Watch a space shuttle launch

I went to Florida for Christmas, and we left two days before a shuttle launch! Dangit!
It’s OK though…I will see one someday.

I sometimes get into a funk where I think most of the people on the planet are huge assholes with no sense of proportion or ambitions for the future. I sometimes get to the point where I want to leave Earth and make my home in the abandoned villas of the long-vanished Martians (dark they were, and golden-eyed).

Then I’ll see something like the Space Shuttle leave from Cape Canaveral and all my faith in humanity as a species is instantly restored. We can do anything. We can solve any problem through application of science.

The current plan is to retire the Space Shuttle in 2010 (without a replacement vehicle until 2014… which is a dreadful mistake, and a topic for another day).

I will attend a launch before that time comes.

I think I’m gonna wander down to kennedy space center aug. 28th for a shuttle. It looks like the nearest one that will be shootin people off into space. It’s the final hubble mission at the moment, or something like that….....see ya there?

my list to goals that are attainable within the more short term range, and this isn’t one of them. I won’t make it to any launch site within the next year I’m quite certain, so for now this is being taken off the list.

The tickets finally came in the mail yesterday, now I just have to wait until the end of the month

I’ve dreamed about seeing a shuttle launch for at least twenty years now. I saw the Enterprise on its first gliding mission. I’ve seen it sitting in the museum in Washington D.C. Sometimes your dreams have a way of falling in your lap, and it turns out a trip to FL for other purposes happens to coincide with STS-124.

Got to do this in ‘05 when I was working in Titusville, FL. I got to meet people from everywhere. It was a good experience!

I bought tickets to watch the upcoming launch at the end of may from the Kennedy Visitor Center. I just hope they don’t move the date to one I can’t attend.

Two best places are on SR 528 near the cruise ship terminal exit, and on US1 in Titusille.

The Titusville locations are a bit closer (and look fantastic at night), but the on SR 528 has the local ham radio club, and htey have all sorts of good info, as well as a live feed from mission control broadcasting over a loud speaker.

In either event, get there a couple of hours early at least, and be prepared for a long drive through traffic afterwards.

Try looking through Flickr for space shuttle pictures, and see where the person took them.

Now that I live in Florida I have NO excuse