On February 24, 2011 I was in Edgewater, Florida and lucky enough to see the final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. The Space Shuttle Discovery took it’s first flight in 1984, which makes it 27 years old on its final flight. In its life, it had carried and launched the Hubble Space Telescope and the Ulysses Space Craft that explored the Suns Polar Regions.
Discovery final launch on Feb 24, 2011 from Edgewater, Florida.
Space Shuttle Discovery on its last flight
Space Shuttle Discovery Final Launch.
I had never seen a Launch live before, and I have to admit that it was one of those times when being there, even though I was several miles away from Cape Canaveral; it was just amazing in every way. The amount of power that it takes to put all of that weight in Outer Space is mind-boggling. The shuttle starts out at Sea level. It takes off and in 8 minutes, it is in Outer space. It reaches a speed of almost 18,000 miles per hour and the Space Shuttles are the most complex machines ever built by man. When they take off, the entire world around you rumbles. Birds fly away and the water shakes.
I saw two of the last three space shuttle launches with the final one where Atlantis ended the Space Shuttle Program on a Cloudy day in July 2011.