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Originally Posted by Baz
Hey Bugs - sorry you were not able to see one in person. It's a very unique experience and one that I will always remember with pride and awe. BTW, I went back and corrected my comment about STS 125 - it was the final mission to the Hubble - not the ISS.
Most of the shuttle launches I watched from my front yard (see pic below) or the beach a couple blocks away. That one STS 125 i was able to get a pass to get closer and watched with a good friend of mine from Michigan and his son.
I actually have some slides somewhere of the very first shuttle launch, which I took from the roof top of our family's Winnebago, which we drove down to Cape Canaveral on that very special occasion. They came out pretty good.
Yesterday, the 16th, you know, marked the final launch date in 2003, of the Columbia, doomed to disintegrate 16 days later upon re-entry due to a piece of foam breaking off of the external fuel tank and striking and damaging the left wing of the orbiter at launch. You may remember they shut the shuttle program down for two whole years afterwards (similar to when the Challenger blew up) until re-starting back up.
Here's Atlantis (STS 129) from my front yard.....
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Hey Baz,
Fantastic pictures!!
Yes I remember the day STS-107 came home.
That particular morning I was retrieving my motorcycle from our shed before my commute into Sac for work. I looked up before going in a noting how clear the sky looked and the gazillion(technical term) stars visible. Upon backing the motor out, I looked up again because of the bright purplish phosphorescence trail moving from west to east directly over the house caught my attention, created by a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed. Wondered about it then had to get going. I walk into work to find everyone glued to the news talking about the brake-up. Interesting that I also know what I was doing when the Challenger disaster happened. Walked right into my High School library to catch the launch just in time to see the explosion. My father recalls the college class he was in when they announced JFK's assassination. I guess it's human nature to cement significant events we are interested in into our grey matter when they occur.
Another interesting factoid we learned on our tour of the Cape was with regards to the metric tons of water they dump during ignition.
If I recall, it's not for fire suppression which is what I thought at first. I didn't realize it was for sound dampening. Guess the minimum safe distance is 3 miles, all due to the harmonic frequencies created during engine burn that can cause fatal internal damage to the human body.
Maybe someday I will be able to catch a launch, fingers crossed.
Violation Alert! I failed to post pictures that I took.[emoji51]editing now and inserting.
Grumpy coworker in the morning. One of the best movie quotes comes to mind. "If I was as ugly as you, I'd be a poster boy for a prophylactic". I think this applies to this case.
Parents pad
