Day 20 - Cape Canaveral to Oak Hill (and Shuttle Launch)

Monday.

Warning. This rambling post and crummy pictures are not going to do any justice to the awesomeness of this particular Monday.

NASA Shuttle Mission STS-131 was scheduled to launch at 6:21am from Launch Complex 39, Pad A. This is the 4th to last Shuttle Mission. (Info on remaining missions)

I had set my alarm for 2:45am, but didn't need it. I was wide awake long before it went off.

Yuki and (?), the two Japanese visitors were the first to leave in the AM. They were out of the condo before 2:30am. Since they were special guests of JAXA (the Japanese equivalent of NASA), they were able to watch the launch from the Banana Creek Viewing Site. This is only 3 miles from the launch pad.

The rest of the gang (including me) went to watch from the NASA Causeway. This is approx. 6 miles from the launch pad, and offers an unobstructed view of the pad. From this distance, the shuttle is pretty tiny. About the width of a single finger held at arms length.


View Shuttle Launch Locations in a larger map

We passed through security, and entered the slow crawl of cars to the causeway. Eventually, we parked and found a great spot to watch around 4:30am. Less than two hours to launch.

The cars continued to trickle in and the crowds grew.


The causeway was set up with a PA system to keep everyone up to date on the launch. We got to hear the 'behind the scenes' chatter. It was all confusing to me, but luckily I was surrounded by a whole bunch of knowledgeable people. (Warning: My explanations below are probably painfully inaccurate, any corrections are encouraged) The time announced over the loudspeaker was T-30 minutes, but there was still 75 minutes until launch time. It didn't make any sense. However, I came to find out that there are several 'hold points'. The time counts down until a certain point, and then it's stopped while a number of other checks are made.

Apparently, one of the most critical check points is T-9 minutes (other than the actual go time, of course). They reached the T-9 minute hold, and had over 20 minutes in the hold period. During this period, a certain decoder sensor failed a check. The mission was put on "no-go"! I became concerned, but many of the veterans said they still had time to fix the problem. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, the some amazing NASA employees had fixed the problem, the sensor was working again, and the mission was put back on "go". Whew.

The final countdowns seemed to blaze by.
T-5 minutes 30seconds...
T-4 minutes...

Eventually, T-10 seconds was reached. The next 8 minutes were mostly a blur.
3
2
1

Liftoff.

The sky lit up, the rockets were so bright it was almost as if the sun had risen instantaneously.




The shuttle started rising, fast.

For at least 15-20 seconds it was completely silent, and then the sound finally caught us and thundered into my ears and my body. The vibration and noise was something similar to a very distant thunderclap, but it was amazingly continuous and powerful.

The shuttle continued to become smaller and smaller, but remained easily trackable all the way over the horizon.
The loudspeakers continued to give updates on the perfectly functioning shuttle.
"Shuttle is currently 5.4 miles above the surface of the earth, travelling at 5,700 miles per hour."
"Shuttle is currently 36.2 miles above the surface of the earth, travelling at 11,200 miles per hour."


Since this launch occurred just before sunrise, the shuttle and resulting exhaust clouds got hit by the sunlight before the sun broke the horizon. It resulted in some amazing visuals.



Eventually, the loudspeakers announced that after 8 minutes and 20 seconds, the Shuttle had officially reached orbit.

Wow.

We climbed in the cars and returned to the condo. I tried to take a nap, but wasn't terribly successful. A few hours later, I started packing my bicycle, put some new music on my Ipod, and finally said goodbye to Kim. I can't give enough thanks for letting me stay and taking me to see the launch.


Since things really seem to be working out these days, it was no surprise that the wind was behind me as I rode away.

I rode past the KSC (Kennedy Space Center), and through a very cool wildlife preserve to the north of the Center. I saw a number of cool birds, two very large alligators, and started to think that I hadn't seen any snakes so far on this trip.

Sure enough, a few miles later, I saw a big one in the road. He (or she) had just been hit by a car. Recently. It was still slithering back and forth. Not quickly, but it was still at little creepy to see it moving even though it was clearly dead. I'm pretty scared of snakes, but I still felt a little sad seeing the innocent victim.

That thought changed to relief, because I'm not sure what I would have done if it was still alive when I rode towards it. Stop and wait? Ride on the other side of the road? It was big enough that I wouldn't have been comfortable riding by on my side of the road.

Thanks to the wind, fifty miles cruised by with almost no effort, and sure enough, I was at my next Warmshowers host before 6pm.
I arrived in Oak Hill, and found out that I got to be an extra guest to the birthday of Nancy's grandchildren! Triplets turning 14.

So, after dinner, cake, ice cream, and watching an incredibly exciting NCAA B-Ball title game, I fell fast asleep.

What a long and awesome day.

Day 20 - 53 Miles
Trip to Date - 866 Miles

ps. If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for being patient.