Watch 5 Rockets in 5 Minutes

If you live in the Mid-Atlantic area, New England, or the Eastern Shore of Virginia and North Carolina, NASA is going to be launching 5 suborbital sounding rockets in 5 minutes from its Flight Center in Wallops, Virginia. The project is to study the winds in the upper atmosphere. They will be releasing a chemical marker that will be visible to just about anyone in the viewing area. Those of you who are conspiracy theorists may want to ensure that your tin foil hat is securely fastened before viewing the chemtrails.

I’m looking for a place to watch this. The ideal place, that’s not terribly far, would be the Jersey shore, so I’m toying with the idea of heading over to Seaside Park and watching it from the Boardwalk. But I’m not sure I want to do a three hour drive in the middle of the night to Benny central. Though, given that’s it’s March, it’s probably only locals this time of year. The problem around here is trees. There’s not many places in Bucks you can get a good view in that direction without trees, and Bowman’s Hill Tower is closed at that time of the night.

UPDATE: Mission scrubbed for tonight. Maybe I’ll go to Virginia to watch it!

10 thoughts on “Watch 5 Rockets in 5 Minutes”

  1. “They will be releasing a chemical marker that will be visible to just about anyone in the viewing area. Those of you who are conspiracy theorists may want to ensure that your tin foil hat is securely fastened before viewing the chemtrails.”

    The irony of this statement is that NASA is, at least, using real chemicals from their chemtrails, and not just water vapor condensed from the atmosphere! Although I’m confident that these chemtrails are some sort of neutral chemical.

    As for tin-hattiness, I reserve mine for using Lisp. (I haven’t been able to wear it nearly as much as I’d like, though.)

    And while we’re on the subject, I’m reminded of an Xkcd cartoon that shows someone talking to a Truther; the Truther when the Truther says “Since when did jet fuel ever melt steel?” the person says “You are failing to take into account the chemicals that the jet liners use for their chemtrails.” The panel is entitled “My Hobby: Pitting conspiracy theories against each other.” :-)

  2. Maybe from highrocks in Tinicum? Tho since you’re a “lower ender” the travel time to the shore isn’t much greater…

  3. They did similar tests, not broadly announced, c. 1960 – 1962, at one of the lowest and most fearful points in the Cold War. My family was sitting in our back yard in Bucks County when a large luminous ring or circle of gases expanded in the evening sky, centered on a bright “star” at its center. It scared the hell out of us, as we supposed it involved some space intercept of missiles or other offensive weapons.

    They did that three different times as I recall, though after the first time we knew what they were. Still, their appearance in the sky was always initially startling.

  4. Don’t head for Snookieville just yet!

    “We have scrubbed tonight’s launch attempt for the ATREX mission. We have an internal radio frequency interference problem with one of the instrumented payloads. The next launch attempt is no earlier than Friday night/Saturday morning (March 16/17).”

  5. See if you can gain access the Lehigh Valley Amateur Astronomical Society’s dark sky observing site at Pulpit Rock. This is located 25 miles west of Allentown between Lenhartsville and Hamburg, PA. (http://lvaas.org/staticpages/index.php?page=PulpitRock)

    Drive up to Cabela’s do some shopping. If you can get access drive the dirt rad up to the site, if not stop by the Hamburg police department and let the know you are parking at night near the gate and hike up to Pulpit Rock. Use the dirt road and not the Appalachian Trail, too rocky for night hiking.

    Here are directions: http://lvaas.org/staticpages/index.php?page=20090922212611478

    If you are going to head up that way, let me know I will meet up with you.

    1. I was thinking pulpit rock, actually. Only issue it it’s farther away from the launch. Now that they’ve delayed it, I may actually go to Wallops if they launch over the weekend. We’ll see.

  6. Well, if it’s Friday night/Saturday morning I might actually be able to see it. That’s the night of the largest FNRA dinner in the country, so I should still be pretty awake after attending that. Also I live on the coast, so it’s not like I have to drive hours to find a viewing area. If I plan it right, I can watch the actual launches on my tablet via webcast, while wearing my foil hat and watching the chemtrails.

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