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Scripps Web site to track John Glenn’s historic space flight

Nov. 5, 1998
 

STUART, Fla. — — During the John Glenn space launch this week, four Web monkeys will boldly go where no Web site has gone before.Beginning on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 2 p.m. (EST) four Web developers from TCPalm.com will be driving a recreational vehicle to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to witness the Glenn launch on Thursday, and they’re going to take Web surfers along for the ride.TCPalm.com is the Florida-based cooperative Web site of The Stuart News, Vero Beach Press Journal, Fort Pierce News, Jupiter Courier, Port St. Lucie News, Sebastian Sun and television station WPTV in West Palm Beach, all properties of The E.W. Scripps Company.The project is called T-Minus4, and its mission is to provide a tourist’s-eye-view of a space launch. The media will be swarming around this news event, but T-Minus4 will focus on showing Web users what it’s like for “normal” people to witness this historic launch first-hand.Web users will be able to keep track of the T-Minus4 mission by going to the following URL: https://www.scripps.com/glenn/mainpage.htmlThe site will feature continuous updates from the T-Minus4 crew, live video of the space shot, interviews with other tourists who are present to view the launch and a special bonus – an Icaster, user-controlled camera that will allow Web surfers to point and click on what they want to see at the launch site.“This will be an interactive experience,” said Steve Dana, director of online media at TCPalm.com. “We will have live chats, bulletin boards, polls and constant updates on news and information about the launch. This will be the next best thing to actually being there.”The T-Minus4 crew includes: David Johnson, Corbin Wyant Jr., Brian Costello and Tina Mulka, all 20-somethings, three of whom hadn’t been born yet when astronauts first set foot on the moon.The E.W. Scripps Company, with headquarters in Cincinnati, operates 20 daily newspapers; nine network-affiliated television stations; two TV networks, Home & Garden Television and the Food Network; a TV programmer, Cinetel Productions; United Media, a worldwide syndicator and lincesor of news features and comics; and publishes independent Yellow Pages directories.