History.

Discovery disappearing into space, from the Indian River estuary

I don't really have a bucket list as such - just things that I know are on it. On Thursday I got to tick one of those off, and in the nick of time.

Shuttle Discovery was originally supposed to go up before I even arrived in the States, but was delayed until about a week after I got here. I decided that, come hell or high water, I wanted to see a shuttle launch up close before the program is tragically cancelled later this year. Started the journey to the Space Coast 4 times in November, and it was scrubbed 4 times - fortunately I was within minutes of the house - and the suffered a whopping 3 month delay.

But this week, all the stars aligned - Discovery was cleared for launch, the weather forecast was fabulous, and best of all it was scheduled for Jason's day off! So I had a good feeling.

We went to Titusville - which I prefer to call Titsville, for obvious reasons - which, at 15 miles from Kennedy Space Centre across clear water, is one of the closest public areas you can watch the launch from. So did a lot of other people. LOTS.

Anyway, we stuck out the 7-hour wait for the big moment, and waded out into the Indian River to make sure we had an unobstructed view. I was a bit tentative - the crab that crawled over my feet didn't help - but when the countdown started, the view was worth it:

...apologies for the wobbly video, I was getting a bit excited, plus I really didn't want to watch possibly the only shuttle launch I will ever witness through a viewfinder!

Even from 15 miles away, Discovery made a truly awesome sight. The plumes of smoke billowing out sideways from the launchpad that you can't see anywhere except from very close up, suddenly giving way to a ball of flame roaring skyward at 4.1 miles per second, leaving a perfect white cloud trail behind. Within 2 minutes, it was over - that ball of flame became a star shining brightly in the blue sky. 90 seconds later, Discovery was in space, leaving everyone cheering back in Florida.

The shuttle may have been going 4.1 miles per second, but 90 minutes later me and Jason were struggling to hit 4.1 miles per hour. Launch traffic is notoriously bad along the two-lane 528 back to Orlando. As the days tick down to the end of the program it is getting worse, and 4 accidents along the expressway didn't help. It took us over an hour to get 3 miles out of Titusville, and only after 3 different route attempts did we finally find a road that wasn't gridlocked - after another 5+ miles at a crawl. We got home after midnight, 5 hours after we got in the car. The trip out took 90 minutes.

However, it was still worth it. Just to view that 2 minutes of history.