A century after the first rocket launch, Ars staffers pick their favorites

"I realized that if something went wrong up there, things might go very badly down here."

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[chris217]

I remember staying up late to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing. Nothing can beat the excitement of that. I also saw the LEM lift off from the moon, which was very brief.

 

[MST2.021K]

The ponies of Chincoteague would like to request an edit as Wallops Island is in Virginia, close to the Maryland border.

 

[Jack56]

I'm an old guy. I've watched rockets launch from the Apollo days. None of 'em compared with the first flight of Falcon Heavy. It was just electric atmosphere. Machineries of Joy. [look that reference up!]

 

[FranzJoseph]

It was an epic trip that included observing a protest march in Moscow over the treatment of Ukraine (this was 2014, and things felt super tense even then)

"Super tense"? Wouldn't be my first choice of words...

There were only two Soyuz‑FG launches in 2014 reported on Russian wiki, with the first happening nearly a full month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Crimea was invaded by Russian forces in Feb 2014).

I know it's not that related to the rocket launch, just wanted to correct that omission. Nice story otherwise!

 

[ronin688]

I've only seen one launch in person. That was a Falcon 9 from KSC on a bucket list trip for my 50th in 2024. It was fantastic but it wasn't the launch I thought of when I saw this story.

My real formative launch was the first launch of the Space Shuttle. I was 6 and sitting on the carpet too close to the TV while the whole family watched with me. My parents, my Grandparents, and some cousins filled up the living room and cheered when it took off. We also watched the landing a few days later.

It lit up my imagination, and the passion remains 45 years later. The Atlantis exhibit at KSC, and the Saturn V, brought me to tears when I visited. I know I'm not alone because a KSC worker told me he sees people moved to tears every day.

 

[mgc8]

Of all the rocket launches in all of history, you have to pick an orkish broomstick? Truly a war criminal for the ages!
(j/k, in case it's not clear...)

Having been born and lived in several countries, none of them space-faring, a live rocket launch is something I truly long to witness in person. I was actually planning a trip to Boca Chica this year for Starship V3, but unfortunately don't feel safe to visit the US any longer and thus have postponed any plans indefinitely...

But if I were to choose a favourite launch, and I've followed many of them vicariously in the past 20 years or so, it would have to be the Demo 2 mission with Bob & Doug in May 2020 -- not only was it a bright light in the middle of pandemic anguish, but it signified humanity's return to space, seriously this time, with a real chance to stay and grow. I had tears in my eyes and won't forget that moment.

Here's to us all growing up as a species and realising that we belong in space, among the stars!

 

[Spaziarbiter]

Went on a day trip with my dad across the state when I found out there was launch happening while we were in Tampa. Did the KSC tour and took a mediocre video with my point and shoot on his dad's tripod. Reached out to a space photographer to get recommended a spot at Port Canaveral. Waiting the 10s or so for the noise was wild and then watching the boosters separate was fun. Delta 4 Medium+. Went back to school 3 years later to get a MS in aerospace engineering. Only launch I've made it to, so easy selection.
Video

View: https://youtu.be/_0in_mrawGg?si=rooWtXeRCnnKPeKr

 

[Dr Gitlin]

The ponies of Chincoteague would like to request an edit as Wallops Island is in Virginia, close to the Maryland border.

Aren’t the horses in Assateague? I love the wall of shame in the ranger’s station there.

I’ll fix

 

[FranzJoseph]

With HD or 4K streaming of launches common nowadays, it reminds me of the still most memorable for me – one watched on my parent's grainy B&W East German (?) TV set. A Soyuz of some kind, obviously not live back then. And of course "launching" a toy rocket built out of the local equivalent of Meccano afterwards.

Sadly, that launch had been a failure to reach space, but at least no RUD ;-)

I'd still love to see one with my own eyes, but visiting US is out of the question, ESA's Kourou is a bit far, and the Continental sites still a bit lacking. A bit envious of you who had that opportunity ;-)

 

[kafn8d]

In 1972 I was a student at Florida Institute of Technology, and a member of the college newspaper staff. We would apply for press passes to various launches and NASA would usually grant two or three of the five we asked for. December 1972 rolled around and Apollo 17 was scheduled to launch; the last Apollo mission to the moon and the only nighttime launch of a Saturn V. We asked for five passes and expected to get zero given the nature of the launch and mission. To our surprise, NASA gave us five passes! We set up in front of the clock by the lagoon for an unimpeded view of the launch pad. It was spectacular! To this day I recall the cognitive dissonance of trying to decide if it would be better to watch the launch through my Olympus’s viewfinder or not!

