Shuttle Launch

The brother worked the day of the launch so I was planning on driving out to the coast to watch the lift-off from one of the beaches south of Cape Canaveral.

I had my route all planned and knew the area I wanted to stop. Because the brother had never driven out to watch a launch I watched the news the night before to see if they had and idea on what the traffic situation would be.

They did.

They predicted all routes to the coast would be bumper to bumper traffic the morning before the launch. Now, despite my planning, I was not confident enough nor ambitious enough to spend 4 hours in bumper to bumper traffic driving what would normally take 1 1/2.

So I opted to watch on television and hope the sky was clear enough for me to see the launch from the brother's balcony.

The television coverage was great. But I was really glad that I had gone to the Kennedy Space Center two days before. It made the launch so much more interesting.

This launch happened to be historic in that it was the 2nd mission to be commanded by a woman, Pam Melroy. The main purpose of the mission was to transport and install the Harmony module. This would allow docking to International Space Station by Japanese and European labs.

This is my first glimpse of the shuttle after lift-off.































The shuttle is leaving the atmosphere.


And it's gone . . . all that is left is the exhaust plume.


The visible part of the launch only took minutes. The television coverage showed the camera view from a camera attached to the outside of the shuttle. Very cool.

After the launch, I watch the news interviews of people watching the launch from the some of the beaches. One of the beaches had people from six hundred cars.

Yeah, I was glad I had stayed home.

Maybe someday, I will have a chance to experience as well as see it.