Popular Mechanics video
I watched the blastoff at 10:21 from my back yard, heard the noise from the rocket motors about a minute and a half later and then the above. I kept saying to myself "where the hell is it, where the hell is it" as the normal course of events is to follow the contrail up from the tree line to the burning propellant escaping from the rocket motor. Then I realized some of what I was hearing was the explosion. There was no longer a spacecraft to visualize. The space industry is a part of my everyday community life. It's not just a spectacle on TV. There is the thrill of watching a launch. Elation at success and deep regret at failure. These workers and their families are my patients and friends. I go to church with them and shop with them and have pool parties and Christmas celebration with them. Their spouses work in my surgery center. Consider the immensity of the enterprise and those involved as you watch the smoke. Science lives, in fact it thrives just down the road from my radio station.
73 W9OY
