Dad was waffling about driving us up to Jacksonville on Sunday. He's not wrong - it'd be a long time in the car for the boys to drive up to jacksonville and then back down to Tampa in one day for a quick visit to the grand parental units. Still, the wife and I are used to pulling this since we live on the west coast. We do it every time (and Dad with us) with the boys. Still, we figured if we just rented a car and stayed the night it'd be easier. Plus we can go at a leisurely pace, have tomorrow how we planned and spend a few hours at KSC before we head up to jacksonville. Plus it turns out my other grand mother is in the hospital and my mom is also in town up there. So...that happened.

That was a most excellent thread jeremy......when you coming back to florida?

Nope. Lucky MFer, Ol' Go-Gar.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/387691-gogars-trip-nasa-w-lots-pics.html

Jeremy, It's tough to like you sometimes......

But I'll keep trying.

Here is the view that I had of the launch pad. I think I was 12 miles from launch pad 39a. The white roof in the photos was 4.5 miles into the foreground compared to the launch pad.

This is with a 300mm lens.

Here's a cropped shot. I was pretty sure that via binoculars I could see a little of the orange external tank and I think I can see it in this photo too. It's just a sliver of color on the right hand side of the tallest part of the launch pad
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1273984522.jpg

And here is the original uncropped shot (other than both shots being resized)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1273984570.jpg

I'll have a series of launch photos shortly.

I've got a series of about 50 pics showing the launch from beginning to end.
STS-132 Space Shuttle Launch


Here are a couple of the highlights.

http://home.swbell.net/smasraum/laun..._launch_10.jpg

http://home.swbell.net/smasraum/laun..._launch_13.jpg

http://home.swbell.net/smasraum/laun..._launch_20.jpg

Steve, what are those dark horizontal bands on/in the water? Are they shadows of clouds on the surface, compressed by the telephoto lens so they look thinner?

Oil plumes...:eek:

I think there are two liftoffs left. I told my son (14 YO) I'd like to see one take off before they end. I still remember when the first one landed. I was working at TGI Fridays in Atlanta. Everybody was cheering and clapping like crazy!

Better late than never, I guess. Yes, it was a bit cloudy that day. I think that's what they were.

Hey, I'd found this site a while back and used it to download some cool car vids. It's like youtube, but it allows you to download the videos.

Well, I just found videos by NASA that you can download, including videos of specific launches. If you saw the launch this year mentioned in this thread, check out this link. You can download some videos of the launch and other mission stuff.
I did a search for "NASAkennedy" which is the "user" that uploaded the videos, and 132 which is the launch number.
http://vimeo.com/search/videos/search:nasakennedy%20132/f5d8e3d3

If you just search on nasakennedy, you get a large list of videos including those of several other launches. If you didn't see 132, but you saw some other launch, it may be there.

When I lived in Orlando, I used to watch them from my front yard. Night launches are spectacular!

Best places to watch this death-trap take off? The bridges across the Indian river.

This aircraft has lots of problems, and I cannot help but think that these problems [centering on the thermal insulation] could have been solved with a second generation of this vehicle. i wanted to fly it bad when I was a kid, but these days I'm not sure I'd fly it if offered a chance. You really don't "fly" this vehicle, you simply monitor it, kind of like an Airbus. But I'm not convinced that it is safe any more, that is what bothers me.

We will never explore space until we come up with an easy and obvious and safe and economical substitute for chemical rockets. I suspect that we will never do this, and "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" will remain fantasies. We will put humans on Mars, some moons of Jupiter, and perhaps even Pluto...but other than that we cannot leave. Space travel is extremely difficult.

N!

Its going to happen. Space shuttle tech is pretty old. 80's & 90's tech, when viewed against what we have today is pretty crude. We just really need to apply ourselves. Privatization will finally provide some competition to NASA and their contractors, pushing them to expand their mindset. I am really hopeful that we'll see an advanced next-generation reusable platform in the next 10-15 years.

Found a cool link. It's got tons of photo (hi-res) and video of many of the various shuttle missions. For instance, for the mission that I saw launch in May, it's got over 600 photos of everything from launch, to spacewalks, shuttle, earth, moon, iss, astronauts and the landing. Some are VERY cool.

HSF Space Shuttle Gallery

some lo-res versions

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...023e044476.jpg

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...023e044611.jpg

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...023e044899.jpg

Hard to see in this low res, but the moon and ISS are in the background.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...132e012320.jpg

How loud was it from your viewing area?

There was a cool low rumble, but I wouldn't call it loud. I was about 12ish miles away. I'm jealous, apparently a bunch of folks that are on Twitter got to participate in a "tweetup" (whatever the hell that is) and were in the VIP viewing area which is only about 2 miles from the pad.

Here's a video from one of those folks.
Atlantis STS-132 Launch at NASA Press Site as part of NASA Tweetup on Vimeo

Here's a cool video of the launch from NASA
The Launch of STS-132 on Vimeo

This is a VERY cool video of a night launch (sts-131) that includes telemetry showing speed, altitude, distance from pad, G-forces, etc...
Launch of STS-131 via Discovery in HD - 04/05/2010 on Vimeo