By virtue of a winning bid at Poncho, Ben and Lisa flew to Cape Kennedy on a Boeing Corporation private jet to take a private guided tour of the space shuttle launch facilities and watch the launch of STS-88 scheduled for the early morning of December 3, 1998.

We visited the space museum, toured around launch complex 39A with STS-88 Endeavour on the launch pad, and went inside the vehicle assembly building and stood under another space shuttle being refurbished (mostly tile repairs).

We got up in the wee hours of December 3^rd and took a shuttle bus to the launch viewing area near Banana River, about 3.5 miles from the launch pad. The countdown made it to T-19 and then the launch was scrubbed because one of the people reporting status did not report quickly enough. There was only a 10 minute launch window because STS-88 had to rendezvous with the International Space Station already in orbit.

Lisa decided she did not want to risk any more scrubbed launches, so she flew back the next day, and Ben stayed to try again the next night. Fortunately the second attempt went off without a hitch. See STS-88 for all the details on this mission.