Florida trip 2011: Launch of STS-133

Part of Florida trip 2011

As I write this, the Space Shuttle is nearing its thirtieth birthday as an operational “Space Transportation System”, and has already passed its fortieth birthday as a conceptual plan for human space flight. All three remaining launch vehicles, which were designed for a lifetime of 100 launches, will be retired by the end of the summer, having reached only a third of that design goal. Two of the Shuttles, of course, were destroyed in accidents, Challenger on launch back in 1986, and Columbia on reentry in 2003. Although regular technological and safety improvements have been made over the lifetime of the fleet—some in response to those disasters, others to reduce cost or improve reliability—the Shuttle remained a very high-cost means for sending humans into space, at approximately $2 billion per launch. Many experts remain dubious about the science value of sending humans into space—surely robots can do everything we need, and don't require heavy (and therefore expensive) supplies of food, water, and oxygen to survive in space. Yet there is something of a spiritual value to human space exploration, that I hope will not go unheeded in times of fiscal constraint, both in the comradeship that we all feel as humans engaged in exploration, and in our admiration for a great marvel of engineering (no matter how dated the technology may be).

When Scott and I discussed traveling to Florida, we knew that we wanted to see a Shuttle launch before they were all done. When the launch of Discovery (OV-103) on its final mission, STS-133, was postponed from November, 2010, to the last week of February, 2011, we started making plans. Since it was very difficult (and expensive) to get tickets to see a launch from the official viewing areas at Kennedy Space Center, we decided that we would watch the launch from Space View Park in Titusville, on the advice of CBS News's Peter King, who Scott knew from King's early career in Rochester. When we arrived at about 1 PM, the area was already packed with other people doing the same thing—some who had been there since the park opened at 8 AM. By traveling light, we were able to find fairly decent spots nonetheless, and we sat down on our cheap camping chairs to wait for the 4:50 scheduled liftoff.

That liftoff almost didn't happen: due to a problem with a range control computer, the launch that Thursday came within a few seconds of being scrubbed. Luckily for all 300,000 onlookers, the issue was resolved and Discovery took off without a hitch, two seconds before the end of the launch window. (Because this Shuttle mission involved docking with the International Space Station, the Shuttle needed to launch at just the right point in ISS's orbit for the two vehicles to have a sufficiently close approach without burning too much fuel. The launch window was only ten minutes long, with additional windows on successive days; thankfully, we did not need to make a return trip.

Space View Park is about ten miles west of Launch Complex 39, across the Indian “River” (really a tidal inlet) from Kennedy Space Center. The wind was blowing out that day, so we did not hear the noise that is said to be audible there during most launches.

According to Orlando TV news that night, the crowds were three times as large as expected, resulting in backups on the major freeways leading away from the Space Center well into the night. (Traffic was still bumper-to-bumper on the ~~Bee~~ Beach Line Expressway during the late local news.) We took a back route and were lucky to get to our hotel in Kissimmee by 10 PM that night.