There was a lot of light and a lot of rumbling and vibration, especially the first minute or minute-and-a-half. And then after about two minutes, when the solid rocket boosters separated, the ride got a lot smoother.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride.
The most anxious time was during launch, just because that is so dramatic.
I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.
Things are going very smoothly. As expected, there are some minor glitches, and the eight minutes that it took us to get to orbit, we trained months and months for, and didn't have to use any of that preparation, other than being aware and ready.
Tires were so bald on the truck that the air was showin' through, and I had to drive fifty miles an hour all the way out there, because the vibration was so bad.
A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight.
The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.
When you launch in a rocket, you're not really flying that rocket. You're just sort of hanging on.
About every two minutes a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, and to have an angry pulsation like a bee buzzing in blind fury.
The rocket had worked perfectly, and all I had to do was survive the reentry forces. You do it all, in a flight like that, in a rather short period of time, just 16 minutes as a matter of fact.