On Friday, July 8, 2011 the final flight of the NASA space shuttle program is scheduled for lift off. One of the perks of living on the coast of Florida has been watching the space shuttle launch from the beach. When we moved to Florida in 2004 the shuttle program was still suspended following the investigation of the Columbia explosion in 2003.
Flights resumed in 2005, and we witnessed our first launch on July 4, 2006. The Independence Day launch of Discovery was significant for several reasons…at the time we didn’t know just how famous crew member Lisa Nowak would become.
The July 4 launch was originally scheduled for several days earlier. Some accused President Bush of manipulating weather patterns to hold off the launch until the holiday to give the nation a supersized fireworks show.
We learned that the shuttle rarely launches on schedule. Once we drove all the way to Cape Canaveral, only to hear on the radio that the launch was postponed until the next day. There was nothing we could do then but turn around and drive back to Amelia Island. After that, we stuck close to home where we could just walk back from the beach if the scheduled launch time passed and we hadn’t seen the tell-tale plume of vapor on the horizon.
The most spectacular launch I ever saw was in the early morning on April 5, 2010. My friend Mary was on Amelia Island for her annual Easter visit. We got up before dawn and were rewarded with an incredible view.
This past February, my Mom was visiting Amelia Island and watched the final launch of the shuttle Discovery. I think it launched on the day it was scheduled. Winter weather is more predictable. In the summer, afternoon thunder storms are an almost everyday occurrence.
That makes it hard to say whether Friday will be the last space shuttle launch or not. I’ll keep checking the weather and hope to be on the beach when the Atlantis blasts into space.
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