Courtesy of the Bad Astronomer:
A minute and 29 seconds isn’t bad. It’s better than listening to Vogon poetry anyway.
Posts Tagged ‘space’
The launch on August 8, 2007 of the Space Shuttle Endeavour went well. I had a pretty good viewing area right across from the cape in Titusville, FL. They won’t let you get very close to the pad. I messed up because there are two launch pads that the shuttle is launched from. It was hazy and they were just on the horizon, so I didn’t know which one to look at. I picked the wrong one and missed about the first second. The launch happens very quickly. That thing was up and out of sight in about 3 minutes and that’s with high power binoculars. The exhaust is also much brighter than it seems on TV. When it was low to the ground it almost hurt my eyes through the binoculars. The sound is odd too. Since you are far away the thing is pretty high before you hear anything, then it is a low rumbling that gets louder and shakes. It’s hard to describe as I’ve never heard anything like it. It is at a very low frequency. Here is a slideshow of the few pictures I was able to take.
It’s long been a dream of mine to see the launch of a space vehicle. I came pretty close back in 2003. I just happened to be in Florida in late June when I discovered that the second Mars rover, Opportunity, was set to launch. The night of the launch I waited on the beach along with about 50 or 60 other people, but a line of storms was moving in and the launch got scrubbed. I was gone by the time the launch actually happened.
Yesterday I was watching television and realized that the Space Shuttle Endeavour is set to launch this Wednesday. Since I am currently jobless and I don’t really have anything to do, I decided that it would be a perfect time to make the trip and see a launch. So I’ll be leaving out tomorrow morning and I hope to be there around mid-day on Tuesday.
