The Launch of STS-129

The is the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. This is the third largest building in the world. It's 52 stories tall. To give you an idea of size, the stripes on the American flag on the side of the building at the length of two football fields. It took 660 gallons of red and white paint to paint them.

This is a view of the back "high" bay in the VAB. This is the building where the parts of the Shuttle (or rockets) are combined. They use a high and low crane to hoist the apparatuses upright.

Inside the VAB, behind that concrete wall are the remains of STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia. NASA asked members of the public to return any pieces of the wreckage that they found. They are stored behind this wall, and can be borrowed by colleges and university (with extensive permissions) to be studied.

The back bay door of the VAB. It takes 45 minutes to raise this door.

This is the backside of the Shuttle. Little known fact, the Space Shuttle is NOT just the orbiter, it's the orbiter, plus the booster rocket (the large orange tank) and the SRBs, all together. The SRBs separate first and return to Earth to be refurbished and used again. The booster rocket burns up in the Earth's atmosphere. After the booster separates, the Shuttle actually inverts and photographs the booster to see if there was any damage. The footage is sent back to NASA for analysis.

I was very fortunate to be among about 200 people who were invited to attend a night viewing. They took us to a spot about 1/4 mile from pad 39A, where the shuttle was waiting. At this point, the wrap around the orbiter, which allows NASA to load in payload and work on the orbiter, was pushed away, and the entire pad was lit by Xenon lights. It was glorious.

59 seconds to launch!

The view of pad 39A from the Banana Creek Viewing Site about 3.5 miles away.

6 seconds before launch

Lift off! God speed, Atlantis!

Airborne!

52 miles up, in less than 13 seconds.

The exhause plumes after the Shuttle had disappeared from sight.