Sorry to be so late with posting my “Launch Report,” but I just got back from my Florida vacation, and this is the first chance I got.
MeteorWayne, this report is sort of lengthy. If you think it belongs somewhere else, go ahead and move it.
My wife and I watched the launch from Space View Park in Titusville, just across the Indian River from the Kennedy Space Center. Even though I have watched plenty of launches on TV, this is the only launch I have ever seen in person, so I didn’t exactly know what to expect, and it was AWESOME! Just an absolutely amazing and thrilling experience.
I picked Space View Park as the viewing location mostly because I was totally unfamiliar with the area and had read online that it was a good place to view from. It was also a convenient point to plug into the ole Garmin. Now that I’ve seen the area, I see there are plenty of places along the river from which to view.
I had read that it’s a good idea to be there a couple hours early, so with a 6:21 am launch, that meant trying to be there by about 4:30 am. We were staying in Orlando, which is about an hour from Titusville, so that meant driving over by at least 3:30 am! Yikes! Instead of getting up in the wee hours, we decided to have a late dinner and drive over after that --- so we ate a pile of Cuban food and then left about 11:30 pm and got there around 12:30 am.
I’m glad we got there early. The parking lot was already full, so we paid 10 bucks to park across the street in a vacant lot --- the money goes to fund a non-profit that maintains a museum at the park. They also broadcast the NASA feed over loudspeakers at the park.
We walked into the park toward the river, came out of a little area of trees into an open area, and we could clearly see the 50-story cube of the Vehicle Assembly Building across the river. To the left and further away, we saw the shuttle gantry. The gantry has little lights on it all the way up, so we could easily see it with the naked eye, even as far away as we were. And the whole thing is bathed in incredibly bright spotlights that shine on the whole structure and then continue upward in a bright V shape of light. From our angle, I could not make out the shuttle itself, even with binoculars. Further to the left there is another tall tower, and I think it must be where they store the water that floods the pad during the launch.
Space View Park was full of people who had staked out their space and were camping out overnight. We set up our own little spot with a few towels we had picked up from the pool concierge at the hotel and smuggled out in a backpack (Sorry about the grass stains, dirt, twigs and burrs, Buena Vista Palace). The ironic thing was that we were paying $150 for a great room with a comfy bed on a night we were sleeping in a park on the cold, damp ground with 300 other people. And there really wasn’t any “sleeping.” We were under a street light, on the hard ground, a little bit chilly, and there was constant activity all around us.
Around 3:00 am, they started the NASA feed over the loudspeakers, which gave a little something to do but made sleep impossible. I kept having some trepidation that something would hold up the launch and it would have to be scrubbed, so it was cool to be able to hear the feed and know everything was going smoothly. At T minus 9, there is the 45-minute hold, and toward the end of the hold there was some kind of a glitch, and they had a No-Go situation for a few minutes. I had a minor heart attack at that point, but the problem was resolved and the count restarted on time.
I think it was shortly after the clock restarted at T minus 9 that we saw the Space Station go overhead. That was not something I had expected. I’ve seen the ISS many times by using Heavens Above to get pass predictions. But it did not even occur to me that with this being a morning launch, the conditions would be IDEAL for seeing the station pass over, and of course it WOULD be passing over just minutes before the launch --- that was the whole reason for the narrow launch window, for the shuttle to catch the station as it went over. It really brought home the physics of the whole thing in a totally amazing and concrete way to see it actually happening.
A minute before the pass, the lights in the park were turned off. At exactly the predicted time, the station came into view in the south west. The moving dot of light arced up and over and passed within just a few degrees of the moon (cool!). It continued in the direction of the launch pad and eventually disappeared in the east. It was just so amazing to think that in a few minutes the shuttle would launch to try to catch up with the space station that had just passed overhead!
About the time the lights went out and the station was going over, people started getting to their feet and getting more and more excited. Everyone had a spot staked out with a blanket or lawn chair, but of course that didn’t last long once everyone was standing, and people started pressing toward the river and jockeying for position. My wife and I moved forward and got a perfect unobstructed view of the river close behind a couple who had lawn chairs at the very front of where you could stand. There were a lot of people with cameras and tripods, and I think unless they were in the very front or up pretty high, some of them had their shots ruined by people crowding in front. I had decided not to mess with the camera during the actual launch, because I figured the nighttime shot would be too hard to get anyway, and I wanted to just experience the moment without fiddling with the camera.
