Shuttle Launch Question

[BPCooper]

Thanks! I knew it was in Dec. 2006, but couldn't remember the date, and I also knew it was the first one ever, so figured it was also the only one.

It wasn't the first one ever, just the first one since the Columbia tragedy in 2003. There have been 7 shuttle missions since the return to flight in 2005; one was at night. There will be more. Launch time is just dependent on what day launch occurs; the launch time for ISS flights gets earlier by 23-25 minutes per day every day throughout the year.

 

[Deb & Bill]

It wasn't the first one ever, just the first one since the Columbia tragedy in 2003. There have been 7 shuttle missions since the return to flight in 2005; one was at night. There will be more. Launch time is just dependent on what day launch occurs; the launch time for ISS flights gets earlier by 23-25 minutes per day every day throughout the year.

The night launch that we saw was much earlier than the Dec 06 one, maybe around 2000, 2001. We had a couple of trips to OKW then.

 

[BroganMc]

For you guys above who were wondering, the night shuttle launch (the only one since Columbia so far) was 8:47pm on Dec. 9 2006.

Ah yes, and it was a Saturday night. We had just seen Spectro outside the Christmas shop and were trying to get to the stand by Crystal Palace to see the 9pm Wishes fireworks. Getting to see the shuttle was a pixie dust special.

 

[BroganMc]

The second one was a year or so ago and was a night launch. We took our laptop and aircard to MK and watched it between the Spectro Magic parade and Wishes! We used the laptop to track the countdown. As I recall, Disney announced it as well. We were sitting in the circle area near the Walt/Mickey statue in front of the castle, and we saw the launch over to the left of space Mountain. REALLY COOL!!!

I'm surprised we haven't tripped over each other by now Diane. My dad and I were on the walkway from Liberty Island at the same time. That's why our viewpoint placed the shuttle just to the left of the castle. As I remember, there was a ton of people at MK that night. Very dark, very crowded and suddenly everyone stopped and looked up. It made Tink pale in comparison. I don't remember any announcements though. Just murmurs through the crowd identifying what it was we saw. (For one bitter moment, we thought it might be a plane crashing. It's a pretty terrifying sight with all that fire. I can't imagine willingly strapping myself to a hydrogen bomb.)