
What It's Like to View a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch - teleclimber
https://olivierforget.net/blog/2019/viewing-spacex-falcon-heavy-launch/
======
myself248
I was at the first FH launch, at the turn-basin viewing area, because a friend
of mine works for NASA and got the good, good, good tickets.

I decided to heed the "experience it with your eyes, not through a phone"
advice, so the only cameras I set up were fixed on tripods and not guided. I
bought a thermal camera some time back, and it dawned on me that I'd never
seen civilian thermal video of a launch, so I decided to give it a try:

[https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-
imagin...](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-imaging-
gallery/msg1419723/#msg1419723)

Apparently I wasn't the only one with that idea -- scroll down two more
messages in that thread, and the OTHER civilian thermal video of that very
same launch, was shot by another reader of the same forum, a few feet away at
the same area!

I had another camera facing the crowd, to capture the faces and the oohs and
aahs, but the footage sucked. They had speakers set up that pipe in the
countdown audio, which is all well and good, but then they made the inane
decision to pipe in the sound of SpaceX's own throng cheering, with way too
much gain, so it just made the entire audio experience a clipped screaming
mess.

I stepped away from the speakers to experience the rocket myself, and I'm glad
I did.

~~~
jackhack
Now there's something you don't hear everyday -- "would'ya turn down the
audio? I can barely hear the HEAVY LIFT ROCKET ENGINE blasting off in front of
me!"

How loud must the speakers be to drown out a rocket engine firing which,
outside of nuclear blasts, meteorites and volcanoes, are among the loudest
possible sounds?

~~~
myself248
It didn't drown it out, exactly. Just crapped it up.

~~~
myself248
Edit but can't edit: I realized I have a photo of how close I was to the
speaker:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/myself248/31682309057/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/myself248/31682309057/)

That's the FLIR (which, inexplicably, lacks a tripod mount) gently wedged
between the leg and the ball-head, and then USB cabled down to my laptop (not
in this photo) running Cheese because, again, the camera cannot natively
record video...

Anyway, the rocket was 2 miles away, and competed pretty well with a speaker 5
feet away. But getting 15 feet from the speaker really improved the
experience.

~~~
jackhack
Great photo -- now I get it!

I was imagining elevated speakers a few hundred feet away similar to an
outdoor concert, but that's a 100+ watt PA speaker at face level almost within
reach.

Thank you for sharing. What an experience you had!!

------
SEJeff
I was at the first FH launch and ordered the "Feel the heat" tickets. We
watched the launch from the Saturn V / Apollo center just across the water
from Pad 39A where the launch was. The part that I will never forget is the
low rumbling in your chest. You can literally feel it.

The sonic booms on takeoff sound like a machine gun about 3-4 octaves too
high, and the 6 sonic booms (each Falcon 9 makes 3 sonic booms on re-entry) on
landing were really incredible. If you can watch ones of these, do it!

~~~
chadash
Is it hard to get tickets? How much do they cost?

~~~
SEJeff
It wasn't hard to get tickets, you just had to get them as soon as they went
on sale directly from Kennedy Space Center:

[https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-
events/event...](https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/launches-and-
events/events-calendar/2019/april/rocket-launch-spacex-falcon-heavy-
arabsat-6a)

I bought them from their website and it was $195 / ticket? It came with a
pretty respectable lunch, a shuttle tour of KSC, and a single day full pass to
explore KSC. Also, the announcer there in person was Bill Nye, the Science
Guy. He spent much of the time talking about the Planetary Society's Light
Sail project and all about SpaceX. They had a DJ and it was a pretty well
organized event. My wife and I went to the launch, explored Orlando for a day,
and then went to KSC as we figured all of the Falcon Heavy people would go to
KSC the day after the launch. It was perfect! My wife wasn't a huge space fan
before and this turned her into one, I highly recommend it!

~~~
jrockway
My group bought our tickets a few days before the launch and there was no
availability problem. I think the tickets are expensive enough that they don't
sell out, but I could be wrong only having done it once.

We ended up not seeing the launch and eating the cost because of the delay,
but I knew that going in.

------
sizzzzlerz
Very good description of what it's like to be there. I was fortunate to
witness the launch of Apollo 16 in person as a high school junior in 1972. I'd
seen just about all the previous launches on TV but they did not prepare me
for actually being there. Even though we were miles away, the size of the
rocket was completely outside the boundaries of any vehicle I'd ever seen and,
as the OP said, the sound made by those 5 massive engines wasn't so much heard
as it was felt in the pit of your stomach. Long after the rocket has
disappeared, you still could hear it. It remains the most awesome event I've
ever witnessed.

