Remember Sputnik? Remember gathering in your back yard at night, dressed warmly waiting for a small flash of light to appear in the north sky? When I was 11, in 1957, our whole neighborhood gathered in the vacant lot by a nearby Church. Kids, parents, grandparents, talking, running around, waiting, waiting for a small flash of light to zoom across the sky. ‘Look, there it is.’ And all eyes zeroed in on one small streak of white. It hurtled across the sky and afterwards, we all stood there in amazement, chattering about what we had just seen. WOW. A year later, America launched its first satellites and the space race was on. In April of 1961, Yuri Gargarin of the Soviet Union was the first to orbit the earth. America had chosen its astronauts and one month later, Alan Shepard of America orbited the earth. We all knew the names of the first astronauts; John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Virgil Grissom, Deke Slayton, Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter. We knew what they ate for breakfast. We all watched their flights and we all sighed in relief that America could, just like the Russians, launch a satellite into orbit and then a manned satellite around the earth and recover it.
I still remember those first heady years of the space race and today we got to witness a part of this great adventure. We got to see a launch of a rocket with that has the International Space Station as its destination. It was a rocket launched by SpaceX, a private company run by Elon Musk, and here I am quoting from their own website:
‘The now 4000-strong company was founded in June 2002, by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk with the initial goal of recapturing the public’s imagination with spaceflight, reducing the cost of access to orbit by developing reusable rockets, and making life multi-planetary by expanding humanity’s presence to Mars.
(‘Serial entrepreneur?’ I thought that was Kellogg.)
Tuesday, during dinner, we were listening to local news and heard that the latest space launch had been scrubbed and postponed to Saturday. Oh, wow. Serendipity. We’re here on Saturday. Could we possibly see it? Oh, no, it’s at 4:57 am. Got that? A.M. As in the morning. As in 90 minutes away from where we are. As in getting up at 1:45 and driving in the dark through Orlando over to the coast to watch a launch that might be scrubbed. You gotta know, we’re there. We didn’t hesitate. 2 days ago, Gary even signed up for Twitter so he could get the latest from SpaceX about the launch, and even get the countdown on his iPhone. We are pumped. This will be awesome.
One of the actual goals of the mission is to resupply the space station with 5000 pounds of: groceries, water, Christmas cards and presents, other supplies and then to bring cargo back from the space station to earth. However, a bigger goal is to try to recover the rocket by landing it after it dropped off from the launch on a platform in the Atlantic. If they could recover the rocket intact, they could use it again and make space launches much less expensive. Here’s a diagram I got from their website showing what they expect the launch to look like and how they expect the rocket to reach the platform in the Atlantic.
Recovering the rocket on an Atlantic platform had never been tried before but, and this is a big but, if they can get this done, it will cost the cost of getting something into orbit to only ‘1% of what it is today’, according to Musk.
Last night we planned where we were going to stop to see the launch, scurried around to get what we thought we’d need for an early exit from the RV: down jackets, hoodies, cameras, a bite to eat and went to bed at 9:15, unheard of for us, but we also had set the alarm for 1:45.
When it rang, we were up and out the door by 2:15, coffee in hand. Oops - no donuts. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs - I need something to eat on a long trip. Oh, well. Easy trip - at 2:30 am all the traffic lights are in your favor and there are few cars. We neared the Kennedy Space Center and kept going and going - as close as we could get. Oops, we were finally turned around by the guard at the gate and headed back out, where we noticed that others were parked in the dark along side the road. We pulled in, turned the car around to face the launch and got out to talk with others there.
What are the chances that one of the next cars held a family from Barnum, IA, 7 miles west of Fort Dodge, that they shopped in Fort Dodge, and that the guy bought supplies from my father’s lumber yard? Small world.
We were watching the countdown on the iPhone and listening to the preparations on the launchpad. 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes. I looked up at the actual launch pad, noticed a yellow/orange glow and sprinted out of the car with my camera in hand. I turned the movie mode on and began to shoot. Gary followed me. But, the countdown still had 2 minutes to go, What is that yellow ball hurtling skyward? Must be a trial balloon, the real launch will come in 2 minutes. Oh, no, this is the real launch - the iPhone has a 2-minute delay. We almost missed the launch. Whew.
Here are some pictures that I took from the SpaceX website showing the launch. My pictures show a huge bright light in the sky but none of the detail.
But we saw the launch, the separation between the rocket and the payload and it was so neat.
But it all happened so fast. It was gone and on its way to the International Space Station and the rocket then actually landed on the barge in the Atlantic though it was a harder landing than they wanted. ‘Close, but no cigar.’ Elon Musk said.
And we were on our way back to the RV, at 4:30. A stop at Perkins for breakfast where we watched it get lighter as the sun rose. Everywhere you go in Orlando are gift shops with a Disney theme.
We were back by 10:0. I chose to sleep for 2 hours then while Gary, who was filled with high-test coffee, stayed awake to try to do some computer work. When I awoke at 12:30, Gary decided to hit the rack and didn’t awake until 3:00. I think we’ll be in bed early tonight.
But what a day and what a great opportunity to see an actual space launch. It was thrilling and something I’ve always wanted to see.
They did recover the rocket on their platform in the Atlantic. However, instead of the ‘soft’ landing they had wanted, it came down hard and there might have been some damage. However, they did recover it on their platform and that is a great step forward.
It is now Monday, January 12 and I was doing some channel surfing and happened upon the NASA station - showing the catch of the satellite by the International Space Station - what a coincidence but now we know it was a successful landing.
No comments:
Post a Comment