A man made sun, originally uploaded by soulflysd.
I had been doing some research on NASA and shuttle launches earlier in the year and thought to myself “Why don’t I go see that while I am living here?” My dad and I decided that we would make the 560 mile treck across the south to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
We ran into some problems along the way but ended up getting there 10 minutes before the launch. We followed the directions my dad had got from mapquest and ended up right next to the Astronaut Museum about 2 miles or so from the launch pad.
We pulled up and everyone was parking on the street so we followed suite. Got my cameras and locked up my car. Found a spot to set up and started looking to the right and listening to the PA system that was giving us updates. At 90 seconds to launch I started to freak out cause I was afraid of missing it - then all of a sudden i could hear the countdown from 19 seconds. Once the engines ignited the sky lit up like an explosion or atomic bomb was going off.
Even from 2 miles away you could feel the static electricity in the air.. it only took a few seconds for the shuttle to clear the tree’s and start rocketing away. We could feel and hear the sonic booms that are trademark sounds of a shuttle launch - this was definitely the aspect that made me realize it was all real and happening in front of my eyes. I tried to get as many pictures as I could and think this one has got to be the best one. I took a few pictures on my 35mm camera and will look into getting digital copies of them once I see if they turned out.
I can honestly say that this was hands down the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I got to watch a modern engineering marvel blast off of the Earth and carry 7 people to space. I would strongly suggest that everyone take the opportunity to see this once in their life.
Godspeed on your work Endeavor crew of STS-126, thank you for putting on one hell of a good show!
