Sunday was slightly busy. The day started with Jackson's baby dedication at church. Grandmother and Mom and Dad made it down for the occasion and we all enjoyed an early lunch afterwards. Early, because we had to get to Florida before Monday morning.
Early last year, me and our old friend Mark Zeien hatched a plan to see a Space Shuttle launch in person. In August, we purchased tickets for STS-125 and were lucky to get them as they sold out in less than 5 minutes! The launch was originally scheduled for October 2008, but a few weeks before the launch Hubble suffered a serious failure and the launch was postponed indefinitely. Early in 2009, the launch was re-scheduled for May 12, a Tuesday. Knowing it was 2 days after the baby dedication, we revived our Florida travel plans.
I had been hoping to fly ourselves down as it would cut the considerable travel time in half. Remarkably, as the date approached NASA actually advanced the date by 1 day. Now we'd have to make the entire trip on Sunday since me and Mark had to report to the space center by 6AM Monday morning. Unfortunately, the lack of schedule flexibility made it very unlikely that we'd be able to make the long flight in visual conditions and as Sunday morning passed, this turned out to be the case. North Alabama was covered in light rain while the rest of the route had perfect weather!
We hopped in the car and hit the road about 3:45PM and after 12 hours and 2 stops to feed Jack, ourselves and the car, Cocoa Beach welcomed us with the Shuttle illuminated against the dark night sky by dozens of high power spotlights. It was a magnificent sight.
After catching a thirty minute nap, it was time to get ready and head to the space center with Mark. Originally, it was just going to be me and Mark, so we only had two tickets. Fortunately, you can see the Shuttle launch from almost anywhere in the area and in fact Laura and Jackson were able to go back out to the causeway where we first saw the shuttle from. Meanwhile, me and Mark were on NASA property about 6 miles from the pad. After a remarkably smooth countdown, Atlantis blasted off on it's way to the Hubble space telescope! About 35 seconds later, the sound of the launch reached us and 8 minutes later the shuttle was in orbit. Meanwhile, it took two hours for me and Mark to make the relatively short trip back to the hotel...
Ignition!
Liftoff!
Clearing the tower, already traveling at 100mph!
Beginning the roll:
Rolling:
On its way!
1 comment:
If this was anybody but you guys, I would laugh and consider it a tall tale! What a story! Too bad Jack will not remember any of it.
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