Witness to Launch

I was able to cross off another bucket list item on April 20. But it also added an item to my bucket list. Now I want to see the booster and/or starship return autonomously to the launch mount. Ever since the Saturn V rocket took to the air, I’ve wanted to see a big rocket launch in person. I had the opinion it would be at least interesting. Yes, I’m somewhat of a nerd even though I’m less young than I was back in those days.

Anyway, my wife and I drove down to Boca Chica to hopefully see the SpaceX Starship take flight. We arrived on April 17 because the schedule called for a 7 a.m. liftoff on April 18. We drove to the nearest viewing area after we settled in at our motel room in Port Isabel. The viewing area is at the end of South Padre Island about 5 miles from the launch site. Security informed us that the park would open at 4 a.m. the next morning so we decided to show up at 3 a.m. It wasn’t early enough as there were cars already backed up for miles. We finally got in and found a viewing spot. Not a great one, but at least we could see the rocket when the sun started to rise. At T–40 the launch was aborted. We packed up our stuff and spent the next 2 ½ hours getting off the island and back to the hotel.

We heard that the next attempt would be on April 20. After some discussion, we decided to stay. I’m really glad we did. This time, we decided to get in line at 1 a.m. That worked out quite well as we found a good spot when they opened the gate at 4 a.m.

I will mention here that our cell phone coverage was virtually non-existent. Others had sporadic coverage. When the launch time arrived, we started hearing people shout “it’s a hold.’ My wife and I put our phones down. Then we saw a huge cloud of smoke at the launch site. For a few seconds, I thought the rocket blew up. Our jaws dropped and we forgot about our phones. The next thing we experienced was the loudest roar imaginable. It was like thunder but louder and more sustained than any thunder I have ever heard. I felt the pressure wave reach us and the earth was trembling from the power of this monster rocket. We were five miles from the launch site! There were television crews near us, so I think this was as close as anyone could get. I don’t think I’d really care to be any closer. The rocket was magnificent as it rose from the smoke and (as we later learned debris). About four minutes after liftoff, the rocket had to be destroyed. This was also spectacular even though it was about 35 miles from us and 24 miles high.

By far, the best part was my wife’s reaction. She said it would be a few weeks before she would be back to normal and thanked me for wanting to do this. She said that if she had the faintest idea this was going to be so spectacular, it would have been on her bucket list too.

Thompson and his wife live between La Grange and Giddings.