Endeavour launch | Between bites, some lights

Endeavour, as seen from a Longwood parking lot.

While enjoying a meal of veal and authentic north Italian lasagna, I stepped outside to watch shuttle Endeavour's liftoff at 7:55 p.m. Friday. I hadn't missed a launch since moving to Florida, and I wouldn't let a wedding rehearsal dinner put a cork in that.

I stood by the curb. I looked around. I needed to face east, but I didn't know which way was east. I had left the restaurant two minutes before launch time. I knew that if I didn't see the shuttle, there was something wrong or there were too many clouds.

A waitress at Mona Lisa Ristorante in Longwood used a smoke break as excuse to watch one of the greatest shows on Earth. Between drags, she yelled to me as I looked up, down, side to side.

"You out here for the shuttle launch?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "But I don't know where to look."

"Oh. ... Oh, oh. Look behind you," she said.

I turned around and saw the glow. Someone had just lit a big candle above Kennedy Space Center. It was the sun in the night sky.

I was 60 miles from KSC, but NASA's performance again did not disappoint. Endeavour was a backward shooting star as it made its way toward space. It arched over the moon and separated from its twin solid rocket boosters. Then it was a twinkling star still moving into the distance.

Like a good joke, the launch was something you would only understand if you were there. I wasn't close - say, in Titusville or Cape Canaveral - so it didn't translate well through photography. I had to snap a shot, though, just to add to my collection.

Two minutes later, I again was eating lasagna made with crepes instead of pasta.

Photos | Double-barrel shuttle action at Kennedy Space Center

I created a panorama of the shuttle launch pads from the viewing platform. It's eight photos stitched together in Photoshop, but it's a poor job because I didn't have the camera on a tripod. Click on the image for a bigger version.

Shuttle Atlantis on launch pad 39A. You can just see the top of the external fuel tank and the twin solid rocket boosters.

I took advantage of NASA's salute to Brevard County residents by getting free admission to Kennedy Space Center on Sunday. Tickets are usually $38 each, so it was a good deal.

I took a bus tour of the expansive grounds and saw two shuttles on their respective launch pads. It was supposed to be the last time there would be two shuttles ready to launch. But because Atlantis' mission to the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed, it probably will happen again in February. When servicing the Hubble, NASA needs a backup shuttle ready to go in case it needs to mount a rescue mission.

Here are some more photos from KSC.

Endeavour is on 39B to the left and Atlantis is on 39A to the right.

A view of Atlantis over the brush in front of the launch viewing complex. It would be great to witness a launch from here. It's quite difficult to get tickets, though.

The crawler that transports the shuttles from the Vehicle Assembly Building in the background to the launch pad sits near the viewing platform. A steady stream of tour buses travel the road behind it. Each cleat in the tracks of the crawler weighs a ton.

The grounds of KSC are maintained by the Interior Department. I think this airboat contains wildlife officials.

Here's a Saturn 5 rocket on display at The Apollo/Saturn V Center. It's a monstrosity, which makes me excited for the upcoming Constellation program and its large Ares rockets. They will be spectacular launches.

Visitors look for alligators in a pond near the astronaut memorial. They couldn't see the gator lurking beneath the overhang, but I could.

The rocket garden has a collection of retired rockets.

GLAST blasts toward space, not Tampa

This is the view across the beach at Jetty Park of the Delta 2 rocket carrying a rather pricey space telescope.

Today was the much-anticipated and long-delayed launch of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST. It went up on a souped-up Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

I woke up early for the 25-minute trip north for a 11:45 a.m. liftoff. Wisely, I took time before I left to sign up for FLORIDA TODAY's launch updates via text messaging.

I dropped a whole Lincoln note for the parking fee at Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral. Most people were there for an easy, not-too-hot day of fishing and lounging on the beach.

But a few people knew what was up. We gathered on a boardwalk to the beach, a high vantage point from which to view launch pad 17B.

One oblivious beach bum came up and asked me, "Is there a launch or something?" I told him about it, and then he asked, "Where's it going?"

"Space," I said.

"No. When is it going?" he said. (I suppose I misheard him the first time.)

"Oh, 12:05," I said. Of course, I knew that because I had received inside information on my phone that said the launch was delayed 20 minutes.

The spectators in the vertical photo laughed when I told the bum that the rocket was headed for space. "Oh, I thought it was going to Tampa," one said. (It was going east, not west, so I doubt it, dude.)

When it finally lifted off, I - of course - messed up my camera a few seconds after it became airborne. I accidentally adjusted the settings dial to an automatic preset for people who don't know how to manually adjust the camera. I don't even know what it was for, but the photo came with an interesting silhouette, below, and the colors seemed better, too.

This was the closest I have been to the pad for a launch, and it was quite spectacular. Besides, GLAST rhymes with 'blast,' which makes for a perfect launch.

Accidental shot with the weird settings.

Bird bird, bird bird, bird
-Bambi

Beautiful rocket headed toward space (not Tampa).