Shuttle launch

This is not a North Korean missile.

This is actually a picture of today's shuttle launch, taken from a bridge over the Indian River, or Intercoastal Waterway, that runs along much of the coast of east central Florida. The Atlantic Ocean is probably less than a mile east of here, or right of this picture. We are standing on the bridge in Vero Beach, facing Cape Canaveral, which is about 70 miles or so north of where I'm standing. (Can anyone other than Brent think of any Vero Beach trivia not related to the space shuttle? Put your answers in the comments section) This picture is pretty much how it looked to the naked eye, by the way.

Here is a closer picture, though I hesitate to call it a close-up. The solid piece seen near the tip is basically a ball of fire from the rocket boosters with the shuttle itself at the very tip.

Here is a slightly closer picture, courtesy of NASA

I took some video, but it didn't turn out too well. We'll see if Cousin Brent's came out any better. If so I'll post it soon.

Here's NASA's web page dedicated to the mission.

Here's a story from the AP about today's launch. Apparently up to six pieces of foam or some sort of debris again fell off the shuttle. Remember, pieces of foam falling off the fuel tank a few years ago damaged the shuttle's heat shield, causing the heat shield to basically fail upon re-entry. This caused the shuttle to disintegrate, killing the entire crew.

On today's flight, NASA is saying "it was too soon to know whether the debris struck Discovery and that the pieces came off later than would normally endanger the shuttle," according to the AP.

Is it just me, or does this foam thing seem like something of a new problem? I mean, hasn't the shuttle been flying since the early days of the Reagan administration? Does anyone else remember hearing about falling foam problems before the accident a couple years ago? The same AP story says "a small piece of foam fell off Discovery's fuel tank a day before the launch, but officials decided the shuttle could fly safely without repairing the gap."

I mean foam is falling off while the thing is sitting on the launchpad? That's pretty ghetto. By the way, and this is no joke, apparently there are so many VULTURES flying around the launch pad that NASA has had to install special radar to keep its eye on them during launches. It has also instituted a program to quickly get rid of roadkill near the Kennedy Space Center to keep the vultures from hanging around.