The Cellar - East coast rocket launch on Sunday

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- - East coast rocket launch on Sunday (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=30269)

Did any of you see the ISS go by last night? That was pretty cool.

Well once again, nothing! I went to the high point in my county and waited and waited, and... no rocket! This is so disappointing! I --

What?

Private Orbital Sciences Rocket Explodes During Launch, NASA Cargo Lost

I was glad it was cloudy here and I didn't attempt it. Was in my FIL's room visiting him and glanced at my watch and realized the launch had been 5 minutes before and I glanced up and they were showing it on TV. Cool! But wait. That's not right. Holly crap, it blew up!

UT, did you see a flash on the horizon or anything?

No, from this far away, the rocket has to get pretty high up to be visible at all.

I was daydreaming about driving down there, to see one in person from the visitor's center or from Assateague... huh. Maybe not.

I thought there might be an orange glow on the distant horizon when it exploded. But a hundred miles is pretty far away.

150 and change for me... 120 for J

My high point is about 400 feet elevation so it's not a mountaintop. I can see the top third of the tallest Philly buildings, at about 50 feet elevation, 18 miles away. Some of that is blocked by terrain I think.

edit: added link to high point

Boom... big badda boom.

There goes launch pad 0A. They have a couple more launch pads, but I don't think any of them are set up for these Antares launches. It will likelytake some time to fix 0A or set up one of the others.

I timed my trip home so that I was going over Commodore Barry Bridge at 6:24. Even at 220', I saw nuttin. It was very cloudy.

And Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo just blew up mid flight.

This is pure speculation, but I'm going to throw it out there.

Russian or Chinese hackers did this to both of them.

Don't forget NASA's early days when everything blew up.

From a Cessna at 3000 ft...

From National Geographic...

Quote:

Standing in the media viewing area, about two miles (three kilometers) from the launchpad, I was as close as anyone was allowed to be, with the exception of a few members of the launch crew. Most of these crew members were in a hardened blockhouse near the launchpad, but two had a very special role that required them to stand out in the open.

In an age of increasingly sophisticated digital technology, the go or no-go decision is sometimes made with technology that is decidedly from the analog age. In the early seconds of a launch, when the rocket is near the ground, there is too much interference from trees and nearby structures for radar and other monitoring systems to be accurate. So spotters watch the launch through wooden viewing frames fitted with guide wires. If the rocket crosses behind a wire, they know it's veering off track and they send up an alarm telling the safety officers to abort. Then they seek shelter.

That sounds like a fun job. :eyebrow:

I reckon those "sky scanners" watching the launch through wire guides in window frames are 90 degrees apart from each other, like E and S or NW and NE. That would give at least one of them a chance to see a deviation from the intended flight path if that deviation was directly toward one of the watchers, and thereby not crossing any wire in the frame.