Just watched the Shuttle launch live through CNN's stream...

[99octane]

What a thing of absolute beauty that is - one of the most powerful displays of
mankind's scientific acheivement to this point in history.
I never get tired of seeing the shuttle launch.
They had a camera mounted to the external tank this time,
what a view.

The power of that launch is astounding on a human scale;
15 minutes after launching in Florida, the vehicle is traveling over Europe...
moving at nearly 5 miles per second relative to it's launch point on the Earth.
Imagine that flight on a commercial airplane!

At the same time I salute and remember the tragedies,
but even in those, the courage of the men and women
who ride these rocket propelled space-faring craft fills me with pride.

Greg

[ndakotan]

I caught it live on NASA's website. Almost missed it as work was getting in the way! It's going to be a sad day to see the final one lift off in a fewmonths. It's been a great run! I got to see the Challenger go up in '83 on spring break. We were eight miles from the pad and it was still awesome!

Jeff

[PeepingScott]

Yup, the Shuttle's are awesome.
Frank sent me an email, he and his family were there for the launch, said it was awesome live!
I'm oh so jealous...that must have been great...

[calcustoms]

Couple pics from todays launch. Always amazing





Richard

[rdln66]

Yep,as Scotto said,It was absolutely incredible!
We're on the last leg of our Fla vacation,and if the schedule,and weather were agreeable,watching this was must see.

Pretty much the same perspective as Richard's pix,just we were in Cocoa beach just below Port Canaveral.
We were lucky enough to meet up with a guy who had a hand held scanner radio that was getting the live feed from the control room.
The plume of smoke from that lift off ,is monstrous..unless you've seen it it really is hard to imagine. As you can see the fireball behind it is like noneother.

As a kid growing up watching the Apollo launches,and always aware of the shuttle program,witnessing the launch today,put a huge smile on my face.

Only 5 more to go....

TTYL

F.

[BlueWag66n]

I'd take the 1 in 60 chance to dieand give anything to go for a ride on that baby. I guess it's too late now to buy a ride on it for the $20 million, but there's always theConstellation program in the works on which I imagine you could purchase a ticket.

As sophisticated as the shuttle is,it's really nothing more than a giant Chinese firework if you think about it and the use of fire is a very crude way of propelling things around the solarsystem.

I imagine the ladies would love livingin space as they'd never get stretch-marks on their boobies!!! LOL!!!

Anyone hear about thebig-chunk-o-space-junk that NASA thought might hit the ISS 2 Saturdays ago? I guess they were prepared to adjust its orbit to dodge it and possibly have toquick jump into one of the Soyuz capsules to escape in case of a direct hit! Too cool!

I've got the NASA TV channel andsuggest that if you're nuts for space to get it. It's my most favorite channel.

Andy

[camarocrazy2]

one of the local news Chanel's had live coverage of it, I love to watch it take off!! And wow the speeds it travels

[ultrahots]

Richard the pics are too cool !

[Spoilersnut]

We got to see the "100" Shuttle launch back in Y2K, but which one was it? Anyone know? Dang, I forgot

Its okay watching one on the tube, but it was ONE AMAZING thing of beauty to see it in person, being just off Hwy 1 maybe a mile or so from the Cape.

An evening launch made it even more amazing to witness, and we had a near full moon right above the Launch Pad. What a day!

Anyway, the sheer power of the rockets we could feel it rumble in the ground holy cow!!!

It was truly awesome as it roared right overhead And made us even more proud (feeling) being an American as everyone there cheers it onward and upward

It has been a GREAT RUN, The Shuttle Program. Thanks for the great work and wonderful memories NASA!

Here's to the next 30yrs of space exploration by planet earth... Up up and away!

Lance

[calcustoms]