Watching Space Shuttle Launches
I went to the University of Illinois, where I majored in Mechanical
engineering. While in college, I also participated in a co-operative
education program. What is a co-op program? Well, to sum it up really
quickly, I'd alternate semesters of school and work. I worked for NASA,
at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.When most people think of NASA, they think of Cape Canaveral, and Kennedy Space Center, where all of the launches take place. But I worked in Virginia. Not that Virginia was bad - I loved living 20 minutes from a beach. But one thing that just couldn't be seen in Virginia were space shuttle launches.
My First Launch
The first time I saw a space shuttle launch, there wasn't very much advance planning. There was a three day weekend, and I didn't want to spend the entire time sitting around the apartment, so I was trying to think of something fun to do. I found three other people that were interested, we loaded into a car, and we headed towards Florida to see a space shuttle launch.
We drove all night, taking turns, and made it to Kennedy Space Center with time to spare. We took our place on the causeway with all of the other carloads of people that came to see the launch, got our cameras ready, and waited. And waited. And waited. It was a beautiful day, but the emergency landing sites on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean had poor visibility, so the launch was delayed.
After driving all night, we were a bit disappointed, but the launch was rescheduled for the next day. We found a hotel room and tried to catch up on all of the sleep that we lost. The next day, we went back to see the launch. Hopefully it would launch this time. The weather wasn't as nice as the first day, and there were some clouds, and some wind, but it was good enough for the launch to take place.
Our viewing area was about 5 or 6 miles from the launch pad. I took plenty of pictures, but with my tiny little camera everything showed up as a tiny little speck. I'd attempt to describe the launch, but words wouldn't do it justice. Afterwards, I honestly couldn't remember how loud it was - I was too excited (and too busy snapping pictures).
My Second Launch
After seeing one launch, I wanted to see another. In the summer of 1996 I
had a chance to go again. This time, there was a little more planning
involved. Once again, we spent the whole night driving (that's what we
planned to do).
When we arrived, it was a sunny and hot morning. I had a much better camera this time, so my pictures showed the shuttle as more than a tiny speck. The picture to the right shows the shuttle on the launch pad, or you can see it here.
When the shuttle launched, I made a point to remember how loud it was. It was pretty loud, considering we were 4 or 5 miles away from the launch pad. I took quite a few pictures, and got a good sequence of shots as the shuttle rose through the air. The first picture on this page is a nice shot of the shuttle going up, or you can see it here.
I'd still like to see night launch, sometime.