~~~
teleclimber
That must have been an incredible experience. An Apollo launch would be much
louder than an FH, particularly since they did not think to do much sound
suppression back then. They used to break windows in Orlando when they
launched! Now they have tons of water below and flowing through the pad to
carry the energy away.

------
bdunn
Was able to grab seats in the "Feel The Heat" section for the inaugural Falcon
Heavy launch last year - it was incredible! (Olivier: your writeup brought
back a ton of memories.)

I especially liked this picture I grabbed of someone who had his photo taken
in the exact same spot for one of the earlier Apollo launches:
[https://imgur.com/a/xAqbTGL](https://imgur.com/a/xAqbTGL)

~~~
teleclimber
Glad this brought back memories for you. What a lovely moment you captured
too.

------
bane
The amateur videos are arguably even more fascinating than the official
coverage:

From a Cessna:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuTAu5VmtFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuTAu5VmtFw)

From a Nikon with an awesome view of the separation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLCXn445-eQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLCXn445-eQ)

Great Audio:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lMvLyMjzfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lMvLyMjzfM)

------
wolfram74
The booing about the prospect of the delayed launch made me think about the
bureaucrats insistence on minimizing (edit: discussion of) launch risks with
the space shuttle that lead to the challenger explosion. I empathize with
wanting to see it launch, but the first priority is it actually getting to
orbit.

~~~
WatchDog
I was also at the same viewing area. Keep in mind that people had been in
Florida for days longer than they expected, and had spent half the previous
day sitting around waiting for the launch to happen.

~~~
tylaw
I'm planning to take the family for the FH launch expected in June. Seriously
considering the "Feel the Heat" package, but wondering if it will be too loud
for the littles (2 and 6)? Obviously they'd wear proper hearing protection,
but would it still be too loud/intense?

~~~
mattrp
I had my five with me (all under ten). We debated endlessly about whether to
buy nasa tickets until they were sold out. We flew down the morning of (this
was the demo flight last year) - and by 10 am we were in the vicinity of the
launch area. Since we didn’t have tickets we evaluated some of the bridge
locations but finally decided if it didn’t launch we’d rather make it a day at
the beach rather than hang out alongside a highway. Three things to note: 1)
the beach area had terrible internet. Most of the time twitter wouldn’t load
so it was hard to know exactly what was happening. 2) you have a pretty good
shot of the landing zones when the rockets return - better than inside ksc
I’ve read, 3) if we hadn’t been staying in the hotel it would have been
several hours of traffic after the launch. As it was we took the kids to the
pool and ate dinner poolside but we could see the road outside was packed for
easily two hours post launch.

------
lenticular
Interesting that that low, deep tones were the first the author heard. This is
due to sound waves traveling through the ground arriving first. The higher
frequencies are attenuated much more. I've always noticed this occurring with
on-ground explosions as well.

~~~
bsmith
Interesting. At what point does it stop being sounds waves traveling through
the ground and start becoming straight-up seismic vibrations caused by the
(effective) explosions happening on the pad? Probably a bit of a spectrum, as
the ground is itself acting like a giant woofer of sorts. I wonder where such
a launch registers on the Richter scale...

~~~
lenticular
The sound waves in the ground actually are seismic waves, there's no real
distinction. The difference is that air essentially just has longitudinal
pressure waves (like P-waves), whereas the ground has transversely oriented
shear (S) waves and a number of surface waves.

