lastlee

I felt like I had something to prove in the section of my life that involves early morning ventures to the top of the mountain to see spacecraft activities after Shane Swenson, Courtney Bone, Carmyn Gamma, and myself drove up to La Cumbre Peak at 4:30 AM to watch the space shuttle Columbia re-enter the atmosphere and missed it (or were unable to see it?).

I made it a point to get up at 2:00 AM, leave the house by 2:30 AM, arrive at La Cumbre Peak by 2:50 AM, and witness the launch at 3:02 AM.  I expected to wait at least a little bit longer than 3:02 AM for the launch, but was pleasantly surprised when it launched the second my synchronized watch hit 3:02:00 AM.  Vandenberg AFB is just slightly out of direct line of sight from La Cumbre Peak so I saw a vertical flash of light swiftly make its way over the ridge to the town.  It was spectacularly bright for being so far away.  It appeared to be making a vertical path from my perspective, but it quickly layed over into it’s intended trajectory.  The initial boosting flames bore bright orange/yellow switched to a reddish orange tint and became smooth and thin, probably due to switching fuel and increased acceleration.

It was actually quite surprising to see how fast it actually accelerated.  Comparing this to the Delta launch a little while ago, this was downright fast.  It seemed like only a matter of seconds before it wasn’t able to be seen any longer.