> You lucky bastard! ;-)
I know :-)
I've wanted to see a launch for ages, and when it was time to plan this year's holiday I checked for shuttle launches and chose our dates to give us the best chance of viewing one. The original date was for Thursday last week, and we flew out on Wednesday knowing that if there was a delay of a few days we'd still be here.
I tried to get tickets to view from the NASA causeway which is about 7 miles from the pad, but they sold out in seconds. At least I thought they did but I found out yesterday that that was just a glitch on the website! Apparently they sold out in minutes instead ...
Anyway, the view from "Space View Park" where we were was great, and the atmosphere electric. We got there 5 hours before scheduled launch, and even so the best spots were taken by people who got there up to 4 hours earlier than us! The place was packed about an hour or so before launch.
Only about 30% of shuttles go up at the scheduled time, so we were very lucky that it did. We had cloud cover for a long time but that cleared before launch and the view was spectacular. The excitement in the few seconds before and after take-off was incredible.
So, now it's back to see Mickey and all the other Orlando stuff. With Grumpy and Goofy it's just like Rockman ;-)
Dave
|
