Morning Space Shuttle Launch

Last night I set my alarm for 6:05 AM so that I could get up and see The Space Shuttle Discovery lift off at 6:20 AM this morning. It was a predawn launch and it was pretty incredible even though I live on the other side of the state of Florida. I live in Fort Myers which is about a six to seven hour drive Northeast to Cape Canaveral.

Before a launch I always turn on the TV because one of the cable channels will always cover the space shuttle launch. It's nice to listen to NASA on the TV because it can really explain the progress of the shuttle. On TV I can see the space shuttle ignite it's engines and start it's lift off. It takes about fifteen seconds until I can see it from my house here in Fort Myers. As I listen to Nasa on my TV I can look out my front window towards the Northeast and when the shuttle is about twenty one to twenty two miles rising up in the air I can see the shuttle ascending over my neighbors roof.

This morning the Discovery was an orange fire streaking up into the sky. It's shape was oblong and it's motion was steady and sure towards space. The path of the shuttle from my perspective here in Fort Myers looks like the spacecraft peaks in the sky and that it starts to turn back to earth. This however, is not the case, the shuttle is actually following the curvature of Earth's atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean. This is a pretty neat optical illusion. When the Discovery was about seventy nine miles away from Cape Canaveral and forty eight miles high the shuttle drops it's booster tanks, (you can't see them fall from Fort Myers), and to me the shuttle begins to look like a star. I can see what looks like flashes of blue, white, green, and red coming out of the shuttles engines. The bright star (Discovery), moves downward into the morning sky and I eventually loose sight of it in my neighbors trees. The shuttle at this time must be about four to five hundred miles away from Cape Canaveral out over the Atlantic Ocean and into space. It amazes me as to how far away and how far into into space you can actually view the shuttle. This whole event only takes about five minutes and it is really a special sight.

While the Discovery fires away from Cape Canaveral, it leaves a smoke trail behind. In a pre- dawn launch you can't see the smoke trail right away. The smoke trail does gradually reveal itself in the early morning sky. The smoke trail is similar to a trail that follows a jet that is flying at full throttle, it's just that this cloud trail rises straight up with a slight curve at the top into the sky and it is thick and billowy. The wind blows through the smoke trail and the sky is filled with what looks like a smoke that would come out of a genie's bottle when it is opened. The sun, as it starts to shine it's first light into the top of the sky turns this smoke trail into a beautiful powder blue color and the lower part of the smoke trail is mixure of red and oranges.

The only thing left to happen would be for a genie to appear before me and to grant me my wishes. I know that one wish would be for these seven brave astronauts to have the time of their lives, to work very hard, and to come back to their families safely. To them I say, "God speed and may God bless these great heros!"