Well, that might be overstating the case a bit. But here’s the thing. I got to see TWO rocket launches this week! I’ve been in Daytona Beach for just this purpose, to try to catch a launch, thanks to some lovely and generous friends who let me use their timeshare points. So Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are just about an hour away and easily accessible from here. I could probably even have seen a launch from where I’m staying, but the point was to get as close as possible, to hear the thunder, and maybe even feel it.
So to actually see two launches, I am, as they say, over the moon, even if the rockets were just going to low earth orbit. Here’s the story of the first one.
Nusantara Lima
The Nusantara Lima communications satellite was set to launch from Cape Canaveral, SLC-40 (Space Launch Complex), on a Falcon 9 rocket a couple days before I arrived, but it turns out that September is kind of monsoon season in Florida. In fact, without realizing it I actually chose the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season for my adventure! Anyway, the launch got scrubbed the day before I arrived, a Monday, and also the night I arrived, Tuesday, when it was raining quite a bit. I was watching the live stream, and they went ahead with propellant loading and all the rest. It looked like they might actually pull it off, but they scrubbed at T-18 seconds. One commentator said, “Welcome to Scrubtember!”
The next day brought more rain, but it was kind of clearing in the afternoon, although still pretty windy. The launch was scheduled for about 8:00 p.m. EDT. I decided to take a shot at it and drove to Space View Park in Titusville. This is across the Indian River from KSC and CCSFS, about twelve miles from the various launch pads. It has a good reputation as a viewing site, as the name of the park implies. I set out about 6:00, which would give me about an hour to get my bearings before the launch.
EXCEPT they scrubbed while I was on the way down! Well, that was inconsiderate of them! Especially since they had run down to 18 seconds in the pouring rain the night before. Admittedly, it was windy, and the weather was worse around the Cape than in Daytona, but still. I got out anyway and went to look around the park. It turns out to be two parks, Space View on one side of an inlet and Veterans Memorial on the other, although they share a bridge and design elements, but I didn’t find all that out until later. This night I found the commemorative sculpture to the Mercury Program with plaques about each of the first seven U.S. astronauts. Pretty cool! There is a pier that juts out into the river with a little cabana at the end, and another shorter one just off to the side. Good places to watch from. In fact, you can see several launch pads and the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) quite easily.
I met a fellow who was also poking around the park hoping to see the launch. It turns out he is a veteran of several launches there. He had been out both nights before, so this was his third scrub for this mission. He was quite the chatty fellow. I think he said his name was Randy. Let’s call him Randy. He pointed out where SLC-40 was, that one lit up all the way to the left. Cool. Another fellow showed up, Bob, similarly disappointed and similarly chatty. As an introvert, I had only to stand and nod and occasionally say, “No kidding!” as the other two had it out. We killed about an hour, I suppose, and that was about it for my peopling batteries, so I excused myself and headed back to Daytona.
Come! We Try Again!
Thursday looked better, at first. The morning was pretty clear and the forecast was patchy. Storms started popping up around 1:00, like they do, and it kind of stayed spitty and breezy. Predictions were 40-45% chance of launch. Having come all this way, I wanted to take every possible chance to see a launch, and you just never know. So off I went again, back to the park in Titusville. As the night before, it was breezy and cloudy. This time there were quite a few more people waiting and hoping. The launch window was two hours, so they had anywhere between 7:58 and 9:56 p.m. EDT to give it a go. Shortly after arriving at 7:00-ish, T-0 (read “Tee zero,” the estimated launch time) slipped to 8:28, and before long it was 8:44 and 8:58. I walked around the park to get my steps in and see what was there. I had seen online that there were markers for all the space campaigns, not just Mercury, and I wanted to see them. I found them on the other side of the park, as noted earlier: Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle all have their logo sculptures and lists of astronauts. Very cool. Good way to kill some time, too.
Along the way, T-0 went to 9:28, and it started raining. That thinned the crowd down to just a few of us, including Randy who was back, and Linda who had grown up nearby and worked for a contractor at KSC in the 70s. The rain stopped, but T-0 slipped again to 9:56, the end of the window. I decided to stick it out, anyway. I didn’t really think they would fly that night, but I’d kick myself if they launched and I missed it. One weird thing that reinforced my doubt was that the pad Randy had pointed out as LC-40, which had been lit up the night before, was now dark except for flashing beacons on the lightning rod towers. Yeah, they don’t even think they’re going go if they don’t have the lights on.
Nevertheless, propellant loading would have to start 35 minutes before launch. If the launch director didn’t give the order, then it would be another scrub, which we all expected. But lo, and behold, word was given, and they started prop load on schedule. Huh. Still 40% chance of GO for launch, but another good rehearsal for the ground crew, I guessed. More people started showing up in the last half hour and finding their places for a clear view. Still, why aren’t they turning on the lights at the pad, I wondered? I had tuned in to the live stream from Next Space Launch on YouTube on and off through the window. They seemed as surprised as anyone that the countdown was proceeding.
Finally, it got down to T-40 seconds and the flight director gave the GO for launch! Wow, they might actually do it! We (Randy, Linda, and I) found our various spots to watch, hoping against hope.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
The horizon lit up all the way to the right of VAB, exactly on the opposite side of the complex from where Randy had assured us pad 40 was! We had been looking at the wrong pad all night! No wonder the lights weren’t on! No time for recriminations now, the rocket is launching!
It was as if the sun had crept above the horizon without lighting the whole sky. A bright red-orange streak and a surrounding sphere of light spread across the horizon and lit the low hanging clouds, all reflecting on the water of the Indian River! It was spectacular! Ever so slowly the ball of light rose for maybe twenty seconds before being swallowed by the clouds. Then the clouds themselves began to glow and shift as the light tried to burst out from within them. For one more brief moment the rocket appeared to us through a gap in the clouds before diving back in to be lost to our sight for good. About a minute into flight, around the time the rocket was going supersonic, the rumble of the launch reached us. Low and slow at first, it built to a thunderous crescendo with the characteristic crackle of the engines over top. It wasn’t loud enough or close enough that we could feel it in our bones, but it seemed to fill the whole sphere of space in front of us. It went on and on and on and on Even though the light from the escaping rocket was long since lost, the sound went on and on.
Eventually, it settled and quieted. All returned to normal. A wispy vapor trail going up from the (actual) launch pad was all the evidence that remained. But I had seen a launch! Maybe not the most glorious to behold, but glorious nonetheless. To think that we mere mortals can routinely constrain and concentrate that much energy to hurl tons of material into space at 17,500 mph or more is simply remarkable. That I had the opportunity to just go and watch it happen gives me great pleasure and fills me with gratitude. The privilege is not lost on me. And there is much about the modern space age that is troublesome, raising moral and ethical questions about our stewardship of the environment and of space and who gets to decide about such things. But dang, it’s an amazing thing to see a rocket leave the earth.
A Pilgrim of Earth and Heavens 
One thought on “To Boldly Go”
Comments are closed.