I've never seen a shuttle launch outside of television... (and streaming internet when I should have been working)... As a childl my biggest ambition in life was to be an astronaut... I went to the Space Camp program in Hunstville, AL twice (at my own hard earned expense) I was lucky enough to get to walk on the scaffolding structure that supported one of the main rockets from the shuttle. We, as students, got up and close with the rocket and watched them gimble it and move it around. We then moved a safe distance away and watched them test fire it.... I remember feeling the sound vibrate through my entire body... Gary I can't imagine what it would be like to have an entire rocket system like that...
Growing up in SoCal I remember the twin sonic booms of the re-entry of so many shuttle missions... and as I got a little older and they moved the primary landing site to Florida... watching missions and trying to figure out how to get close enough to watch one of the missions landing at the now secondary site at Edwards. Afterall... it's only 4 hours away from me!!!
Rod.... I find it hard to believe that the man you were speaking with is correct. Afterall... if you look at the schematics and designs for the "next generation" (Constellation Program) of space flight, the AresI and AresV rockets are modeled very closely after the Saturn V rocket and the Orion capsule is loosely modeled after the Apollo type capsules (although why we are intending on going back to the capsule set-up is still beyond me)... anyways... our wonderful President seems to think that the space program isn't worth it and is trying to cancel the Constellation program anyways... it makes me sad to think that my grandchildren won't know an American Space Program as they are born and grow up.... and to think that stories of a space launch will be as much history to them as stories about the Apollo Moon landing are to me...