As the countdown got into the final minute, everyone started to get excited and we could hear the crowd winding up.
In the last few seconds we saw the water start to flow under the pad. The main engines started, and we saw the vapor begin to billow. Then the boosters fired, and flame was everywhere! For a second I wondered if something was wrong. Through the binoculars it was almost too bright to look at. As the shuttle started to lift off, the flame pouring out of the boosters got longer and wider. The brightness was amazing! The orange light reflecting off the water in front of us was incredible!
As the shuttle rose higher, we could clearly see the vapor trail extending to the ground. The sun was not up yet, but the sky was beginning to brighten in the east, and we could see the lower portion of the trail silhouetted against the light blue of the horizon. Higher up, the column was illuminated by the rocket itself.
One of the surreal aspects was that all we could hear was the noise of the crowd. I think we were probably about 10 to 12 miles away, so all of this fire and energy that we could see happening right in front of us was totally silent for a long time. At about the time the controller gave the go ahead to throttle up, the first rumble started. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but sort of anticipated a deafening roar. It wasn’t as loud as I thought it might be, but it was deep --- we could feel the powerful vibration, or at least it seemed the way. It also seemed that as the sound got louder the crowd got quieter. There was a lot of cheering at the beginning of the launch, and when the sound arrived there was a lot of excited chatter about that, but soon everyone just settled down and watched. Soon the park was almost silent, except for the distant rumble.
From our vantage point, the shuttle arced up, to the left, and away. Toward the top of the arc, it almost seemed we were looking directly into the engines. We could see the vapor trail begin to diminish and change color to a brighter, whiter shade. As the SRBs separated, we could see the glowing orange/red/purple dots of the SRBs move away from the burning white hot main engines in the center. To see the SRBs required binoculars --- with the naked eye you could not see it at all.
I was surprised at how bright the main engines were. I’ve mostly seen daytime launches on TV, and the main engines always seemed faint and washed out, but now they were extremely bright. My wife described it as sort of a starburst pattern. It was strikingly beautiful. You could clearly see the main engines with the naked eye for what seemed like a very long time.
From our angle, after the SRB separation it looked like most of the vapor trail ended at that point, and the bright dot of the main engines continued on in an arc. It’s sort of a trick or perspective, but as the shuttle continued forward, it almost looked like it was angled downward. There was the bright dot of the engines, and the bluish white vapor of the main engines seemed to spray upwards. I guess it’s just that you are looking at it from beneath the arc, and the vapor trail extends for miles, but it does look odd from that angle.
As the white dot finally faded from view, the very top of the vapor trail was high enough to be in direct sunlight, even though the sun was still well under the horizon. That little puff of vapor glowed bright white.
Moving from the glowing cloud back down the arc, there appeared to be a bit of a gap, and then the darker smokier trail from the SRBs picked up and extended all the way back down to the ground.
By now the sky was getting brighter, and the entire trail was clearly silhouetted against the sunrise.
I figured at this point the show was over, but I was wrong. I got the camera out and started taking pictures of the vapor trails. As the sun started coming up, it just got more and more interesting. As the sun started to hit the different layers of the vapor trail, the clouds of vapor started to glow in spectacular sunrise colors. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I guess the wind currents curl and twist the vapor into all kinds of strange shapes, and the trail must extend for miles and miles through different altitudes and different distances from the horizon. Looking at the trail, you would almost think the shuttle had done loops and barrel rolls all the way to orbit. It makes for some very weird and beautiful effects.
Some parts of the cloud were bright white; others were golden; others orange; and others deep scarlet. Sometimes these colors were right on top of each other. Watching this bizarre cloud formation change shape and color was almost as interesting as the actual launch. (Almost, but not quite.) After going back to the car, I continued to take pictures of the vapor trails for probably another half hour or 45 minutes, trying to use the door as a tripod to stabilize the camera. Some of them are pretty good shots.
Eventually the cloud was entirely in the sunlight and not nearly as interesting. We were trapped in the parking lot by a huge traffic jam, so we just curled up in the car seats and went to sleep. An hour or two later we woke up aching and went to get breakfast.
This shuttle launch was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. At this point there are only 3 shuttle launches left before they retire the fleet, so if you haven’t seen one, and you have any opportunity at all to do so, I’d highly recommend it.
If you would like to see more of my pictures of the crazy cloud pattterns in full size, see this album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/10359545584 ... tleLaunch#
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