------
dredmorbius
OT: This is one fast-displaying, well-designed static site blog. Wish there
were more like it.

Deetails on the First Post page -- Hugo based, Indigo theme (modified):

[https://olivierforget.net/blog/2019/first-
post/](https://olivierforget.net/blog/2019/first-post/)

------
newfie_bullet
That was a great read. Would love to be there some time for an event like
that. Still so amazed when I see video of those rockets landing vertically.
Great to hear that so many people are still very excited for space
exploration!

------
malingo
Great writeup. Reminds me of Penn Jillette's description of watching a space
shuttle launch:

 _It’s beyond sound, it’s wind. It’s a man-made hurricane. It’s a baseball bat
in the chest. It’s so loud. It’s so loud you can’t even call it loud._

[http://symftr.tumblr.com/post/5987695109/nasas-successful-
qu...](http://symftr.tumblr.com/post/5987695109/nasas-successful-quantifying-
of-comedy-timing-by)

------
erobbins
I saw multiple space shuttle launches in person, and this article captures it
pretty well. The visuals are spectacular, but the sound... I thought I knew
what to expect but it's just indescribable.

If you can go see a launch in person, do it. It's the most amazing thing I've
ever witnessed in person.

------
vonnik
This was from watching a SpaceX launch last year, fwiw:
[https://medium.com/@chrisvnicholson/we-watched-a-rocket-
leav...](https://medium.com/@chrisvnicholson/we-watched-a-rocket-leave-the-
atmosphere-ad4065d82dc2)

------
sbr464
This youtube channel[1] has a pretty amazing binaural (immersive) audio
recording of the facilities and launch.

Liftoff is @ 3:15

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImoQqNyRL8Y)

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goshx
I was there too and this post is a great description of what you experience!

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_nickwhite
I also saw the first FH launch, but I was at the (free) Playalinda Beach
public access area. It's so close (~3.59 miles to 39A) they actually close the
beach and move spectators further back. HIGHLY recommended if anyone is
looking to see a launch. I've seen other launches from the causeway, but this
was closer and had a much better atmosphere - and literally right on the
beach, so the kids love it.

------
chasd00
i grew up in Daytona Beach and my father would take me to see shuttle launches
all the time. The sound is what i remember, you feel it as much as you see it.
It's sort of like seeing a top fuel dragster in person, you get a whole new
sense of the power unleashed when the peddle is put to the metal.

------
theNJR
That was an enjoyable read! One of these days I’m going to make it to a
Vandenberg launch.

~~~
Diederich
My family and I have watched three SpaceX launches from California. It's
incredibly worth while. If memory serves, the closest public place is about
2.5 miles away. Unfortunately you can't see the launch pad. The rocket appears
two or three seconds after launch.

But yes...the sound. Rather, the vibrations...are amazing.

------
OrgNet
I went to the last shuttle launch at night, it was great. The whole sky got
bright. I got the sound a moment later because I was across the water.

------
matthewmcg
Don't forget a good pair of 7x50 binoculars.

~~~
playpause
I know nothing about binoculars. Why 7x50 specifically?

~~~
vkou
7x50s are traditional marine/astronomical binoculars. They are about as big as
you can get, without getting too heavy to comfortably hold. I use mine to
stargaze/satellite gaze fairly regularly.

Although, for daytime observation, 7x35s should be just fine.

~~~
bookofjoe
Binoculars with image stabilization can render a still field at 15x
magnification without being much heavier than those without IS. I bought these
ten years ago: worth the $$$
[https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/d...](https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/binoculars/is-
binoculars/15-x-50-is-all-weather)

------
mycall
I was at the STS-1 launch. I got a patch and got to meet celebrities. It was
amazing, lots of cheering in the bleachers.

------
cr1895
Anyone who saw this and who got to witness shuttle launches: how does it
compare?

~~~
adt2bt
I didn’t see this one, but I did see a shuttle launch, and I gotta say his
experience seems to be pretty much the same as mine was witnessing a shuttle
launch.

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adhambadr
wow thanks a lot for sharing. +1 on my bucket list for sure.

