We Saw The Shuttle Lift Off, Right At The Cape!

One of the 'bucket list' items I have wanted to do with my Dad was to see, hear and feel the Space Shuttle when it launches from Cape Canaveral. We had that very opportunity today and took full advantage of it.

With Luann's new camera that has an 18X zoom, we were able to get this close.

This is how close my camera can get with its 10X zoom lens...

When you see what we're having to 'shoot' through, not bad at all...
The launch pad is located above the blue canopy to the left of the red van.

Before the action began, Luann and Katrina decided to pick up a few T-Shirts as momentos of the experience. I think Dad likes his.

Well, here we go! The smoke and steam plume begins to shoot out the right-hand side.

Smoke and steam is now billowing out of the left side too, but the space shuttle hasn't begun to lift off yet.

As the Space Shuttle now lifts off the pad, the light from the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) and main engines on the shuttle becomes very obvious.

Man, look at that thing go! The white cloud must be spreading out to something like 2 miles wide now...

From this view, you can see the main engines and the SRBs are working hard.

Ok, a quick pull-back to check on the overall progress as the shuttle punches through the clouds...

And back to the close-up view of the shuttle...

You can see the arc the shuttle takes on its climb into the heavens. At about this point, the rumbling sounds and the shaking ground produced by the shuttle launch has finally reached us. Very impressive!

Yep, I'm snapping away with Luann's camera while she decided to take a couple of shots from behind me. Can you see the shuttle on the screen of her camera that I'm holding?

Here is what I was taking pics of. The SRBs have just separated from the shuttle and the fuel tank assembly.

and now they are falling farther away from the shuttle. All looks good...

The solid fuel has now burned up on the SRBs, and you can see them in full sideways profile, yet they are still emitting something of a smoke contrail.

This is the last shot I could get of the shuttle, as it is well on its way to the space station.

This was definitely well worth the time and effort to get out here, then drive back in the stop and go traffic (over 3 hours) to get back home. I'm so glad Dad was here with us to view the launch of STS-124 Discovery.