 

[jeremyp66]

But if I were to choose a favourite launch, and I've followed many of them vicariously in the past 20 years or so, it would have to be the Demo 2 mission with Bob & Doug in May 2020 -- not only was it a bright light in the middle of pandemic anguish, but it signified humanity's return to space, seriously this time, with a real chance to stay and grow. I had tears in my eyes and won't forget that moment.

Humanty's return to space? You mean America's return to launching humans. The Russians never stopped.

 

[jlredford]

In 1992 I had just had a bad project cancellation. It was a big effort, involving about 20 people. I wasn't the leader, but my work was one of the reasons why upper management nuked it. I was so distressed that I quit. This happens to everyone at some point in their engineering careers, but that was small consolation.

I needed to cheer myself up, so I went to see a Shuttle launch in Florida. That totally worked! It was STS-53, Discovery. It launched shortly after sunrise. The entire landscape lit up and the roar was deafening, even miles away. It was completely awesome!

The Challenger disaster had happened only a few years before in 1986, but they battled through the problems found and got this amazing project back on track. At a low point for me personally, that was inspiring.

 

[AusPeter]

To this day I recall the cognitive dissonance of trying to decide if it would be better to watch the launch through my Olympus’s viewfinder or not!

There’s an adage that I try to live by.

You can either photograph an event, or you can experience an event. But you can’t do both.

(Although setting up cameras that automatically trigger could invalidate the saying)

 

[DaiMacculate]

Still never gotten to see a launch despite my now departed grandparents living on the space coast of FL for their last 25 years, but going on an extra trip to Texas or FL and giving them tax revenue is not something I want to do while they are controlled by fascists.

Somewhat related, it makes me incredibly sad to see Arsians from other countries now hesitant to visit the United States to see launches. It’s a logical decision made for their own safety of course. We were once a beacon of freedom, and I believe we can be again, but it will probably take much of my remaining time on this planet for us to get there, even in the best case scenarios.

 

[nartreb]

I've never seen a launch in person, but as for televised* launches, I have to go with Feb 6, 2018 - not the launch itself, but the first-ever side-by-side booster landings.

I think the chopstick catch in 2024 was even more technically impressive, but it wasn't as much fun to watch.

*sensu lato. Web-cast.

 

[happycracker]

The only launch I can remember watching was done online. It was one of the Super Heavy launches and I put it on the television and made the kids watch it. I think one or two of them thought it was as cool as I was to see it go up and then see the boosters (?) land a few minutes later.

Somewhat related, I was a cadet in Civil Air Patrol in the 90s and they had an annual summer encampment called, Space Command Familiarization Course, where we stayed at Cocoa Beach and got tours of some neat places down there. We got to see the Skid Strip, walk around the outside of one of the two LCs, and the site of Apollo 1. The thing I remember most was the Orbiter Processing Facility. I don't remember knowing what we were going to do that day. We were driven to a somewhat nondescript building and told we needed to use special tape and string to tie down any loose items like glasses or disposable film cameras. "Okay, whatever," I thought. We walked through some doors and about twenty feet forward I looked up and there it was, Columbia. It was larger than I expected and it was beautiful. A quick tour around the craft, being told to not touch the carbon-carbon nose, and we got to go through an air shower before being allowed to shimmy across a catwalk and stick our head inside Columbia. After that, there was a tour of the RS-25 engine refurb/inspection area and where the SRB nose cones were. It's still probably the coolest thing I've ever been a part of.

 

[Case]

Growing up as I did on the Space Coast (Dad was a tech who fixed the firing room machines and other hardware), I have a few.

Night Saturn V launch, I was at the beach and it was like being there at noon. That would have been mid-70s, I was pretty young but I remember it.

The first shuttle launch, we all got all of school and I biked up to 528 to watch it. The road was basically closed, completely lined with cars and campers and the countdown echoed from a hundred radios up and down the road. Huge cheer when the shuttle rose up.

The closest I ever got was for a night shuttle launch....again, lit up the night. The sound rolling over the lagoon (delayed of course) was the most awesome thing I'd ever heard. So huge and low.

The night launches in general were not to be missed.

 

[PelleInGbgSwe]

Never had the pleasure to see any launch live, but the latest lunch/landing that got me excited was the New Glenn landing in November.

 

[GrumpyExSpaceDude]

I saw three shuttle launches in person - tried for a fourth but it slipped too far - but I'll always remember the one expendable launch I saw. I was on a business trip to KSC and was deep in the main engine plumbing section of Atlantis in the Orbiter Processing Facility when a PA announcement was made that the New Horizon probe was about to launch. We all piled out of the building and watched the Atlas V launch from the parking lot. Then back to work!

