Light blue touch paper and retire

[daveake]

From today's launch, by yours truly :D

http://jimsteinman.com/messageboard/user_images/33542_554.jpg

http://jimsteinman.com/messageboard/user_images/33542_555.jpg

These taken 12 miles from the launch pad!

[Pudding]

Awesome pics Dave, you lucky b@st@rd.

[AndyK]

I'm not jealous at all, no way, not in the slightest. Not even a little bit.

Neither am I bitter that when I was in Florida ten years ago the tour rep "forgot" to mention that the shuttle launch we all thought we'd missed had actually been delayed by a couple of days, so if the rep had got their finger out we could have gone to see it. :evil:

[howlerformeatloaf]

those are really good pics. Glad you saw the whole thing go all the way. I saw the one that blew up when I was in Fla. It was not very pretty to watch. It was horrible. I did take pictures but I dont look at them, but very good pics.

[daveake]

Awesome pics Dave, you lucky b@st@rd.

I know :-)

I've wanted to see a launch for ages, and when it was time to plan this year's holiday I checked for shuttle launches and chose our dates to give us the best chance of viewing one. The original date was for Thursday last week, and we flew out on Wednesday knowing that if there was a delay of a few days we'd still be here.

The view from "Space View Park" where we were was great, and the atmosphere electric. We got there 5 hours before scheduled launch, and even so the best spots were taken by people who got there up to 4 hours earlier than us! The place was packed about an hour or so before launch.

Dave

[daveake]

I'm not jealous at all, no way, not in the slightest. Not even a little bit.

Neither am I bitter that when I was in Florida ten years ago the tour rep "forgot" to mention that the shuttle launch we all thought we'd missed had actually been delayed by a couple of days, so if the rep had got their finger out we could have gone to see it. :evil:

Ouch :-(

Only about 30% of shuttles go up at the scheduled time, so we were very lucky that it did. We had cloud cover for a long time but that cleared before launch and the view was spectacular. The excitement in the few seconds before and after take-off was incredible.

Dave

[daveake]

those are really good pics. Glad you saw the whole thing go all the way. I saw the one that blew up when I was in Fla. It was not very pretty to watch. It was horrible. I did take pictures but I dont look at them, but very good pics.

That must have been awful :-(

This was apparently the most trouble-free launch and preparation even, with only about 60 "issues". Hope the rest of the mission goes as smoothly.

Dave

[Pudding]

Neither am I bitter that when I was in Florida ten years ago the tour rep "forgot" to mention that the shuttle launch we all thought we'd missed had actually been delayed by a couple of days, so if the rep had got their finger out we could have gone to see it. :evil:

We was on our honeymoon at Disney World (as you do) back in 1998 and missed John Glenn going back into space by a week :wall: Somebody's cat got kicked that day I can tell you :evil: