Kevin's Watch

A night-time launch is the best for watching lift-off from my front yard. The bright orange plume that twinkles through the leaves of my neighbors trees fading to what looks like a white airplane dot by the time she clears the top of the tree line. Then the awe as the white dot itself grows fainter and fainter.

G-dspeed, crew of the Endeavor. Safe return in two weeks...

Amen.

A shame this sight is not to be repeated, but that was the last of the night launches of the STS...

Then I'm doubly happy Hyperception got me up for it.
We had agreed for the launch scheduled the night before, but since it was canceled, he let me sleep.

He made no mention that the launch was rescheduled for this morning, so I did some work on the Watchies until 3:00 am, then went to sleep. Imagine my grogginess an hour later when he woke me at 4:00 am to say, "It's going."

"What's going?"
"Endeavor."
"They rescheduled it for today?"
"Yeah."
"Is it cloudy outside? I really don't want to get up if it's cloudy."
"I'll check."
*shuffling*
"It's crystal clear, and five minutes to go."
"You waking Beorn?"
"Yeah..."
"OK..."

Still, it was worth it.

I'm happy for you, Menolly, but sad for myself that it's something I've never witnessed in person, and now there's no chance of it.

I am sorry you never got to see it either, neo. Perhaps one of the daytime launches yet to come...

The best launch of a shuttle I've ever seen was the first one I ever saw, when I was a passenger on a commercial jet flying from Jacksonville to Miami so I could attend Omnicon. The airplane flight was delayed half an hour with no explanation given.

When we were parallel to Cape Canaveral, all of a sudden the intercom came to life in the passenger cabin:

"This is your captain speaking. If you look out of the left side of the plane, in a moment you should see the space shuttle breaking through the top of the clouds."

...and he was right.

It was a marvelous site. I have no idea how close we really were, but the shuttle was not just a speck in the sky. We could see the shuttle, the two tanks, the plume of smoke that jigged and jagged, instead of rising in a straight column as my imagination had always pictured it.

The rocket and booster tanks appeared to my vision to be about six inches high. And although I did get to see a lift-off from the beach across from the launching pad one time, to see it in mid-flight was awe-inspiring...

I only had a cheap instamatic camera at the time.
But to this day I wish I had it with me in the passenger compartment, instead of packed away in my checked luggage. Even a photo from a cheap instamatic of the shuttle in mid-flight like that would have been cherished.

To this day I think the captain purposely delayed the flight so we would see the launch.

What you should do is track down that captain, and not leave until he shows you his own photos of the launch!

(You were too busy flying the plane, Mister Captain? Sure, sure, I believe you...)