Launch, Part II

We all got up very late. We finally got everyone awake and ready to leave at 1:30 pm. We then went out to brunch at this cute little café. The food was very good. After that we stopped of at Publix and stocked up on snacks to eat during the Super Bowl. We returned to our hotel and rested for a few hours. Then we watched the exciting Super Bowl game. I finally learned the rules of football, so the game was much more interesting than it would have been. Once it was finally done at 9:30, we all went to bed to get a few hours sleep before we had to get up again. At 1 am, we woke up and loaded into the buses to go to Kennedy Space Center yet again. As we drove in there was a low and heavy cloud cover, but we kept an optimistic out look. We arrived at 1:45, and waited around listing for the weather report. The weather gave up, and when the forty-five minute hold at T-9 minutes ended, we all got very excited. At about T-5 minutes, someone sang the national anthem. Finally at 4:14 AM or at T-0 minutes, the rocket boosters ignited, and the dark night sky was light up. We watch in amazement as the shuttle went higher and higher in the sky. Eventually the sound waves got to us and rattled the bleachers. I could feel the vibrations through my feet. Eventually the brightness from the shuttle faded away, and the shuttle soon just became a small dot in the sky. It didn’t look much different from some of the other stars in the sky. We stood there in the bleachers until we couldn’t see it anymore. We loaded back onto the bus and returned back to the hotel.

- Violet