Shuttle Launch
April 5, 2010 6:21:25am EDT
Pad 39A
No sound. None at all as the shuttle climbed into the sky.
Of course I expected that. I had calculated that it would take over a minute before the sound hit. I knew it would be silent, yet it still surprised me.
In the final seconds of the countdown I had watched through the binoculars. I couldn't actually see the shuttle (I think it was behind the gantry), but I could see the gantry and the lightening rod, and the illumination lights. I could see small clouds of vapor wafting away from the gantry.
I knew the procedures. Only seconds away from launch I could see a non-red disturbance at the base of the gantry. I guessed that the sound suppression system, a 350,000 gallon water tower draining entirely over the course of just over forty seconds, had just kicked in. Then I saw a yellow/red disturbance under the shuttle, and I knew that the main engines had ignited. These three liquid fuel engines ignite and throttle up to full power a couple of seconds before launch. Only when their thrust has stabilized does the launch sequencer ignite the two side strap-on solid rockets. You can shut down the liquid engines, but once the solids light the bird flies, and there's nothing you can do for the two minutes it takes them to burn out.
Once I saw that yellow/red disturbance, I pulled the binoculars away, and watched with the naked eye. The very familiar clouds of exhaust and steam engulfed the ground, and I saw a ball of white start climbing into the sky. An entirely silent ball of white.
Of the many things I'd expected when I decided to actually witness a shuttle launch, one was to make the experience more real for me. I wanted to add some mortar to the huge monument of my shuttle experience. I have followed the space shuttle program closely from when I was 12 years old when president Nixon announced the program. With the advent of the internet, and largely SpaceFlightNow.com I have followed probably over three quarters of the launches in the last decade through SFN's Mission Status Center blog. With streaming video in the last three or four years I've watched probably three quarters of the launches live. I know the shuttle. Yet it's all very removed from me.
I'd expected that watching a launch would make it all the more real for me. Yet I'm amazed to find that it has almost done the opposite. Even with this writing I can't quite put my finger on it. The sound is certainly a big part, and the distance from the launch pad, but neither is it. I don't know why, but the launch seemed very surreal.
I'd heard that the shuttle launch is so loud that you can feel it pounding on your chest. I had thought that that sound would hit like a wall, but instead it was a very smooth curve of sound. That is, once the sound finally made it over the twelve miles to my location it was just a kind of ho-hum roar. Not much different from a jet engine. As the shuttle climbed into the sky it cleared ground obstructions and the angle improved so that it got louder and louder and louder until it finally did impact the chest. But in a way I'd expected more. Perhaps if I'd paid for a seat closer in the sound would be overwhelming, but from twelve miles away it was about the same as a Fourth of July finale. The kind where you have a bunch of those white-only chest-thumpers. I mean, yeah, it's impressive, but if you've seen a Fourth of July finale then you've seen a shuttle launch from Titusville. To me that was disappointing.
I've found that the streaming videos I've watched, with their synchronized sound have seemed much more real than the real thing!
But I'm glad I did it this once before the shuttle program draws to a close probably early next year. I'm glad I saw the nearly blinding light of the solid rockets (the thrust of the Hydrogen burning liquid fuel engines is essentially clear). I'm glad I heard the roar of the engines even if they were less impressive than I'd expected. And I'm glad I got to watch that arced climb into the sky, the jettisoning of the solids, and the diminishing white triple-point of the liquid rockets flying off to the horizon.
I could have done without the crowds. In my location at Menzo Park there was probably 200 feet of shore, and well over a hundred people along it. The most maddening things were the camera strobes and the smokers. Easily half the crowd was taking pictures, and nearly everyone was using their camera flash! Twelve miles away and they're using the flash. All it did was blind the viewers. And the smokers - argh! Don't get me started.
But those negatives were worth the live launch. And there were bonuses. First of all both Venus and Mercury were bright in the night sky the evening before the launch. Life is worth living if only to see Venus glowing like a jewel. The only way to make Venus better is to put a wafer thin crescent moon next to it. Wow. And putting Mercury next to it is the next best thing short of the Moon. (if I ever get to see all three I will deem my life complete).
Another bonus, and this one I hadn't done enough research to expect, was that only twenty minutes before the launch the International Space Station flew right over the cape. Wow! That was very cool and with the sunrise coming the ISS was very bright.
The last bonus was also a surprise. The exhaust clouds from the shuttle were very cool. I've seen many pictures of the clouds from past launches, and they're frequently very pretty. This time they were like a child's finger painting project with myriad different colors. There are pictures of the clouds in the second link below though, as usual, the pictures don't do justice to the real thing. Still you can get the idea.
Two pages from SpaceFlightNow.com:
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts131/100405launch/ [Archive]
PICTURES: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts131/launch/ [Archive]
A great shuttle viewing guide with great pictures:
http://www.launchphotography.com/Shuttle_Launch_Viewing.html [Archive]