Blade Edge

It was a tense several minutes, sitting in my friend Dustin’s 7-series BMW as we idled behind a long line of traffic on rt46 – still some 15 miles from our viewing location in Titusville and about 2 hours from launch time. “there’s no way this can be launch traffic” mutters Dustin as he pokes the nose out to try to get a view at what could be causing the hold up. I was begging the 2-bar E reception on my iPhone to load Maps with traffic faster so we could see the extent of the jam. The cars ahead of us inched forward a bit – a couple turn around. I’m not really starting to panic, but I can’t help having horrible thoughts of telling people I was a few miles away stuck in traffic trying to get into Titusville and missed the shuttle launch. Perhaps we should have left sooner? Hopefully this is just some accident? Dustin is telling me how dangerous this rather flat and straight road can be since people like to open up a lot along the stretch of narrow highway. I’m trying not to look at the time, so it seems like 30 minutes before the line of cars ahead of us starts to move at a steady pace. Dustin is vindicated, and I’m feeling quite relieved as we pick up speed towards our final destination. A  mile or so down we pass a garbage truck on the opposite side, and a guy walking his motorcycle on our side of the road, but can’t figure out what held up traffic for so long.

A few minutes later we are in Titusville, capital city of the Florida Space Coast. The original plan is to head to a lesser-known location Dustin is familiar with south of the city, but driving through the city we see cars lined along the street and people making their way to the bridge spanning the water, leading to the Kennedy Space Center and rising a good 60 feet or more over the water’s surface. People living along the road were making a killing off selling parking spaces on their lawn, and after a brief discussion we decided to follow the masses. Parking and paying $10 for the privilege, we hoofed it roughly 1.5 miles to the causeway bridge, which was completely packed with people. The poor Sheriff and his posse of vehicles was trying to come over from the opposite side of the bridge as we were walking up with the crowd of people. “Everybody stop… just… stop moving. Stop.” Came the plea over the bullhorn as the vehicles crept across.

We halted on the top of the span, with a clear line of sight across the way to the Vehicle Assembly Building and the shuttle launch pad. About an hour remained until launch and we were both coaxing the low reception on our phones to cooperate so we could be notified as soon as possible to a launch scrub. Both of us knew that if it happened, we needed to get out of there as casually as possible to try to avoid alerting the other people clustered on that bridge if they didn’t know too. The causeway was abuzz with thousands of space enthusiasts, most decked out in some form of space-related apparel but some even had on orange and blue flight suits and were posing for photos like cosplay at a gaming convention. As we waited the clouds overhead very, very slowly drifted off to the northeast, and a clear patch of sky was developing to the southwest, but didn’t quite make it to the launch pad. The roar of jets filled the air and we looked up to see two F-15 Eagles on patrol several thousand feet overhead. A NASA Huey came buzzing low along the length of the bridge, a camera in its open door, and I climbed atop the road berm to wave. Have not yet found the footage – if there is any. A Coast Guard helicopter was also flying around the area and off in the distance you could see some more helicopters circling the launch pad.

A guy showed up in our area toting a portable radio tuned to NASA so we were able to hear the “go, no go” checks in the final minutes before countdown resumed. Dustin gives me the thumbs up with a wide grin as I stand atop my road berm on the backside of the bridge to see over the crowd and he stands listening by the radio – he’s a tall guy. It’s 11:20 – six minutes before launch – and you can feel the excitement building as people stop conversing here and there and begin to gaze across at the distant launch pad. 11:24 and almost all conversation has ceased – you can hear more radios updating the crowd. 11:25 and a hold is put in place at T-minus 31 seconds to confirm that the nose cap has indeed retracted fully out of the way. A few tense minutes of quiet buzzing conversation ensues as everyone waits for the radio to tell us all is well. 11:28 and the countdown is resumed. Silence reigns until the count reaches “10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5…” the collective crowd countdown breaks into cheers as the puff of smoke beneath the launch pad signals main engine ignition. “WHOOOOO!!!” is the common cheer that goes up as the bright line of fire representing the shuttle at this distance lifts off the pad.

I’ve watched a ton of launches on video, and one of the things you can appreciate while watching it “zoomed out” without a camera focused on it is how fast it shoots up. I mean, you know it’s going fast when you watch it on TV but to see the big picture and watch it zip up towards the clouds is a completely different experience. It passed through a thin cloud layer briefly before then vanishing with a small blaze of reflected light into the main cloud layer overhead 40 seconds after liftoff. It took about half that long for the low rumbling noise of the engines to begin washing across the bridge, bringing up another round of cheers. Then, a little over a minute later Atlantis was clear of enough atmosphere to throttle back up and a crackling rumble descended from the heavens that was even louder than the initial takeoff. Let’s all cheer one more time!! WHOOOOO!!!!!!!!

The short-lived but awe-inspiring spectacle over, it was time for the mass exodus back over the bridge. Titusville is no stranger to launch crowds, even if this was the biggest ever, and had a well-planned exit strategy for people driving out of town. We reached Dustin’s car in about 20 minutes and pulled right out into the slow-but-steady traffic heading north to the major highways. Cutting down some backroads we were once again on rt46, Dustin’s “back door” road, and again moving at a slow but steady pace towards I-95. Once the majority of the traffic got onto the highway, we were cruising back to his house in Oviedo, arriving less than an hour after we left the launch viewing. Next up was watching the recorded launch footage from NASA TV on the big screen to see the ascent after the shuttle passed through the clouds.

Huge amounts of people and a 30% no-go chance due to weather didn’t have my hopes very high for a successful attempt at both getting to see the launch and the launch actually happening, but we got in, got out and the launch went off perfectly. It’s an experience I’ll never forget and one I am glad I took the time to chase down (after missing on my first attempt last November when I tried to see STS-133 lift off). It’s sad that I’ll never get to experience it again now that the shuttle program is on the verge of being retired, but there is plenty of exciting things to look forward to in the future. Virgin Galactic, anyone? Keep your eyes on the private sector. NASA still has great plans for unmanned exploration but I agree it’s important we get humans back up there as soon as possible pushing the frontier forwards. Don’t stop wanting to be astronauts, kids! We’ll bee needing you again sooner than you think!