We headed over to the Space Coast (Cape Kennedy on east coast of Florida) on Easter evening to prepare for the early morning launch of the final night shuttle launch - Discovery STS-131. Marco and Katrinka eventually welcomed us to their home in Merritt Island (long story that included me and Mark drinking wine with neighbors). After not many hours of sleep, we headed out to the Cape Canaveral Hospital parking garage, 7th floor. This location was 'inside' information from Dr. Marco and we found ourselves standing directly across the launch pad...8 miles away.
Precisely at 6:21am we saw the glowing explosion of lift off that looked like a new sun had risen in the east. The ship appeared to rise slowly in the sky, creating a brilliant reflection on the Banana River below.
Soon the ship started to arch in the sky as the booster rockets jettisoned and began to enter space. About this time, we heard the ROAR of the launch. It took that long for the sound waves to reach us - much later than the light waves that allowed us to see the launch. The contrail initially was dark, but started to glow as the sun approached the horizon, like a long pointer showing where the ship had been. By then, their orbiting had already started.
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