Mike tells the story of a gang who were late to Folly to see the shuttle go up (yes, you can see it from here, apparently quite vividly).
I’ve got one better: Thursday morning, Tom had the great idea of driving to the Space Coast for the launch. Why not? It was a rare weekend launch, plus seeing it at night would give a reasonable opportunity to get down there. After my meteorology exam, we were going to meet up and haul ass to Florida for the 8:47 PM launch.
Yesterday morning, though, Tom got a text stating the launch was scrubbed, so he operated as if we weren’t going. I came back from my exam and, what do you know, they’re fueling the shuttle. I tried to reach Tom to no avail, until about 6PM…and of course, by then, it was far too late. So, I did a rain dance and hoped that our opportunity to see the shuttle go up wouldn’t be totally wasted…again, to no avail. It went up like clockwork at 8:47 PM.
Drat. Maybe next time — though with the state of the shuttle program these days, you never know when the last time will be…
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