Go Discovery... GO!!!!!!

(yes, that's my pic, and yes, that's really what it looked like...)

Well, I can’t exactly hold you in suspense here, it’s pretty much front-page news around the planet that the big D blasted off in an absolutely picture perfect example of how it’s done yesterday at 4:53 pm.
What many headline readers will NOT catch, however, is that she almost didn’t. Through no fault of her own, either. More on that later.
Launch day for me started with the debate on when to go. My entry ticket specified I could not get in any earlier than 9:30 am, but my car pass stated that I couldn’t arrive any later than 12:30 pm. Much as I love KSC, I really didn’t want to spend 10 hours there in the baking sun, especially with nothing other than my $9 Walmart camping chair for accommodations. So the game became: how late could I depart and still make my entry window?
Rumours from the KSC staff and many locals were that the roads start clogging around here before sunrise on launch day, so I would have to consider this carefully. In the end I decided on leaving at 11:00 should work; hopefully the early birds would all be gone, and if not I still had an hour and a half to make what is normally a twenty minute drive.
The drive took, believe it or not, exactly twenty minutes. I never stopped the whole way.
This was but for the grace of God, because from my vantage point it appeared that the only roads in the entire county that hadn’t come to a screeching halt were exactly the ones I needed to get to KSC. Thankfully only one major road, the 528, was essential to get me over to the nearly secret back road entry on hwy 3. 528 is one of two main east-west causeways that bring traffic into the Cape and Cocoa beach, and the east bound lanes coming in were not only full, they had pretty much stopped. But the westbound side was free, and amazingly only but a handful of cars were getting off to go up the 3.
A few miles back from the space center I came upon a roadblock with two lanes. The left one was pretty backed up with guards explaining to folks that they couldn’t go any further, so I tried the right. I didn’t even have to stop, as soon as I pulled out my magic blue placard I was waved right through.
Nice.
(Note: This truly defies explanation, I really had a horseshoe lodged somewhere. Later reports from NASA stated the crowds around the Cape that day were some of the biggest they’d seen. EVER. Consider that some of the Apollo launches would pull in 1 million people, and you get the idea.)
And I just kept going, right on into the KSC visitor’s center parking lot. I even managed – don’t ask how – to bag a spot four rows back from the entrance. All the more incredible when you consider that there were at least 10,000 cars there already, and more on the way.
I then expected massive lineups at the entrance, but again was pleasantly surprised.
The gate operations for this were something on a scale I’d never seen there. Rather than using the usual five or six metal detectors inside, they had banks of them spread the entire width of the front entrance area outside with an army of guards for the bag searches. I actually got in quicker than my visit at Christmas. They should send the KSC security people out on tour to the airports to show them how it’s done.
Once through and back outside amongst the various buildings, though, it was a world gone mad.
There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people everywhere you looked. Lined up for buses. Lined up for food. Lined up for… I didn’t know, because I couldn’t see where the front of some lines went.
My main job at this point was to stake out a spot. I continued on out to the far reaches of the yard, starting at the rocket garden and working my way east. I came upon a huge clearing with bleachers, speakers and a big screen showing a live feed from the launch pad, so I set up shop. Looking around for a while, I realized that there were still a lot of buildings and trees obscuring the skyline in the direction of the pad, so I headed off further east to see what else were available. Finally, at the far end of the center, I found the “front lawn viewing area”. This is literally the last little piece of open grass in the north east corner of the property, and therefore is technically the closest you can get to the launch pad here. OK, I realize that an extra 1500 – 2000 feet at this point is a bit moot, but hey, why not. The other bonus is that, other than the KSC sign at the corner, the horizon is clear all the way to the tree line on the other side of the highway out front. And they also had the PA and big screen setup here as well. But even five hours before the launch, the place was nearly full. I carefully picked my way to the front corner, and as I looked around for a place to land an older gentlemen piped up… “The lady that was just sitting here in front of us has left, you’re welcome to grab her spot!”.
Awesome!
I was now front and center for the Greatest Show on Earth.
I spent the afternoon chatting with my new neighbors, a retired teacher by the name by the name of Larry along with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, who turned out to be very cool folks.
The family was originally from Iowa, and Larry and his wife now lived in Florida most of the year.
Even more than me, Larry was REALLY hoping Discovery was going to go today. Although he had seen launches from afar at his home in Ocala, none of them had seen one up close, so with the clock ticking to the end of the program he decided this would be it. However he was already out a considerable sum to fly his son and daughter-in-law down not once, but twice, as they had come down before for the earlier date that got scrubbed. So he was understandably most distraught at the idea of having to shell out for a third time.
Although it was scorching hot, the time went by pretty quickly. We got to follow along as the astronauts were suited up and all the systems were prepped, with Launch Control talking us through it all the way.
I had thought the area we were in pretty full when I arrived, but it was nothing compared to what it looked like by 4:00 pm. There litterally wasn’t an extra square inch to be had, as I looked back it was a sea of bodies all the way to the horizon.

