My friends' house is less than 10 miles from the Kennedy Space Centre (as the crow, or pelican, flies) but about 17 miles from the launch pad 39A.
It is still close enough to ensure that you don't have to go anywhere, except to the end of the road, to get a pretty spectacular view of a launch. Unfortunately, though, I don't have the sort of zoom lenses that the professionals use to photograph the event.
If you want the real thing visit the NASA site.
The launch of Atlantis was (I think) the fifth space shot I have witnessed. (Four shuttle launches and the 1975 launch of the Viking mission to Mars are what I have seen so far. I missed the very last Apollo launch by just two days.)
It is a still, to me, an awe-inspiring sight and I have nothing but admiration for the folk who allow themselves to be strapped into that vehicle on top of millions of tons of high explosive then fired upwards into the sky.
Mind you, I think it pretty routine to strap myself into the seat of a Boeing 747-400 aircraft weighing anything up to 870,000 lbs and allow myself to be launched above the clouds, entrusting the pilots, crew and ground-staff to deliver me safely back to earth exactly as planned. I guess most people a hundred years ago would have considered this to be pretty crazy.
How long, do you think, before we see space travel as routine?
2 comments:
I'm curious, Iain, how much sound did you hear?
Great photo, lucky lucky you to witness it firsthand.
How long till space travel is routine? Well, routine for the rich or for we ordinary folks? I'd love to go into space but I'm not willing to trade my home and all my worldly goods for it. ;)
Hi Cherie, I assume you mean at the Shuttle launch and not when I was bell ringing? :-) Usually it takes the sound some time to travel the 17 miles, and you only hear the unique rocket sound as it disappears from your sight. On this occasion (probably due to wind direction) I hardly heard anything at all.
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