely construct some brand-new structures– however they discovered themselves fighting dozens of cities for NASA’s favor. Cities from St. Louis to Langley, VA to San Francisco to Shreveport, LA submitted HQ proposals.”My favorite was Bogalusa, Louisiana,”says Rick Houston, NASCAR sportswriter-turned-NASA historian and co-author of “Go, Flight! The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control. “”Can you envision that one?’Bogalusa, we’ve had an issue.'”As part of the area’s push to show its worthiness, Florida Governor Farris Bryant

    signed into law Senate Expense No. 125, developing a brand-new state university in East Central Florida with the goal of supporting the Cape. The school was called Florida Tech, and though it had no sports groups yet, it did have a mascot, a helmet-wearing Jetsons-inspired spaceman with a Florida orange for a body. They called him the Citronaut.” I like the Citronaut, “confesses Tennessee athletic director Danny White, who served in the very same capacity at the school Florida Tech ended up being, UCF, from 2015-2021. White, who moved his workplace into the football arena where he might view rocket launches going up from the Cape, greenlit the Citronaut’s return for UCF’s very first Space Games in 2018 and’19. “The immediate you see him, you seem like you’re back in the 1960’s Area Age.”Completion result was a punt. Release operations would stay at the Cape and with it Introduce Control at Kennedy Area Center. However, that setup didn’t last for long. Starting with the Gemini 4 flight of June 1965, interaction and control moved to Objective Control, located on the relatively endless premises of Johnson Area Center in Clear Lake, TX, directly in between Houston and Jules Verne’s Galveston Bay. What made the shift occur? A great deal of, well, area that was handed to NASA totally free via a donation by the same school where JFK’s speech is still memorialized on a plaque that awaits the arena where JT Daniels will spend his weekend fighting for a 6th win a bowl eligibility versus FAU.”I indicate, I do not wish to rain on anybody’s parade here, but if we are talking about space schools, then there’s truly one, right?”astronaut Shannon Walker half-joked earlier this year. Walker is a Houston native who has actually invested 330 days in orbit and holds 3 degrees from Rice, one of the school’s 13 astronauts.”Go Owls.”When asked if there is still beef in between the Cape and Houston about the choice to move Mission Control west, Rick Houston audibly huffs.”When I was dealing with my book and talking to all of the NASA legends, the Florida guys all stated the exact same thing to me.’Now, when are you going to compose a book about the real Mission Control?’ “ Courtesy Houston athletics HOUSTON, OBVIOUSLY, has a problem with this.For more than 50 years, the university system has actually partnered with NASA, including developing a campus in Clear Lake adjacent to Johnson Area Center since its opening in 1961″ to meet an important need for trained engineers, physicists and mathematicians to sign up with the U.S. space program,” according to the university.Last year, UH chancellor Renu Khator signed an extension with NASA for all the system’s universities to extend a collaboration to “advance human spaceflight. “”Houston is ‘Space City,’ so it is very important for trainees and professors in pertinent disciplines across the UH System to have chances to engage in and be exposed to real-world area flight-related research study and technology development with NASA,”Khator said.Dr. Olga Bannova, previously an architect in Moscow, is the director of Houston’s Sasakawa Center for Area Architecture, the only master’s level program of its kind in the world.”It’s obviously about human spaceflight, however likewise about psychology,”Dr. Bannova stated.” It’s about understanding human needs and providing and thinking of the methods how we can make a human life not only sustainable in space, but also actually satisfying, you understand?” One of those ways, Bannova says, is to provide” a complementary countermeasure against all these unfavorable impacts on the human physiology and psychology that’s related to microgravity conditions.”

    For those of us who don’t speak scientist, basically that implies one element is the possibility of sports in space.Adam Doll, one of Bannova’s graduate students, is currently an engineer for NASA in Houston who does astronaut training and when he’s not considering spacesuit advancement, is working

    on his master’s thesis on the idea of collaborative sports in some interstellar environment. Absolutely nothing too rowdy. Believe a collaborative rock climbing-type course with a goal to finish it as quickly as possible. Not a future Cougars-Knights battle in the universes. “You do not desire the games to get too competitive in space,”Doll said.But down here, it’s all level playing field.” I don’t even understand where UCF is, to be truthful. And we have the astronauts in Houston. That’s a huge thing. They live here and train here. They simply head out there [to Florida] to release. I indicate, they just use that every as soon as in a while. Mission Control is manned 24/7. We constantly have individuals keeping track of the

    spaceport station.” That would discuss why legendary NASA flight director Gene Kranz, who supervised the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the very first moon landing(and was represented by Ed Harris in “Apollo 13” ), said the Florida-Texas grandstanding has actually progressed for many years.”That might be a current-day rivalry, but that was not the case back through the programs that I supported,”Kranz, who is 90 and lives near Houston, said. “I think it may have come about when we started putting astronauts as center directors down at the Cape. “No matter which side you’re on, the Knights

    are way ahead in welcoming the SpaceU moniker. Every sport at UCF has an alternate SpaceU/Citronauts jersey.

    And it’s good for service.” Every year, people want to see when the first game is and then when the Area Video game is,”said Jimmy Skiles, among the senior athletic directors at UCF and the chief branding officer. “It’s ended up being just this entire occasion in itself. I believe we are the only college fanbase in the nation that wants to accept an alternate mascot and alternate color and even an alternate name for the university-SpaceU– for a single game.”It appears annually, seeing a split fanbase using black and gold and another substantial area of the arena using blue, such as during their 45-3 upset of Oklahoma State two weeks earlier.”That’s never been one of our colors,”Skiles said.

    “It’s a color we developed as part of our area brand. And yet we had 25,000 people wearing Canaveral Blue.” Skiles stated 8 of their leading 10 very popular merchandise items each year are all space-related. The other thing fans like about the Space Game? UCF controls every time. This year, a 4-5 UCF group that had just one Big 12 win crushed No. 15 OSU, relocating to 7-0 all-time in Space Games with a 202-point margin of success. Fans switch from “Go Knights! “to” Go’Nauts!”for the annual occasion. It’s nearly adequate to start an identity crisis.can’Naut lose +202 point differential all-time in Space Games pic.twitter.com/MtdLIR5Kk5!.?.!— UCF Football(@UCF_Football)November 12, 2023 “Our whole fanbase accepts the turn on the Space U/Citronauts thing but a lot of individuals resemble,’it’s time to rebrand to Citronauts full-time,”Skiles stated.”And after that you have the Knights patriots that are like,’ Absolutely not, we are Knights. Our colors are black and gold. ‘”Whatever they’re called

    , Houston isn’t quiting the Space City name, and UCF isn’t giving up the SpaceU name. And UCF is prepared for Houston to hold up their end of the deal in the burgeoning rivalry.Skiles stated in 2019, UCF approached UH to welcome

    them to do their own alternate uniforms for UCFs’Space Video Game when the Cougars checked out Orlando. He knew he probably didn’t provide Houston enough time to go all in, however he thought perhaps they ‘d do a themed helmet, like UCF finished with its hand-painted helmets looking like the moon’s dark and light sides, total with craters.” That was the 50th year of Apollo objective, the moon landing,”Skiles stated.”We thought it ‘d be a truly cool thing to have both of us do something. And it came game week and Houston didn’t do it. “This time around, Houston is thrilled about going to UCF this weekend as conference competitors, perhaps with a future

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