From New York to Orlando: We flew into Orlando from Newark and one of the highlights of the Orlando leg was witnessing our very first (and probably last) space shuttle launch. Discovery blasted into space on Saturday, May 31, 2008 and although we were about 20 km away from the launch site, it was still an amazing sight and the atmosphere was good. People cheered as the shuttle left a trail of white cloud (which is actually a steam cloud caused by its heat reacting thousands of gallons of water dumped onto the launch pad just before take off to protect the area from catching fire from the intense heat) behind. We got to Titusville, the next nearest town from Cape Canaveral just in the nick of time, a couple of minutes before lift off at 5.02pm EST. It was bloody hot and of course the best spots were already taken. But then we saw some people watching from the river with a rather unobstructed view and decided to wade into it out of desperation for a good view. Fortunately, it was low tide and a good roll up of our bermudas did the trick. It was all over within two minutes. We stayed behind to catch the rocket boosters disengaging from the spacecraft but lost sight of it after a while. We stayed in Orlando longer than necessary just so we could catch the momentous event. It was a perfect day (though a tad too hot) for a launch, with a rich blue sky peppered with clouds and an absence of wind. Awesome!
The water looks icky but it was alright. It actually cooled us off a bit!
As close as my wide angle lens could go...
Notice that speck of white in the distance off center right?
From New York to Orlando: We flew into Orlando from Newark and one of the highlights of the Orlando leg was witnessing our very first (and probably last) space shuttle launch. Discovery blasted into space on Saturday, May 31, 2008 and although we were about 20 km away from the launch site, it was still an amazing sight and the atmosphere was good. People cheered as the shuttle left a trail of white cloud (which is actually a steam cloud caused by its heat reacting thousands of gallons of water dumped onto the launch pad just before take off to protect the area from catching fire from the intense heat) behind. We got to Titusville, the next nearest town from Cape Canaveral just in the nick of time, a couple of minutes before lift off at 5.02pm EST. It was bloody hot and of course the best spots were already taken. But then we saw some people watching from the river with a rather unobstructed view and decided to wade into it out of desperation for a good view. Fortunately, it was low tide and a good roll up of our bermudas did the trick. It was all over within two minutes. We stayed behind to catch the rocket boosters disengaging from the spacecraft but lost sight of it after a while. We stayed in Orlando longer than necessary just so we could catch the momentous event. It was a perfect day (though a tad too hot) for a launch, with a rich blue sky peppered with clouds and an absence of wind. Awesome!
The water looks icky but it was alright. It actually cooled us off a bit!
As close as my wide angle lens could go...
Notice that speck of white in the distance off center right?
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