Launch

Well, somehow, SpaceX got approval from the FAA on Saturday, Oct 12, for a Sunday, Oct 13 launch. What happened to "no license will be issued until late November"? That's what the FAA said just a few weeks ago. Maybe Elon really did satisfy their lingering concerns, or whatever. Hopefully everything is on the up-and-up, but who knows?

So I got up at 6:30am on Sunday morning, in time to make coffee and go outside on the balcony for the launch scheduled for a 7:00am-7:30am window. (Why is it that every time I set a wake-up alarm on my phone, I wake up a few minutes before it goes off? I'm not complaining, but it happens every time. It's just weird. If I don't have an alarm set, I can sleep till the sun comes up, or later. But set an alarm for 6:30am and I will wake up a few minutes before it goes off. What is that? Old age? When I was working, I'd set an alarm and would have to snooze it once or twice. Doesn't work like that any longer.)

ANYWAY, we had a perfectly clear sky Sunday morning. Perfect for a launch. I was watching the SpaceX feed on my phone, along with LabPadre on another device, and waiting for the launch now set for 7:25am, just at the edge of the window. My house is about 6 miles from the launch pad (far too close), and it takes about 10 seconds for the sounds to actually reach us from Boca Chica. But when we hear it, damn, it is quite loud....a crackling, flapping sound, and the house shook again like crazy for 30 seconds, at least. It's very unsettling to feel the floor under your feet vibrating rapidly. 

The rocket took off without a hitch, and before 7 minutes from launch had passed, the booster rocket came back down to the launch pad (it's going wayyyy too fast!!) and they actually caught it as they'd planned in the "chopsticks" attached to the same launch tower it had used just minutes before. Have to admit it was pretty impressive. 

One thing we learned this launch, which we had not experienced before....SpaceX said, rather quietly, that there could be a sonic boom when the booster returned to the launch pad. Oh, in addition to our houses shaking like leaves, there will be some sonic booms? Oh, lovely. Yes, it was returning to the pad MUCH FASTER than it had launched just minutes before, and that caused a really loud sonic boom. I remember sonic booms from when I was a kid, but they were more like a just a muffled BOOM. This one was really loud and sounded like a sharp CRACK! It made both of us jump, it was so loud. And with the sound delay from the launch pad, the video showed the booster had been caught, and I thought, hey! No sonic boom. And them CRACK!!! I'm sure our homes will be just fine, thank you.

Over time, this shit will certainly fuck with our houses. No way you can take that kind of shaking long-term, and Elon wants to launch 2-3 rockets PER WEEK from Boca Chica. I predict our home will be rubble before too much longer. Hmmm...I wonder if our homeowner's insurance policy covers damage from repeated (too close) rocket launches. I think I'd better look into that.