How many of the folks here had tears in their eyes when they watched the 2 boosters land tail first side by side from yesterday’s launch?
Like nearly every science fiction book cover including rockets from the 30’s on it’s like watching a dream come true.
Even the discoveries of the increased mutations from being out in space exposed to higher radiation levels and a potential increase in cancer risk would not deter me if I was given the chance to go even now at this late date.
I was able to watch the liftoff live, but I had to leave for an appointment before booster return.
Maybe I’ll get a chance to watch the whole thing with STP-2 this summer.
Love that! I was lucky enough to get a briefing and tour at SpaceX last year — super cool! I love the drive they have. Questionable longevity for folks who work there - it can be a fast paced gig.
Here’s the video
For anyone who wants to do their own suborbital reusable rocket, here’s the permit application 
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/sub_orbital_rockets/
I scheduled the past couple evenings in my house around this launch. If SpaceX is launching and it’s at a reasonable time for my kids to watch, it’s streamed on our big TV. I think they’re getting kind of numb to it at this point because of how routine it seems now but I am still awestruck every time they do it - whether it’s a single booster RTLS or the FH doing what it did Thursday.
We were fortunate enough to be in Port Canaveral on the day of CRS-14 and the videos do not do these launches justice. My son & I got to watch from the KSC Visitor’s Center (I wish I could have taken my SLR and a big telephoto lens but OTOH not watching it through a viewfinder was probably the better move) and my wife & daughter were back on the cruise ship. Seeing and feeling it happen is unreal.
Ah to be a Rolling Stone with the twins as ship mechanics :sigh:
Same here, I’d go in a heartbeat. Didn’t get to see it fly, but I got to see the Apollo 7 Saturn 1B in the vehicle assembly building.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be there. Years ago, just minutes after surfacing from a dive, my buddy and I hear this distant roaring which we later learned was a shuttle launching - about 200 miles away!
I was a kid during the Space Shuttle heyday of the late 70’s and early 80’s, and YES seeing how things have come about in the last decade has been an unbelievably surreal experience.
It was unreal. The visitor’s center is about 5.5 miles from SLC-40 and even at that distance the sound was rattling my chest. The exhaust plume was almost too bright to look directly at.
The local cell towers are scaled for the number of people who are at KSC on a “regular” day. With the number of people who were on hand for the launch, they were so overwhelmed that I couldn’t get SMS messages out, let alone a usable 4G signal.
I was a kid during the Space Shuttle heyday of the late 70’s and early 80’s,
The 3 remaining orbiters that are now on display at the Smithsonian (Discovery), California Science Center (Endeavor), and Kennedy Space Center (Atlantis) are well worth your time if you’re ever in the vicinity of any of those locations. I could have spent all day gawking at the Atlantis.
I have no idea, I could be wrong after 50+.years. It might have been a Wright Flyer 
I recall the rocket appeared to be fully assembled. The crew module at the same height in the building it would have been on a Saturn 5. Can’t remember what, if anything, was replacing the missing first stage.
It was an exciting time. Then they cut funding and Apollo ended. Many thousands lost their jobs. Some years later I worked at a company that built timers for washing machines, refrigerators, etc. Our quality control manager had worked for North American on the crew capsule. He had some of the operating manuals in his office at the plant, and had signed pictures of many, maybe all, of the astronauts.
Packed and ready to go!
Who needs to pack? All I have to do is grab my contacts, glasses and meds and all else can be dealt with later.
Also in space news this week, the late Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch project to “air-launch … payloads to multiple orbits and inclinations in a single flight” finally had its first flight this weekend (April 13). A cool idea if it can become a commercial reality.
It’s a definitely a cool idea. Problem is after Paul Allen’s death they stopped developing the rockets they were going to launch from it. Right now their only potential booster is the Pegasus XL, for which the Stratolaunch is total overkill (the Pegasus normally gets launched from an L-1011).
Without Allen’s leadership it might never go anywhere. But something about that aircraft in flight has an other-worldly feeling.
What does the heavy designation mean?
To me, if a rocket doesn’t come out of an Estes box, it’s going to be heavy.
