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 a 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.
I saw Saturn launches but don’t remember them.
John Young and Bob Crippen on STS-1 was unforgettable. It’s probably the only reason I remember Charles and Diana’s wedding.
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 particularly large plane was on final to Orlando International.
After a while, though, it became somewhat routine. An oncoming tornado’s roar startled me out of bed and onto the floor one Sunday morning. 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. It was 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. Leigh, a young Dash, and I caught a bit of old contrail in a break in the clouds. Technically, we “saw” it.
My only memories of Apollo are the splashdowns. The splashdowns. #TheLeastInterestingPart. I’ve heard the Shuttle’s landing sonic booms. I’ve never seen a powered landing…
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 expected it. Shock and awe. https://youtu.be/l5I8jaMsHYk?t=92 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 of getting to orbit by two orders of magnitude but instead raised it by one. But I was in high school then, how was I to know?
Fully and Rapidly Reusable is the solution. When Rockets become like airliners, then we have a new relationship to space.
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 short video of the landing from a guy who was in this crowd watching SN10 land from the assembly area that got me thinking. https://youtu.be/y7ADmOhJhPI?t=376. 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.
Heading to Boca Chica: SpaceX Boca Chica