Have you ever seen a rocket launch in person?

[LongTomH]

I'm as excited as everyone (Well most everyone else) here about the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch. I have to confess that I've only seen one large rocket launch, and that was at a distance; it was a Delta IV launch from Vandenberg AFB.

I was in Hermosa Beach, Ca for a conference of the Space Frontier Foundation (Yeah, I'm a Space Cadet). I have to kick myself that I didn't get to watch a Shuttle launch when I could afford to travel.

How about you? Have any of our old-timers here seen an Apollo launch?

[wcmagumba]

1. Nope but...

I did see a test of the space shuttle engines at Stennis Space Center in
Mississippi years ago, even though nothing left the ground it was very
impressive....

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. To my regret, no. I had plenty of opportunities.

I used to order the passes from NASA, but then I didn't do anything with them. The closest I came was February 1993. My brother was living in New Orleans at the time, and I considered making the drive to New Orleans and then over to Florida for a launch of one of those missions involved in building the International Space Station. That was a lot of driving from the DC area, especially in a car with transmission problems. I ended up not going. I can check Wikipedia to see which mission that was.

I didn't deny anyone else the chance of seeing the launch by not using my passes. There was no limit on how many people could watch a launch.

1993 was well before I got on the internet.

[hunter]

3. I've seen a couple of Vandenberg launches from various distances.

I was disappointed the Space Shuttle was never launched from there, as had been planned. They built a launch complex for it, even had the Enterprise on the launch pad for awhile.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_6

Florida is one of the few states I've never been to.

Some of my own rocket experiments were spectacular, especially the failures, which by the luck of fools didn't permanently injure me or anyone else. I was like the youtube idiots before youtube. (search rocket candy or sugar rockets)

[LongTomH]

13. Yike, you're lucky you didn't injure anyone.

When I was running a chapter of the old L-5 Society in Tulsa, OK, I got a call from a young man who was building his own rocket. He said he was using a fuel mix based on potassium permanganate as an oxidizer.

I told him: "Son, you've got a bomb, not a rocket! (Permanganate fuels can easily become explosive!)" I advised him to contact the police bomb squad to dispose of his rocket. Maybe he followed my advice to the point of not trying to launch that explosive mix; I didn't hear of an explosion on Tulsa's local news.

[doc03]

4. I saw the Atlas V launch of the Mars Atmospheric Volatile Evolution

(MAVEN) launch about 3 years ago. It went up in November and arrived at Mars around September the next year.
The viewing area was 3 miles from the launch sight. It was at 3pm, I would like to see one after dark sometime.

[Brother Buzz]

5. Does watching the exhaust plume from a rocket fired from Vandenberg AFB three hundred miles away...

count?

It was a pretty spectacular twilight launch; it was all but dark, but the sun over the horizon totally lit up the exhaust plume.

[LeftInTX]

10. I lived at Vandenberg and all I ever saw was the exhaust plume!!

It was loud, but you couldn't see the rocket because the silos were far from human habitation. Also the hills completely obscured the view of silos. Most launches were at sunset, so you couldn't see the rockets themselves.

Vandenberg is very different than Florida. It was home of the missile program, so it was sorta "secretive". Definitely no tourist or televised launches!

But, it was always a treat when one would accidentally blow up!

[LongTomH]

12. Actually, that was what I saw.

We did see the flames from the solids while they were burning, then it was a contrail, at first just like a jet contrail. Then it flared out as the rocket ascended into thinner air. We saw a tiny 'smoke ring' when the stages separated.

[Best_man23]

6. From a distance, I saw Apollo 17 launch.

Night launch, and I thought after the Apollo program we would be going to the moon and beyond. Disappointing we haven't been back in over 40 years.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. From a distance saw one of the shuttles go up.

[LeftInTX]

8. We lived at Vandenberg from 1967-69.

We were one of the houses that was closest to the silos, but I think they were about 5 miles from our house. To the best of my knowledge, you couldn't go down to the silos when launches were planned. The terrain was very rugged, and very hilly unlike Florida. There was a huge buffer zone between human habitation and the silos. Me and my friends always tried hiking to the silos and we never made it 1/2 way there.

The launches at Vandenberg were more an auditory thing than a visual thing. When you heard the rumble, at first you couldn't tell whether it was an earthquake or a launch. Then you would go out and watched the end trails. Usually they launched around sunset.

Every once in awhile, a rocket would explode and that was when it was cool!

[TeamPooka]

9. STS-40, June 5, 1991. I was in the VIP grandstand and it was one of the most amazing things...

I've ever seen in my life.
I was on my honeymoon at DisneyWorld.
My new sister in law was a Navy contractor and got us VIP passes to the thing because I'm a big space nut.
We had to be at a local Air Force base for the VIP bus into the base at like 4am.
So we left Orlando at like 2am.
The launch was at 8am but wound up going off at 9.
The bus took us past all these people parked along the highway outside the base to watch.
The bus let us out in an outside area with metal bleachers.
We wound up sitting next to a lot of military officers, between a major and a colonel.
It was basically the bleachers full of VIPs that I had watched in all those TV rocket and moon launches as a kid.
I was in heaven.
My wife was such a trooper because she had come down with a post wedding cold, a bad one too, on the trip but went because she knew what a NASA nut I was.
There was a truck selling coffee, tea, hot chocolate and the official mission memorabilia like patches and pins. I bought it all.
The launch itself was amazing.
There was a emergency bunker a mile from the launch site with first responders but I was told our bleachers were two miles from the rocket and except for the bunker we were the closest humans to the shuttle.
The rockets fired and the noise was incredible,
the ground shook like an earthquake.
the fire and smoke engulfed the pad the shuttle rose from the ground, slowly at first them picked up speed.
The crowd cheered and applauded, then they watched the shuttle fly, up, and up and up in silence for another minute or so until it was out of sight. Then they cheered and applauded again.
I watched it and was taking pictures at the same time.
Then about a minute later we were hit with a wave of hot air from the rocket blast from the launch site.
Like a solid wall of hot air.
It was the most amazing thing I've seen, still to this day, and I've seen some amazing stuff in a very lucky and charmed life.
This was the tops.
Best wedding present ever.

[OriginalGeek]

11. see a lot of them from about 30 miles west of Canaveral

we went up to the roof at work (4 story building) to watch the falcon heavy. From that distance its just a tiny flame and a lot of smoke but still pretty cool. We could see the twin burns of the parts that landed.


We were out on the smoking patio at college watching the Challenger. We knew something was up and went into the cafeteria and saw the news.

My then girlfriend/now wife skipped class more than once to try and get out to Canaveral for a much closer look at shuttle launches but we always caught the scrubs and never saw one.

I remember watching a launch on a little b/w TV in the late 60s but don't remember which one. I was 5 or 6.