Viewing a Space Shuttle launch
 

My mother and I are visiting some relatives in Vero Beach in May. I've planned the trip to coincide with a Space Shuttle launch May 14th. Hopefully it doesn't get pushed back to the previous day.

Where is a good location to watch a space shuttle launch from? I suspect it's a bit late to try to get too close, especially since the shuttle program is winding down.

I'm hoping that there are some folks that are semi-local that can tell me some best kept secrets.

I went to college in FL in the late 80s and early 90s and never went to watch a launch. I'd really like for myself and my mother to get to see a launch before the program ends. If May doesn't work out, I might have to make a Shuttle launch only trip to one of the other summer launches.

Thanks

Steve, get in touch with mad mike. Send him a pm. He texted me last night with this very question.

Thanks, will do.

Dude, we are totally planning for the same launch. I'll send you a message tomorrow.

Please post where you guys are discussing going. I would love to hop down there with my 6 year old and see it.

Cool, this post from the other thread looks promising.


It should be a 65 mile trip from my Aunt's house for us. I just hope we get lucky and this is one of the launches that happens on time, or at least the same day.

My wife and I just watched Discovery last week. It was a 0621 launch and about 0515 we left the house and drove up to the Canaveral Causeway and found a nice spot to back the truck up to off the road. We joined about 5000 of our closest friends who had the same idea. We could see the Shuttle pretty clearly as it sat on the pad all lit up with spotlights. And the most miraculous part about the whole deal was that it launched exactly on time. That was the last of the scheduled nighttime launches. Hell we could see rocket launches from Daytona, 60 miles north no matter the cloud cover. A local radio station has the play by play.

Back in 1993 or 1994 I lived on the opposite side of FL (Tampa, Gulf Coast), and I was working one morning at about 720 when the guy on the radio said, "if you go outside and look east you should be able to see the shuttle." Well I did, and even from that distance, it was pretty awe inspiring. I can't even imagine what it'll be like in close proximity.

Woo Hoo, less than a week to go and the weather is supposed to be just fine.

Fingers crossed.

We're here at Manzo park as suggested. The weather is spectacular, 80ish with a great breeze. We can see both of the pads in the launch facility 39. Fingers crossed on a good launch.

Looks like it's gonna happen, even though there was a slight hitch when they discovered... what? ...a ball bearing... somewhere and had to make sure it was okay to go ahead.

It's being reported that there is double the normal number of spectators.

0 - approx. 1 mile per second in 120 seconds. Gotta love it. :)

Goodluck Atlantis!

The launch was spectacular! I took lots of pictures. The sound was amazing, and launch was perfect. We're getting pizza as suggested watching 1000 other people sit in traffic.

I watched it from my parking lot at work - amazing that I can see it 100 miles away!

I saw it from the space center and it was fantastic. My kids loved it (2 year old said 'Rocket! AGAIN!!!) Couldn't take his eyes off of it as it went up.

The 5 year old was reenacting it with his new toy space shuttle in the car, in the traffic on the way out.

We went with my Dad and his Wife, they drove. Big mistake. Ridonkulous.

We got there at 9am which was quite early but it was so crowded we basically didn't get to do much for hours. We went and looked at the display of the shuttle and then went through the gift shop and then to get something to lunch. By then we only had about an hour to the launch. After the launch my dad was like 'Let's Go.' Our original plans were to spend the entire day there - not leave before 3pm. I was ready to go look at the rest of the exhibits but apparently his wife needed a cigarette so bad she was willing to simply leave and wait for us in the car without any further discussion. **ck the fact that we flew cross country, bought the tickets and the resort accommodations to make the whole thing possible and had 3 kids (myself included) who have been dreaming about space flight their entire lives and wanted to see the f'ing exhibits! So, we left at 3pm to get to our hotel in cocoa (Ron Jon's) and didn't get to it until 5:30.

In the elevator my dad says 'aren't you glad we left early so we made it back to the hotel without messing with all that traffic?"

WTF?!

Man I could not be more irritated....

So now I'm going to have to go back tomorrow to see the rest of the stuff instead of just relaxing at the resort, maybe fishing a bit and what not.

Or...just let it go and keep the place on my list.

mike.....if it's not so crowded it would be much more enjoyable looking at the exhibits at you and your kids' pace, then having to deal with giant volumes of people.....i would head back, traffic on launch days are stupid......so any other day shouldn't be too bad.....

i was busy at the shop and totally missed the launch, even though i had an alarm set on my phone LOL

Thanks, Atlantis.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1273888610.jpg

You have GOT to be kidding me!

That is just too damn cool.

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