It has always been a bucket list kind of deal for me to go to Cape Canaveral, Kennedy or whatever it’s called now days to see an actual launch of a manned space craft.  But since that will probably not happen, the next best thing is to watch, up close and personal, the testing of the rocket motor that actually launches that beast into space.  Today is one such day.

Tracker and I are going to make sure we are in the right place at the right time to watch the test firing of the 5 stage rocket motor that is made to take the space ship Orbital towards Mars.  This is going to be a big deal and yesterday on the trap line I got to see some of the action….from afar.

As I was checking traps, I was being checked out from the road.  About 15 security trucks were parked end to end and the men in them were out looking my direction.  I’m sure I was under close scrutiny with binoculars and spotting scopes….perhaps I should have mooned them….but I didn’t.

They watched me for about 15 minutes and then decided I was just doing my thing and not setting up some sort of counter intelligence stuff to offset the days activities of today.

They must be planning on a few thousand visitors to this rocket motor testing as they have two parking lots set up with lots of porta potties, tents, tables, banners, flags etc.  Security, like I said, were everywhere yesterday and I’ll just bet they are everywhere as I am typing this.

The blast itself should be spectacular and noisy.  We will be filming.

I had the opportunity to speak to a local land owner about the test firing and he is not really happy about it.  He said that most every time they do a test like this, it creates a huge dust cloud that rains down on them and creates a big old mess.  He said that something in the dirt that rains down makes copper shine like it was new when it lands on it.  Can something like that be good to breath in?  I think not.  Do the ATK people care?  I think not.

Well, we will report more on this later.

Bears Butt

March 11, 2015