From Popular Mechanics: "If that thing goes up 200 feet and explodes, I'm jumping in the water"—so says one of the tens of thousands of spectators who made the pilgrimage to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. We're looking at Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy rocket on the launch pad about three miles away, across one of the ponds of Cape Canaveral's marshy wetlands, awaiting its maiden voyage.
It's a nervy day. The launch window was to open at 1:30 p.m. Then it slips an hour, and another hour after that as SpaceX waits for winds to die down in the upper atmosphere. Finally, a liftoff time is set for 3:45 p.m. The day's window closes for good at 4. People start to murmur the word "scrub."
But then SpaceX starts to fuel the rocket. First comes the RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel, then the LOX with its distinctive venting. Falcon Heavy snarls on the pad. At 3:45 on the money, an enormous plume erupts from under the rocket, and it starts to climb. At first, actually, it crawls. The upward propulsion must equal the force of gravity pulling down on the 3-million-pound rocket before it will budge. The first inches take the longest. Read more...