Rocket Launch

Saturday we spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center. Truly amazing when you stop and think about what needs to happen for a rocket or shuttle to take off. We had another run-in with a thunderstorm this afternoon. Found out today by many, many people that Florida is the lightning capital of the world. Guess it's something they are proud of, but they kept saying it over and over and emphasizing that they don't want anyone to get hit by lightning--not what my kids needed to hear. We were at the lookout tower to see the launch pad when the storm hit. Needless to say, we found cover fast. But as we're finding out, the storms pass quickly down here, and the sun came out and we continued our tour.


The true highlight of the day was the opportunity to see a rocket launch. It was originally scheduled for Friday evening. We were truly hoping to make it to Cape Canveral by Friday evening to see it, but we just didn't have enough time in the day to make it that far on Friday. Lucky for us it had been rescheduled for Saturday!!! NASA wasn't certain that it would even go off Saturday because of the weather. They kept delaying it and finally got a green light for takeoff at 6:51 p.m. Needless to say, it was an awesome experience to witness firsthand a launch of a rocket from within the Kennedy Space Center. We could hear mission control prepare and countdown to the launch. Brandon caught it on video. Now you can enjoy it too (without having to drive 15 hours :-)
Unfortunately, this was as close as they would allow us. Even so, it was still quite loud. We saw the rocket before we even heard it. We could even smell the burnt fuel (According to Brian, it smelled like burnt fireworks). I was so glad the timing worked out that we could see it. Definitely an experience for our kids to remember.