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| Liftoff Clip | Liftoff Clip | SRB Separation Clip |
This was my third trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida,
to see a space shuttle launch.
It's still summer in Florida, and when I arrived on the afternoon
of the 5th I was treated to a typical weather show. First was
tropical rain showers with the biggest raindrops I can recall
seeing in 15 years. Next was a series of thunderstorms that
drifted in and around the hotel I was staying at in Cocoa,
Florida. The weather provided most of the entertainment for the
first day.
Over the next two days, I made the obligatory visit to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and took the tour to visit the sights. Unless one is fanatical about such things (like me), it all looks about the same. The difference this time for me was that I brought a video camera with me to record the sights. I still have my digital camera, but the pictures would look about the same as when I was here last year.
The launch, for shuttle mission STS-106,
was scheduled for about 8:45 am local time on this morning.
Unless I wanted to spend time in several lines, I would want to
get to the Visitor Complex by 4:30 am to take a bus out to the
public viewing site. The buses didn't start to leave until 6 am,
and I wasn't in the front of the line, but the time went by
quickly. I ended standing in line next to someone from the state
of Washington who was in Florida for the previous Sunday's
Seahawks-Dolphins game (the 2000 NFL season opener). It turned
out that he's a family friend of the Huards, of University of
Washington quarterback fame; Damon and Brock are backup
quaterbacks for the Dolphins and the Seahawks. So we chatted
about football and space exploration while we waited for the
buses to leave.
Out at the public viewing site, the mosquitos were waiting. It
was especially muggy for 6 am, which often is the most
comfortable time of the day. On this morning, though, it seemed
much less comfortable than the previous two times I'd visited.
Everyone became involuntary blood donors during the pre-dawn hour
as we waited for the countdown to reach zero. The crowd for this
launch was larger than I'd seen, probably due to the fact that
the Visitor Complex is doing much more promoting of the
experience.
I didn't take any still pictures of this launch, since the
lighting and geometry was nearly the same as the launch I saw last May: it
was around sunrise and the launch was from Pad 39B. This time, I
recorded the launch from my video camera. A couple of snapshots
from the video are provided below. The sound, which is probably
the most unique aspect of see a launch in person, was a little
less intense than the first two launches. The cloud cover
probably contributed to this and to obscuring more of the ascent
from our vantage point. Below are three snapshots captured from
the video I shot and links to two clips. The first two pictures (the
left and the middle) point to the same ignition and liftoff clip.
The third picture points to a clip of SRB Separation. Links to
the same are also provided below. The video clips are Real Video
clips. They are Real Player G2 compatible.
If you don't have the player, click here to download the
latest Real Player directly from Real.com. Look for a link to the
Basic player, which you can download for free.
Or click here
to download the G2 player setup program -- note it's 2.7
megabytes!
Or send me an e-mail and I will get the setup program to you somehow.
If all goes well, all these factors will be different and I'll get to see another launch in about four weeks, which would be after sunset and from the other pad, 39A, which is closer.
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Last Revised: 9 September 2000
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