Yesterday, Mack and I made another epic trip down to Cape Canaveral to (finally) see the delayed launch of the Discovery to the International Space Station. In case you missed the news (which, if you don’t live in Florida and have no interest in happenings of NASA like a majority of the nation), it was originally supposed to launch on Wednesday of last week but that delayed. This delay was caused by a leak in the liquid nitrogen vent line between the shuttle and the external tank. Mack and I have seen plenty of videos of space shuttle and rocket launches GONE BAD and know that had they ignored that leak and just gone ahead, it would have been a nice big BOOM and we would discover why there is a three and a half mile radius of DO NOT ENTER zone around those shuttle launches.
But I digress.
The launch was scheduled for 7:43p.m. EDT and is about two hours away from where we live so naturally around 2PM I started harassing Mack that it was time to go like, TEN HOURS AGO. After taking my word to heart he burned an audio book of “Four Hour Work Week” for the drive down and off we went, around 3PM. Unfortunately for him and that audio book, I was in a very Irish mood due to the Irish Festival the day before so the two-hour trip was spent listening to Flogging Molly which, frankly, put me in a damn fine mood. I didn’t even mind when we took the Kennedy Space Center exit that the lights were out and it was a cluster-f**k every-whichway. Mack was on it though and was like “HOLD ON” as he got back in the freeway north and took the exit towards the Space View Park which, as it turns out, EVERYONE had thought of before us. Oh yeah, and their dogs too.
It wouldn’t have been as bad if the launch had:
- been on Wednesday since people work on weekdays
- a late (at night) launch.
But c’est la vie and do you see a parking spot? Did you see that woman and what she is wearing? As we inched through the area, with the teeming masses of humanity sitting and walking slowly on every square inch of that park, we looked at each other and decided it might be best to go sit in a dumpster instead. At least there we might be alone and have our space. Luckily, before we resorted to that, we went through a neighborhood and saw a sign inviting those who wanted to watch the space launch to view it (for free!) from their backyard. Cautious, we parked to check out what the deal was and oh my, straight shot view of the launch pad from across the water and much better then we’d be able to do at the park.
We were happy campers. So happy that we didn’t let the kids on my left (who’s parents gave them cinnamon rolls, energy drinks, potato chips and wondered why their kids were on a sugar rush) annoy us too much.
From the patio behind us, where the owners and their friends were watching the launch, they yelled out the countdown and all fifty pairs of eyes on their lawn looked across the water and witnessed NASA’s brilliance at work:
You can see the rest of them at my flickr set for the launch.
Obviously, the launch was amazing, awe inspiring, the whole nine yards. The part that SUCKED, though, was trying to leave the town. You can tell even that, even though there is a “Space Viewing Park”, this town does not believe in having a good infrastructure to handle the multitude of tourists who come in for launches. We left directly after the launch about 7:55PM and managed to get back the I-95 freeway about 11PM (we stopped for food for about 15 minutes at around 10:30PM since I was getting sick to my stomach). This, of course, meant we were home by 1AM which SUCKED. Worth it, but SUCKED.
Technorati Tags: space launches, discovery shuttle space launch, STS-119, cape canaveral, florida, launches, launch photography, NASA
