Who has ever seen a launch in person?

[movieman]

Six shuttle launches and one landing, I think .

Plus a Delta launch, but we saw that from Orlando, where it just looked like a firework .

 

[Bullethead]

Six shuttle launches and one landing, I think .

Well, if you're counting landings, I've seen a great many shuttle re-entries passing overhead, because I've lived under the usual flightpath for the last 15 years or so .

On a sadder note, though, my neighborhood was within the southern fringes of Columbia's debris field. This far east, though, all that came down around here were light bits that got carried by the wind.

I was a fireman back then so like every other fireman in that vast area, I spent the better part of a week hiking the hills looking for pieces. But the only thing I found was a small sheet of thin black rubber about 6" square with 1 edge serrated like this: ^^^^. I was told it was part of the heat shield system.

Otherwise, that week was a total cluster. Because our search area was 420 square miles of hilly forest, and because we only had a few people to send out searching at a time, we couldn't comb the whole area. Instead, we just drove out to where somebody'd said he'd seen something fall or had found something he couldn't identify. Problem is, EVERYBODY in the backwoods had one or the other. Out of dozens of such wild goose chases, we got the 1 piece of rubber, along with various bits of broken farm tools and car parts, etc. One old lady even had a blue plastic button surrounded by a little blue vinyl, obviously part of an old recliner or sofa. She thought it was from an astronaut's jumpsuit.

 

[movieman]

Well, if you're counting landings, I've seen a great many shuttle re-entries passing overhead, because I've lived under the usual flightpath for the last 15 years or so .

Oddly, the re-entry trail is about the only thing I didn't get to see... the shuttle was barely visible before it reached the runway, though we heard it a couple of minutes before that as it crossed the runway and began the HAC turn to land.

I think I had three VIP passes for landings at KSC, but twice they were diverted to California instead.

On the debris front, I guess it's better to waste time dealing with old sofa parts than discourage people and miss the one piece of debris that would have explained what happened!