Whether or not you believe all the #JourneyToMars hype, no matter how critical you might be of the Space Launch System (SLS)—if you don't feel something when you watch a rocket launch, please consult a medical professional, you freaking Grinch.
I cried when Orion lifted off—even more than I did when DeeAnn and I watched the STS-124 launch in May of 2008. Last Friday, when that Delta IV Heavy hit its second launch window, I was standing less than three miles from the pad. I felt the heat from the engines. For a moment, I honestly couldn't decide whether I should just watch the blurry scene through my tears, or blink and risk missing any of it.
Others in my NASA Social group got brilliant recordings of the EFT-1 launch—I didn't even try. Check out our photo pool on Flickr, some of which I daresay rival NASA's official images:
Favorite of the #Orion EFT-1 launch photos I took. You can see the shock diamonds in the rocket exhaust #NASASocial pic.twitter.com/sMGzxPjYsL
— Denny Atkin (@dennya) December 8, 2014And for a real treat, listen to Danny Sussman's audio recording with headphones on:
But what I'm really looking forward to is Alison Wilgus' forthcoming comic about the event. Alison is a fantastic writer and artist, and she was one of my Clarion West classmates this summer. It was a complete coincidence that we both got into this NASA Social—we live on opposite coasts, and I didn't even know she had applied until we were tweeting at each other about the movie Interstellar and other space-related topics. Second-best surprise ever!
Just made travel arrangements for my 1st @NASASocial trip, can't decide if I'm more excited about seeing @NASA_Orion or @aliwilgus XD
— Curtis C. Chen (@curtiscchen) November 15, 2014
You can read the entire comic on Alison's web site. And if you enjoy it, sign up for Alison's newsletter to get updates on her future projects!
I don't have much more to say about my NASA Social week. It was amazing, informative, and incredibly inspirational. I brought back some souvenirs, but nothing compares to the indelible memory of seeing that rocket rise from the ground and disappear into the clouds.
One. More. Time:
If you have a couple of hours to spare, I recommend watching our Orion pre-launch briefing, which was video-conferenced between several NASA facilities around the country and included a lot of great information. My fellow NASA Social attendees asked some excellent questions about the future of America's space program.
Finally, I threw together a slide show of my own photos from last week. They're neither spectacular nor comprehensive, but should give you an idea of what the trip was like:
I was born after the Apollo missions ended. No people have walked on the Moon in my lifetime. I hope I live long enough to see human beings land on Mars. I really do.
@NASA_Orion @ExploreSpaceKSC @NASA #Space #ToBoldlyGo #OrionSplashdown pic.twitter.com/Jf8R5KGuBU
— Joe D (@Tooboldlygo) December 5, 2014
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