We left our hotel in Orlando at midnight, which was probably a little late as we ran into some major traffic jams due both to the thousands of people venturting to the east coast and some highway construction along the way. It’s only about 45 miles from Orlando to the coast, but it took a good hour and a half. We set Jill (our trusty GPS guide) to Space View Park.
Space View Park is located in Titusville, just across the water from launch pad 39. It has some memorials to the space program and the astronauts. It would definitely be a great place to visit during daylight hours and when it’s less crowded. We left that for another day. 
Once we got there we were met with hundreds of cars, buses and RV’s parked along the roads. We lucked into a parking spot just a couple blocks from the park. We walked down to the shore where what I figured were a couple thousand people were waiting… many in lawn chairs and on blankets by the shore facing Cape Canaveral. There was a booth set up nearby with TV monitors and loudspeakers broadcasting NASA’s coverage. We meandered our way up towards the front of the crowd and got a pretty decent advantage spot to view the launch.
( Click on any picture to enlarge.) Video below.
As the final countdown was brodcast 5–4–2–3–2–1–Zero… Liftoff! 
Someone said the launch pad is about 8 miles across the water.
The shuttle lifted off at precisely 2:28 AM Eastern time. It truly was a sight to behold.
At liftoff the shuttle and tanks weigh more than 4 million pounds.
Upon landing it weighs less than 300,000 pounds.
The awesome display of power and technology only lasted a few seconds for the crowd…
…before the shuttle burst through the clouds and disappeared into the heavens.
This was just the second nighttime launch of a shuttle since the Columbia explosion in February of 2003.
The crowd went wild with excitement applause.
Here’s video that I took of the launch. (Make sure your speakers are on.)
It took us almost 2 hours to get back to our hotel. I tried to post this at 5 am, but couldn’t get the wireless to work then. We slept for a few hours and now we’re headed home.
Here’s NASA’s official version:
What an awesome experience. I’d highly recommend it to anyone!
… again. Our ![Snow chair [640x480]](http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/imagessnow-20chair-20640x480-small.jpg)