With thirty minutes to go on the clock, things started to get tense.
Although Discovery’s systems were all A-OK, a problem cropped up the Range Control central computer. This meant that the Air Force command post that oversees all the tracking cameras for the shuttle and security was blind. And those cameras must be 100% operational in order for a launch to get the green light. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the most important is the need for Mission Control to be able to closely watch the condition of the SRB’s and the external fuel tank in case something goes wrong, as when a large piece of foam detached from the tank in 2003 and fatally damaged Columbia when she tried to re-enter days later.
Twenty minutes go by, still no go.
The angst is becoming palpable.
Launch Control now tells us that they will add a five minute hold to the count at T-minus 5:00.
But that’s all they can do, once past that the launch window to meet the space station closes, and if they can’t sort the cameras out by then the launch will be scrubbed.
Ten minutes to go. Still no Range computer.
T-minus 5 minutes. The hold begins.
3 minutes left. No word.
2 minutes left. Still negative.
1 minute left. ..
No range computer.
The place goes silent.
We’re all holding our breath.
With less than ten seconds of hold remaining (I swear I am not making that up) the radio crackles… it’s the Range Control Officer.
“We are go on Range!”
The crowd doesn’t go wild, they go absolutely apeshit.
The count resumes.
All the umbilicals begin to retract.
At T-minus 1:00 the orbiter goes to internal power.
Next stop, T-minus 0:31.
This is one of the most critical moments, as this is where the shuttle takes over 100% control of her own thought processes, and her four main computers have to look at what’s going on and decide within fractions of a second if they all agree everything is good. This doesn’t always happen, in fact it’s the exact reason the night launch I waited to see in 1990 got scrubbed.
The clock counts down. Everyone is now standing on their toes…
“T-minus 30 seconds, Discovery’s computers in agreement, go for launch!”
The crowd roars again.
“10, 9, 8… go for main engine start”
Sparks fly from the igniters and a brilliant flash lights up the big screen as Discovery’s three main engines blast to life. In this instant, they start consuming fuel at a rate that would drain the average swimming pool in about 25 seconds.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

And then, as Marvin the Martian would say,

KABOOOOOM

When the shuttle’s SRBs light, there’s no turning back.
Being made up of solid fuel, they are in essence the world’s largest fireworks. Once on, you can’t shut them off, you can’t even slow them down. They’re going to go wherever they’re pointed, taking with them whatever they’re attached to.
And they’re going go there in a hurry.
Luckily the three main engines on the orbiter are pretty powerful in their own right, and since they can be steered, they are very effective at keeping the whole package on track.
Although the forests across the road block our direct view of the launch, it takes only about five or six seconds for something to appear.
And there was no mistaking what it was.
A huge group gasp was heard as it suddenly lit up the sky over the trees, the fiery blast from each SRB clearly visible.
I thought they’d be bright up this close, but nothing like this…

I had taken my sunglasses of so that I could work both my cameras, but in that instant I realized this was a big mistake. It was like gazing into a welding torch.
For a few seconds I just stared painfully in awe, and then realized I had to get pictures!
I raised the camera and snapped away, trying to balance taking in what I was seeing “live” with looking through the viewfinder to save something for posterity. Not easy.
Then the sound hit.
I have to say that element was just a bit disappointing. After the ferocious roar I’d experienced in ’89, I thought this would be even more intense. In fact it was just the opposite, at no point do I think it ever got more than about a half as loud as when I had watched it from across the intercoastal.
I suspect the reason for this is the terrain. When watching it with mostly water between your viewing location and the launch pad, there is very little to attenuate the sound. Anybody who’s ever had a conversation with someone in a boat halfway across a lake at their cottage will understand how dramatic this effect is. However, the visitors’ center at KSC is squarely in the middle of a forest, and trees are some of nature’s best natural sound suppressors, so I guess it makes sense.
Still, this was no jet streaking across the sky. Even if a little toned down, there was absolutely no mistaking the deep, crackling roar of that supersonic exhaust.
Supersonic?
Yep. The minute they’re lit up, the exhaust gases traveling out the back of the SRB’s reach about 6,000 mph (about 9,400 km/h) or around Mach 8, if you prefer. This is in large part why they sound like they’re tearing the fabric of the atmosphere apart.

Discovery was having an absolutely textbook flight. She rolled over on her back right on cue, and then once through the point of maximum atmospheric pressure got the go ahead to throttle up… and did. Perfectly.
I relaxed a little and now took a moment to just drink in the sight of the huge, beautiful white contrail streaking upwards.

Not a moment later, they called SRB separation, and sure enough you could actually see the two long white pillars peel away, flames fading out.

Then she was no more than a little yellow dot.

And that’s when it hit me.
This was it.
The last time I, or indeed many of the folks around me, would ever see this show.

The plan now is to go back to small scale commercial rockets to get the job done, so it may be a long, long time before we see something the size and might of the shuttle again.
So if you are so very fortunate as to be able to get down to the Cape in early April to see Endeavour off, I HIGHLY recommend you do.
One rarely, if ever, gets the chance to truly watch history in the making.
Especially on scale that, not long ago, only the gods could have imagined.