Another Day, Another 2 Rockets
Watching one Falcon 9, hearing a second
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Notes from the Kennedy Space Center
We drove to a Marriott hotel here at Cape Canaveral yesterday in order to see the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center today.
As it happened, we actually experienced two launches today.
We saw the first at the space center visitors’ viewing area about 4 miles from Launch Complex 39A. That was close enough to hear the rumble of the engines and a loud sonic boom when the booster landed about 7 miles away at Cape Canaveral.
I was surprised at how small the rocket looked from the grandstands and artificial turf where we stood with our iPhones recording. It looked like a knife tearing a rip in a blue cloth as the Falcon 9 rose up from the treeline into blue sky.
On the other side of a cloud, Falcon 9 made a graceful arc out over the Atlantic and left a contrail behind it.
We all jumped when the sonic boom reached us from the booster’s perfect landing eight minutes after the launch.
When we checked into the Marriott last night, we were surprised to see a notice stating that a rocket was going to be launched at 8:22 pm. The desk clerk said the best place to watch would be near where we had parked Pebbles for the night.
Launch time came and went with no rocket.
The guy who did the color commentary at today’s noon launch said weather caused the delay last night. The rescheduled launch was just after 4 pm today.
It was wicked hot at the visitors center. We were not tempted to stay another four hours to watch the second rocket. We stopped at the Orbit Cafe for lunch on our way to the parking lot.
Back here at the hotel, after a nap, we stood at our window at 4 pm and saw nothing. But at 4:30 as I was doing sitting meditation on the bed, we heard a familiar low rumble outside. We never did see the rocket, but there was no mistaking the powerful distant roar of it.
The Falcon 9 that we watched earlier today has been launched and retrieved 23 times. Its payload was a four-ton satellite that will be placed in a geosynchronous orbit over South Korea. The one we heard but didn’t see placed another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit to provide worldwide Internet service.
Power and precision. Those were my impressions from the Kennedy Space Center today.
I was 10 years old when Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule was launched here. I clearly remember watching Walter Cronkite’s sonorous reporting of that launch, which included this:
The world can have no doubts that we did it. And the man who did it was Alan Shephard Jr. History was made today, and you were an eyewitness. Your correspondent, Walter Cronkite.
It took me 64 years to have the chance to witness a rocket launch in person. I’ll never forget it.