 

[Rene Gollent]

I'm not sure "favorite" is the right word, but in terms of impactful....growing up I spent the latter half of the 80s in Florida and consequently saw quite a few shuttle launches. At our elementary school they'd often let us out onto the playground to watch daytime launches, and one of those was, unfortunately, Challenger. Given my age at the time I didn't actually realize the true significance of what I'd just witnessed apart from that something was wrong, given the reactions of all the adults around, and it was only later that I learned what had truly happened.

 

[Steven N]

I heard about the Challenger disaster while studying with the radio on and right after the announcement the song "The sun always shine on TV" from A-ha was played.

Even after all these years, every time I hear that song, the image of the explosion with the SRB's plumes pops up.

 

[Apostolos]

I've been to a couple of Shuttle launches. We were some miles away, but it was still amazing. I also saw the inaugural launch of the Falcon Heavy from the Banana Creek viewing site. Seeing those two side boosters fly back down to a side-by-side landing was electrifying! Now in the past several years I've been to three Starship launches. Those take the cake. When the crackling roar of the rocket hits you feel it viscerally, even from six miles away. My pants and shirt vibrated against my body. The rocket geeks around me whooped and hollered as the 400 ft rocket climbed into the sky on a plume of blue flame nearly three times its length. But the most spectacular sight was watching the booster return and be caught by the chopstick arms. At one point it looked like the booster was almost overhead, before it descended to the tower. Then the sonic boom hit, and I knew it was coming, but in the excitement of the moment it startled me anyway.

Every rocket launch is amazing. Before too long Starship flights are going to be pretty frequent, and I recommend catching one in Texas or Florida if you ever get the chance.

 

[Aurich]

When Eric asked staff about this I thought about a Falcon 9 launch, it was a real moment in Southern California, whole sky filled with the jellyfish.

I realized that I just couldn't honestly write about it without reflecting on my current feelings, the memory doesn't exist in a compartmentalized fashion for me.

Rather than bring that energy to my writing, or not be honest about my feelings, I decided to just skip it.

 

[ridgeguy]

I've seen three launches - a Delta night launch, must have been >40 years ago, that put a comsat called Alascom (Alaskom?) in place to serve remote areas of Alaska; a launch from the ocean by a company called StarStruck; and the COTS2 SpaceX mission, also a night launch. Amazing lifetime memories.
Another lifetime space memory, although not a launch, was being in the SFOF (Space Flight Operations Facility) when Apollo 11 landed. God bless my boss Larry Durr, who made this then 19 year-old newbie a thoroughly prohibited loan of his SFOF pass!

edit - SFOF at JPL

 

[Soused]

This afternoon I'm headed over to Pakachoag Golf Course (old Aunt Effie's farm) in Auburn, MA to visit the launch site of "Nell" and an anniversary event.

 

[pokrface]

A good sign that you're old is when you have 15+ year-old items of clothing that you still wear regularly; that red hoodie is still a staple of my wardrobe and I'm actually wearing it today

 

[OldPhartReef]

I'm fortunate enough to have been old enough to remember seeing Apollo 10, 11 & 12 launch from Titusville. My dad was a contractor working for NASA at the cape. Many moons later, I took my son to witness the final launch of Discovery in 2011. Biggest takeaway from the Apollo launches ... they were so loud they hurt the ears ... even from as far away as the post office in Titusville. Biggest takeaway from the Shuttle launch ... man, that was quiet.

 

[pjcamp]

My favorite was the Estes imitation Saturn V I fired off in middle school.

Second: the first space shuttle. My roommate co-oped with NASA at the time so we got a base pass.

 

[e^(i*Pi)+1]

The first SpaceX Starship launch. Nobody knew exactly what it would look like or sound like, or even if it would clear the tower. Watching a video later does not convey the feeling of uncertainty of experiencing a first launch in person. Seeing the rocket lean off the pad, popping engines as it rose, trailing an unhealthy-looking multi-colored exhaust, made me aware that ten million pounds of boom was struggling into the sky -- and hope it wouldn't lean towards us in Isla Blanca Park.

That uncertainty made the launch more memorable to me than witnessing the launch of Columbia on STS-5. I remember that launch mostly for the hammering sound of those solids and for experiencing the scale of an orbital launch that television couldn't convey. It's kind of wild to know that the upcoming Artemis II flight will incorporate a casing segment (or segments?) from STS-5.

The most memorable encounter I had with a rocket unfortunately didn't include a launch, just a look: Apollo 9's Saturn V sitting on the pad before flight. I was a grammar school student who had read about the Apollo program in a Scholastic Reader paperback and seeing the rocket in person just blew me away. It felt like magic.

