Discovery Launch
We were able to watch the first nighttime launch of the space shuttle in the last 4 years from the driveway in front of the house Saturday night.
Our little digital camera does not capture the light very well. But you can see a little bit of light behind the peak of the roof of our house. In reality this was very bright. At this point, the space shuttle was still on the launch pad just lighting up the engines.
Here the shuttle is visible above the roofline of the house. This photo is pretty close to what we were able to see. We can not see a lot of detail at 40 miles distance, but it is still an impressive sight.
At this point, the smaller thrusters are separating from the main booster and the shuttle. We were very impressed that we could see this. The last day launch we watched didn't allow us to see this phase of the flight.
The shuttle has to travel over 1700 miles an hour during launch to break the gravitational puoo fo the earth. At this point the shuttle is 70 miles away from the launch pad and traveling at over 770 miles per hour. I can't remember the altitude that was announced.
