Rockets

Alan Shepards launch 5 may 61 Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3)

It was a Redstone. Here is an interview with Shepard. Interesting remark about the Saturn V! There is also a video clip of the launch.
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/she0int-1

“You talked at the time about this smooth easy ride. But Michael Collins said it got so bad at times that he couldn’t read the instruments. What kind of a ride was it?

The Redstone was a relatively smooth rocket. There was a little buffeting when it went from subsonic to supersonic speed, but other than that it was a pretty smooth rocket. What Mike is talking about is what all of us experienced who flew the Saturn V, which was really a heck of a lot more powerful: seven and a half million pounds, as opposed to some 75 thousand pounds in the Redstone. There was a lot of vibration in the Saturn V.”

Best regards
atc pal

Any body watched “The Right Stuff” – not the movie – the documentary – superb , the US had a few test missile explosions while trying to get Alan Shepard into space , finally launch day came and Shepard was in the Mercury module , they had 3 hours of niggling gremlins and they were getting uptight – finally Shepard shouted over the intercom ” Light this candle and lets go” – and they did – one brave man !!.

What was the rocket called – was it an Atlas ?? , I heard Vanguard mentioned too – were these used ??

Originally posted by SteveYoung
Something’s been nagging away at the back of my mind for a few years – the desire to actually see one of these things lift off. Just out of curiosity more than anything else, I mean I’ve seen lots of pretty spectacular things in my time, but watching a rocket or a shuttle mission blast off the pad must be the absolute ultimate. Anyone know whether it’s possible to pitch up in Florida and watch one go up?

Steve , my boss ( sorry , old boss – he got made redundant last Friday ) did just that , apparently there is a website giving approximate launch dates – so he just combined a holiday in Florida with a bit of Shuttle launching . He said there are areas set up for spectators but it’s a couple of miles away across some swamp , he turned up early as people turn up in droves to see it , he said it was awesome – he watched the ignition and a second later a noise like someone tearing the sky up , he was well impressed – pure , raw power .

I went to an Ariane 4 lauch in French Guiana once. Managed to stand 2.5Km’s away. The countdown is the strangest part, it really builds the tension up, and you don’t know what to expect.

Then the who sky lights up, the roaring sound only comes a few seconds later which seem weird and then very loud.

I would have really liked to have been around to see a Saturn V booster take-off, those were really impressive.

Baykonur?

The problem with experincing the Shuttle firing would be the unknown “holds” of the countdown.

Best regards
atc pal

Believe you can turn up in the area – just not sure about facilities. And when I say turn up we could be talking about to within 10-20 miles. A quick check though might show that you can see the ascension from all over Florida – hotels or the tourist board (or whatever) should be able to help.
I used to work with a guy who had a pen-friend who worked (I think) for Nikon USA and placed cameras in the swamps around the shuttle pad. My mate went out there to catch a launch and damn near missed it coz it kept getting delayed. His pix were fantastic – but his pen-friends pix were infinitely better since he had all the more experience.
Believe that in order to get pictures all sorts of little dodges were used to catch the launch at the right moment – from noise detectors with a built in time delay (because it is hellishly loud close up) to motion detectors (because the ground shakes for miles around, although he used to get a lot of geese and other local wildlife too) to contraptions using cut up plastic coffee cups and elastic bands attached to the motor drive in order to shelter the lens from bird droppings and fire the shutter in one go!
Apparently they were not allowed to collect their cameras for several hours afterwards to allow the poisonous gases to disperse – but strangely enough that never disturbed the alligators…

Think the pen-friend went to (Russian launch site, begins with a ‘B’, curse my memory!) Star City (think it is also known as this) and got deafened because the launch went something like “Lets do it, 3, 2, 1, FOOM!” and he was apparently 500m or closer to it! Wouldn’t think that would be available as an everyday experience for the general public though!

Flood

I guess there would be more security than normal around everything in America and there aren’t any Shuttles due to launch any time soon, but I am pretty sure there are plenty of places to view launches from… just don’t expect to get too close.

A friend of mine saw a real close up test of the shuttles main engines. The huge white clouds it sent up are of course the result of burning Hydrogen with Oxygen… ie water vapour… after a few seconds he said it started to rain… from the clouds the rocket engine made. Totally weird.

Something’s been nagging away at the back of my mind for a few years – the desire to actually see one of these things lift off. Just out of curiosity more than anything else, I mean I’ve seen lots of pretty spectacular things in my time, but watching a rocket or a shuttle mission blast off the pad must be the absolute ultimate. Anyone know whether it’s possible to pitch up in Florida and watch one go up?

Ooh, there’s a big one!
Course, they aren’t a match for the rockets that I remember hearing about in my youth. Now, the Saturn V. There was a rocket. Light the blue touch paper and stand well back! Whoosh.
Trick cyclist will tell you its all phallic but I say that if you really, honestly, definitely have to leave the planet then a rocket is your transport of choice. No way are you going to be able to leave it in a 6 year old Ford Transit, no matter how fast you go on the by-pass trying to over take me.

Yes, the girlfriend has gone away for the weekend with her mates and I am on overnight call in case anything happens. Does my boredom really show that much?

Flood.