After the conference I drove up towards the space coast and my favorite place: Cocoa beach. I was exceptionally lucky to be there for another launch, a nighttime one this time! Everyone says that they are more spectacular than daytime ones. I beg to differ. Granted seeing the horizon light up all of a sudden is impressive but as soon as the aircraft took off it disappeared in the clouds and as it is not lit there was no way to follow it’s trajectory the way I had done during the day time launch. On the other hand everyone on the beach was there for the launch, as it was 2: 28 in the morning, so the ambiance was really fun: hundreds of people in the dark talking excitedly…
The next day I went for a very long walk and met the usual characters…the fishermen, the birds hovering over the bait pails, families building sand castles, an inquisitive crab who took a liking to my flip flop….
