Chronicling a Launch

Chronicling a Launch

Noel Laflin

5-5-18

Now it’s true that the launch this early morning of the Mars InSight rocket may not have been as spectacular as the Vandenberg rocket that lit up the California sunset last December. A friend reminded me of that fact about four-fifteen this morning as he too was up at an ungodly hour. But what made this viewing so important to me is that this launch is the first interplanetary mission ever to depart from the West Coast.

And, it’s heading to Mars!

So break out ‘The Martian Chronicles,’ and your Andy Wier – we are heading back to the Red Planet once more to further dig up its secrets.

As Bradbury once borrowed from Whitman, and in turn I now borrow from both gentlemen, ‘I sing the body electric!’ For that is exactly how I felt watching that rocket roar across the dark, passing directly in my sight line of Venus before beginning to climb, and climb, until it was just a red shimmering blip in the heavens – mimicking the very planet it will land upon six months hence.