gnwatts
07-21-2011, 09:58 AM
I saw this beautiful image of the shuttle landing in the NYT:
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On April 13th, 1981, my roommates and I loaded up my 1966 Mustang fastback (289 hipo! wish i still had it) with tents, food, medicine (in the parlance of our times) and booze and headed north from LA to the Rogers dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base to watch the 1st shuttle landing. We had to send away for the passes a month or so ahead of time. So we left the night before, thinking we would be camping with no crowds. We were mistaken. That night was kind of a cross with burning man and a Star Trek convention (original series). Live music, booths, naked aliens, you name it. The next morning, we finally saw how many people were there, at least 10,000 people. Along the fence separating us from the runway people had backed up their Winnebagos, so we climbed up on one and waited. It is hard to adequately describe the scene, all of these people but you could hear a pin drop, with the only noise being the NASA radio hookup with the shuttle on all of these transistor radios. As it got closer, we heard the double sonic boom, and all you could hear was the pilot counting off the distance to landing. When we saw it, we were bummed that the runway was over a mile away, so the shuttle was very small, but we were pretty stoked anyway. Getting out of there afterwards was another story which I won't subject you to. Just imagine the 405 freeway at rush hour, but without any lanes through the sand!
Some day I will find my slides, but i am not hopeful. But i did find our permit:
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On April 13th, 1981, my roommates and I loaded up my 1966 Mustang fastback (289 hipo! wish i still had it) with tents, food, medicine (in the parlance of our times) and booze and headed north from LA to the Rogers dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base to watch the 1st shuttle landing. We had to send away for the passes a month or so ahead of time. So we left the night before, thinking we would be camping with no crowds. We were mistaken. That night was kind of a cross with burning man and a Star Trek convention (original series). Live music, booths, naked aliens, you name it. The next morning, we finally saw how many people were there, at least 10,000 people. Along the fence separating us from the runway people had backed up their Winnebagos, so we climbed up on one and waited. It is hard to adequately describe the scene, all of these people but you could hear a pin drop, with the only noise being the NASA radio hookup with the shuttle on all of these transistor radios. As it got closer, we heard the double sonic boom, and all you could hear was the pilot counting off the distance to landing. When we saw it, we were bummed that the runway was over a mile away, so the shuttle was very small, but we were pretty stoked anyway. Getting out of there afterwards was another story which I won't subject you to. Just imagine the 405 freeway at rush hour, but without any lanes through the sand!
Some day I will find my slides, but i am not hopeful. But i did find our permit:
46547
46548
46549
46550