Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Viewing a Rocket Launch at the Cape

I’m visiting Florida at the moment and their is a Space X launch scheduled tonight. I’m going since I’ve never seen on. Is it worth it to pay admission to the Kennedy Space center and ride their bus to a view point? Or, are their spots to view it that are good enough for a first (maybe only) launch view? Hopefully Rocky will chime in.

You should be able to see it from almost anywhere, so depends on how up close you wanna be.
I saw one accidentally after coming in from a deep sea fishing trip in 2006/7. No idea how far away it was from us but easy to see the exhaust trail coming off it. I had to ask what it was, pretty neat experience, well worth not paying a penny to see.

Per Rocky’s advice I’m going to view from Kennedy Space Center, it costs a few bucks but it’s a bucket list thing.

Yes, go to the Space Center for your first viewing. Used to live there and have seen many launches. The first shuttle launch ratted the windows in my house… from across the Indian River.

The tour gets you to just under four miles from the pad, which provides not only a good view, but it is close enough to get you liver rattled (really).

This launch includes a fairly rare return to launch site landing, so you'll get double your money's worth with the returning sonic booms and light show. If the sky is clear, you'll see it go up, separate, fire again to return, fire a third time to slow down on descent, and then fire a final time to land - with the booms arriving somewhere just before that.

I have witnessed something like 125 launches, and it NEVER got old.

Rocky isn’t kidding about rattling your liver ! I still remember seeing the first night shuttle launch. I can’t remember the road we parked along to watch but it’s as close as you can get. It turned to daylight as it lifted off. The staccato booms as the shuttle engines were blasting against the launch pad was incredible. It really is something to experience. Hope you enjoy the launch.

The press site where I worked is three miles from the Shuttle pad. It was always a hoot to watch grizzled old "I've seen it all" reporters at their first launch. They 'd be broadcasting in their best FM voice - and then the sound arrived. They'd stop talking in mid-sentence, their jaws would drop, and they'd go bug-eyed. At that distance the GROUND moved during a shuttle launch.

I can't help marveling about how Spacex's upcoming Starship will sound. The Saturn V and the Shuttle both hit almost eight million pounds of thrust. Starship will produce THIRTY MILLION.

Your liver literally gets rattled along with all the other organs. Once the sound hits you the only thing I could liken to it was the old electric football games which would vibrate the little plastic players on the field when turned on.

It's loud but beats up your insides more than your ears. I've only been to one launch back in the 90's when Endeavour went up. It was pretty much out of sight when the sound hit.