But not from as close as we wanted. We got a late start, so we pulled on to the beach in Melbourne just about the time the window opened. As it turned out, because of the half-hour delay, we had time to drive up further to Cocoa Beach, but there was no way to know that at the time. It was a little hazy on the ground, so we initially just saw a dull glow at ignition, that slowly brightened into a fireball that slowly rose into the sky and headed off to the east. Too far away (or perhaps the wind was blowing the wrong way) for any acoustic effects. Looked like a very smooth ascent, though. Here's to the success of Orbital Express, which could give us some badly needed key technology demonstrations for orbital fueling.

I flew back to Houston Wednesday and missed it. Sadly, my original flight was for today (Friday), but I needed to get back.