 

[henryhbk]

When I was in grade school my father who was a private pilot took me with him on a trip down to visit his parents in Boca Raton, FL, from where we lived outside Boston in a Cessna 210. On the final day down from GA where we had spent the night, my father let me fly as we got near KSC at around 7000', as I was now old enough to see over the instrument panel. For young kids particularly flying a heading is not something they do particularly well, but if you say "fly towards that landmark" they can pretty easily accomplish that, and my father told me to pick a landmark on the horizon that I could see. In the haze I saw a very intense white light, despite it being broad daylight. My father gently steered us to the west, informing me that was closed airspace over KSC, which means nothing to a kid, so over the next few minutes I drifted closer to heading for that light again. My father turned us away and was starting to explain why we can't fly over Cape Canaveral when my light suddenly went from on the ground to through the clouds which were around 10000' in a couple of seconds. A plane that was about a mile ahead of us was yelling on the radio that "someone is shooting at us!" we were several miles away of course, but wow, nobody would permit such a thing now, but the next day we read in the paper that the Navy had successfully test launched a Poseidon ICBM landing in White Sands 10 minutes later. I realize as rockets go, it's tiny but seeing it from the air is a very different experience than standing on the ground. I remember as we flew past the kinky smoke trail from the SRBs that remained for a long time.

 

[WokStation]

My first was, alas, the challenger disaster on a little TV. My favourite was seeing Starship launch and seeing the plasma on re-entry was literal magic.

Never seen one first hand, though.

 

[sporkinum]

Still never gotten to see a launch despite my now departed grandparents living on the space coast of FL for their last 25 years, but going on an extra trip to Texas or FL and giving them tax revenue is not something I want to do while they are controlled by fascists.

Somewhat related, it makes me incredibly sad to see Arsians from other countries now hesitant to visit the United States to see launches. It’s a logical decision made for their own safety of course. We were once a beacon of freedom, and I believe we can be again, but it will probably take much of my remaining time on this planet for us to get there, even in the best case scenarios.

It really is a shame what Trump has done to the US so far, and it is only going to get worse.
I never got to see a rocket go, but I remember seeing a display of lifting bodies at an outdoor shopping center at Burlington, Iowa in the 60s. We went to a neighbor's house to watch Apollo 11 landing. My dad took a poloroid of the TV screen. There also used to be a great display of rockets and missiles at McDonnell Douglas Planetarium in St Louis (which they got rid of for some reason).

 

[adingo]

Never saw a launch, but visited the Space Center sometime in the 80’s. There was a Saturn V lying on the ground, disarticulated, which you could walk right up to. Longer than a football field, with five 12 ft diameter engine bells. The footprint, standing, would have been a good bit bigger than my current house. The idea that that thing ever even got an inch off the ground was almost beyond belief.

 

[publicvoid]

I've never seen a launch in person, and wish I could find the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately living in continental Europe there's not much chance of that happening. Maybe I'll take a vacation to Kourou one day. No chance in hell I'm going to visit the US any time soon with the current insanity.
The first launch on TV I remember was the Challenger disaster. I was six at the time and the footage was shown on TV again and again. I can still see the explosion in my mind. It was an incredibly sad moment. Each time they would show the footage again I would secretly hope that this time the shuttle wouldn't blow up, but of course, it did every single time. And then they would show pictures of the crew once more, knowing that these brave people had all died a tragic death.
Each time I see a crew launch on video I'm afraid of this happening again.

 

[PursuingBeast]

For rocket launches, I'd say that new glenn first launch hit different. If we are not restricting ourselves to just launches, I'd say it's a tie between Falcon Heavy double booster landing and the Super Heavy landing. Both were astonishing.

 

[Chance the Gardiner]

I've never seen a launch in person, and wish I could find the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately living in continental Europe there's not much chance of that happening. Maybe I'll take a vacation to Kourou one day. No chance in hell I'm going to visit the US any time soon with the current insanity.
The first launch on TV I remember was the Challenger disaster. I was six at the time and the footage was shown on TV again and again. I can still see the explosion in my mind. It was an incredibly sad moment. Each time they would show the footage again I would secretly hope that this time the shuttle wouldn't blow up, but of course, it did every single time. And then they would show pictures of the crew once more, knowing that these brave people had all died a tragic death.
Each time I see a crew launch on video I'm afraid of this happening again.

I remember exactly the moment and location when I heard of the tragedy, live on the FM radio. Seared in memory.

 

[SonofServo]

Got to go see a few shuttle launches growing up in central FL. Got the privilege of being woken up a few times by those infamous double sonic booms when they came back lol