Unless you work with the launch vehicles at the Cape directly, getting up close and personal with them really doesn’t happen often. I got lucky and was given a chance (with several other people) to visit the Space Shuttle Orbiter Processing Facility while Atlantis was there, courtesy of the NASA Public Affairs Office. That was in 2012 — ten years ago — and it was one of my favorite

Atlantis is in the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Center, where it is a centerpiece of the many artifacts that are available for viewing. The first Orion capsule is there, as is SpaceX’s first Dragon capsule that went to the International Space Station, among many other articles.

In front of Atlantis’s landing gear, May 2012.
For me, this was hallowed ground — the orbiter where it was prepared for its next mission.
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Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. ET today in a picture perfect launch.

Atlas V, Boeing Starliner OFT-2 launch, May 19, 2022.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. ET today in a picture perfect launch.
photo ©2022 Charles Boyer.
(click to enlarge)
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On May 18, 1969, at 11:49AM ET, Apollo 10 launched from LC-39B at Cape Kennedy. It was the second mission to the moon (Apollo 8 being the first), the fifth launch of a Saturn V, and the first Saturn V launched from Pad LC-39B — the same pad that now supports SLS / Artemis.

It was quite a busy day for everyone at Kennedy Space Center, and my Dad, Armand Boyer, on duty that day as the “Pad Chief” was one of them. He was responsible for fire and safety activities at the launch pad, but his job for the day didn’t end with the rocket launching. The aftermath of the rocket leaving the pad was incredible in its own right.

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With Saharan Desert dust in the sky, SpaceX launched Falcon 9 to orbit shortly after dawn on May 18, 2022 from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch was originally scheduled for 6:20AM local time, or shortly before dawn here, but it was delayed for nearly forty minutes for a 06:59AM ET liftoff.

SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Starlink 4-18 from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center on May 18, 2022.
Photo ©2022 Charles Boyer
(click to enlarge)
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Quite a number of my family members have worked in the space program at various points in their careers, and for some of them, it was their career. I’ve known for a long time that my late Mom had a relatively brief stint out at Kennedy Space Center / Cape Canaveral Air Force Station working as a nurse for TWA, who was contracted to provide medical services for the facility, but it’s rare to find any pictures of her working there.

I found one today in a pile of my Dad’s papers. I was looking for a report he had written about the state of Pad LC-39B after Apollo 10 launched, and came across this photo. My mother is the one on the right.

“STAND BY RESCUE UNITS AWAITING STATIC FIRING OF S/C #3 AT CRYO. BLDG.
L-R:: Mr. A. Mair, Mr. Harold Moore, Mr. Thain, Miss Penelon, Mrs. Dismukes, MILA”

Photo: NASA: 104-KSC-65C-880 / 1-15-65

At the time, she was still married (and soon to be divorced) from my biological father, hence the name Dismukes.

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From May until sometime in October, the chance of an afternoon or an evening thunderstorm is omnipresent on the Space Coast. Sometimes you get both — summer is the wet season here, and you have to factor that into any plan you make for the evening. Such was the case last night, with scattered thunderstorms firing up in the late afternoon and continuing until after midnight.

For some folks — like me — that was disappointing, the longest total lunar eclipse in many a year was happening in the skies above us, and depending on where one was located, you either got to see the whole celestial show, or very little of it. I had planned a series of photographs marking the beginning to end of the eclipse cycle, but storms and their clouds kyboshed that completely. So go the plans of mice and men, it is said.

Then, just as the last slivers of direct sunlight were being chased off Luna’s surface by the encroaching shadow of the Earth, the clouds parted, but the air remained humid and thick. Alas, serendipity!

Using extreme settings that were disadvantageous to good photography, in mediocre atmospheric conditions, this is what I saw.

The Moon in Total Eclipse, May 15, 2022.
Settings: ISO 25600, f/8 0.50seconds, 500mm cropped.
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On Saturday, May 14 at 4:40 p.m. ET, SpaceX launched Starlink satellites to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Falcon 9 lifts off from SLC-40 on May 14, 2022. The rocket seems a bit out of focus thanks to the warm air creating “heat shimmer” — turbulent air caused by the difference in temperature by the colder water and warmer sunlit air above causes a lot of distortion.

Click for three more photos…

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At the end of World War II, Cape Canaveral was a quiet, sleepy place. The fishing village wasn’t much of a tourist destination, Banana River Naval Air Station was in disuse, and would close in September 1947 where it would be placed in a caretaker status.

That would change, however, on September 1, 1948, when the former naval air station was transferred to the newly formed US Air Force. In 1949, it was renamed the Joint Long Range Proving Ground, and was designated as the launch point for the military’s efforts to develop long range missile weapons.

It took until July 1950 for a rocket launch to happen at the new JLRPG. According to the NASA/US Army publication  NIX 66P-0631, GPN-2000-000613:

“Bumper 8 was an ambitious two-stage rocket program that topped a V-2 missile base with a WAC Corporal rocket. The upper stage was able to reach then-record altitudes of almost 400 kilometers, higher than even modern Space Shuttles flown many years later. Launched under the direction of the General Electric Company, the Bumper Project was used primarily for testing rocket systems and for research on the upper atmosphere. Bumper rockets carried small payloads that allowed them to measure attributes including air temperature and cosmic ray impacts.”

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I set up my GoPro on the beach to record the scene on Playalinda Beach when SpaceX launched Starlink 4-16.

I set up for a wide angle view to capture the entire first stage portion of the flight — it made everything look further away than it actually was, but all in all, yeah, this is what its like to see a launch from here.

Playalinda is far better for launches from Pad LC-39A, as it is much closer than SLC-40 or SLC-41, but overall, it’s still a really good place to come. After all, you’re on one of the most beautiful beaches in Florida, and it’s really not crowded, even when the parking lots are full.

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