Jonesing for a Launch
I grew up around launches. I remember a handful of special “plan-around-it launches”.
Shortly after moving to Orlando, Dad took Danny and me to Banana River to watch an Apollo or Skylab night launch. The icon-in-the-flesh black and white pencil stayed in its inverted spotlight cone longer than we stayed in Kelly Park to watch it. So I didn't see a Saturn V night launch.
We saw a bunch of launches over the next half dozen years, probably a few from across the intercoastal or - more likley - from Cocoa Beach. It was hard to live in Orlando and not catch a launch. Satellites on medium to light lift vehicles.
The Shuttle was a Big Deal.
My first sight of the Shuttle was at the landfill southeast of Orlando. Thirteen years old. We were unloading the trailer when the Shuttle on its 747 and a couple of T-38s flew by relatively low. Most drama at the dump was whether the van would get stuck in the mud after the frequent heavy rains - and that time someone dumped a couple of 55-gallon drums of adult magazines (it was like a swarm at samples at Costco).
John Young and Bob Crippen on STS-1 was unforgettable. It’s probably the only reason I remember Charles and Diana’s wedding (my girl friend was as interested in the Shuttle Maiden Flight as the Lady Di Maiden Flight). Rising east over the new streets and houses of the subdivision my dad built. Huge plume, clear fire, perhaps sound from 60 miles away (I don't remember the sound, but I remember the sight).
Always made it a point to watch a shuttle launch. I remember Cindy asking Barry and me why we’d always run outside to watch a launch. “I’m still amazed that planes fly.” Heck, Lonnie and I would pause our tennis game when a then-rare widebody airplane was on final to Orlando International.
After a while, though, it became somewhat routine. One Sunday morrning an approaching tornado’s roar startled me out of bed onto the floor for cover. Oh, shuttle launch. Run outside to catch it..
Caught few after moving to California. Flew into Orlando the night before the Shuttle’s last launch. Coincidence rather than a plan. Chaos at Orlando International at midnight. Oh, yeah, the final launch. - a big media event. In the morning, the weather was bad, traffic East was crazy. Didn’t think it would launch, didn’t drive out. My wife, young son, and I caught a bit of shearing contrail in a break in the clouds. Technically, we “saw” the launch, if not the vehicle itself.
My only memories of Apollo are the splashdowns. The splashdowns. #TheLeastInterestingPart.
I’ve heard the Shuttle’s landing sonic booms. Might have seen it hurtling to the cape.
I’ve never seen a powered landing… To this day. Bucket list...
SpaceX on YouTube
I’m old now, and the world is crazy. StaceX is my sun of inspiration.
I’m not sure when I really started becoming a SpaceX fan. I’m not sure when, but at some point I started making plans to watch their flights and landings. Social Media, mostly YouTube, is a great way to keep caught up with it all and see the activity. (I bet I can search through my Facebook and find out when I started getting really inspired by this).
Falcon Heavy was a Big Deal, literally, becoming the world’s most capable active rocket. Watching the livestream of the first launch, I gasped out loud when one of the feeds showed two boosters landing simultaneously. I had never seen that and was not expecting it. An actual gasp of shock and awe. Falcon Heavy first landing I know I was hooked after that.
Falcon9 transformed the present. Then there is Starship, which will transform our relationship with space.
Hyperbole? Perhaps. I did get caught up in the promise of the Space Shuttle which was supposed to drop the cost to orbit by two orders of magnitude but instead raised it by two. But I was in high school then, I trusted the sales pitch.
Fully and Rapidly Reusable. That's the transformation. When Rockets become like airliners, then we have a new relationship to space. It's just tweaking after that.
YouTube. Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut. LabPadre’s 24/7 livestream of the launch site. Scott Manley. All drew me back into a passion I had expended. Or thought I had.
It was a video from the crowd on the shore at the nearby Isla Blanca Park that got me thinking. Starship SN10 - Takeoff & Landing - View from Isla Blanca Park Beach. I love that crowd. I’d love to experience that. I should consider going. SN11 was already on the pad. In short order I had a flight booked, a tent site, and a car to drive around and then home. OMG! I’m going! I’m going! I was so excited.
Of course, with launch times being flaky, there were cancellations and rebookings (“what do you mean you’re going to try launching immediately after static firing on Friday?!”). By Saturday night, I was packed for an early Sunday flight.