Vandenberg AFB Missile Launches

Anonymous Coward writes "Hi All: My Space Archive web site covers the activities of Vandenberg AFB, a military and civilian spaceport on California's central coast. After several weeks of work, I have finished extensively revising and expanding the Viewing Vandenberg AFB Launches page on my site. I've been observing and photographing these launches for several years. Some are visible over much of the western U.S., but there is little information about them. As far as I know, this is the only article ever written on observing these launches. Regards, Brian Webb"

Comments

Launches are cool but

[John Harrison]

Test firings last longer!

I spent a year working at Thiokol and they frequenlty test fired shuttle boosters and peacekeepers. Since the motor is strapped to a gigantic concrete slab it doesn't go anywhere.

From a half mile away the effect is impressive. First you see a bright light but there is no noise. When the sound hits you it feels like you have been hit. If there is tall grass it bends over as the shock wave approaches. Then the sound just does not let up. Like a deep tissue amssage for a minute.

A Vivid Memory

[HenryKoren]

Purely by luck; I was on an Amtrak train between San Luis Obispo and San Diego when I witnessed a rocket launching out of Vandenburg.

Not something you see every day!!

Can see launches from Phoenix, AZ

[Anonymous Coward]

I've lived in Phoenix for 30 years and have seen
quite a few of these launches.. can't actually
see the rocket, but you can see the aftermath.

Sometimes, depending on the lighting, you get a
lot of colors in the plume.

If you live in Phoenix and see strange looking
'clouds' that look like a snake due West, it's
probably a launch.

Used to see these from my backyard

[V8Juice]

I grew up in Camarillo and we could see these from our backyard. The trails were always purple and blue. It was exciting....

first? no

[geekoid]

There have been many articles written about this, and som,e groups have tracked them for years. I remember my grandfather knowing when a launch was likely in the 70's.

I also remember seeing a lot of missles flying through the air. The best was when they would do a dusk launch of something that would seperate a stage.

I live there, watching the launches are fun

[Serveert]

Sure the missiles are not effective but it's fun when the big ones go off. The town thunders and your chest vibrates. We grab a beer and chill with the neighbors and take in the spectable. They inform you of the launch only that day so if you can catch it it's fun for the family. Too many times I've slept through them, which is a pity. They're beautiful.

I grew up watching nukes blast off from VAFB

[ahfoo]

Any Orcutteers out there on Slashdot?
Hope not.
What a scarry place. I think almost everybody I grew up with had a serious drug problem. The missles were very much related to the immense sense of doom among my childhood friends. An astonishing number of them died quite young despite the fact it's a fairly affluent area. There was just an enormous amount of self destruction.
Of course that really gloomy stuff didn't really emerge until the teen years. But I mean if you follow it back to the younger years you see the connection. I mean we'd talk about it openly, how we were all going to die anyway. We'd be out on the playground and at least once a week there would be this huge rumbling and then the trail of smoke that grew thicker and thicker as it dispersed into the atmosphere making crazy curves winding into the sky. It was quite pretty.
I recall once we had a misfire that sprayed rocket fuel all over an area between us and the base and it was a big hazmat emergency where everybody got paid overtime to pretend to be doing something. Other than that, nothing ever really came of the missles directly. But indirectly, it had an enormous impact on that community.
It's funny going back and seeing people spending a half million bucks to live there and thinking it's really great, especially the ones who sort of migrated in from the South or the Midwest. They're always really enthused about it. But those missles do leave an impression on you if you start off with it as a child. It sort of keeps mortality in your mind all the time. You have to grow up quick. After all, you might not be here tomorrow.

I saw the IRAS launch from Pasadena

[MichaelCrawford]

When I was a freshman at Caltech in 1982, in Pasadena, California, next to Los Angeles, I saw the launch of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite from atop one of the campus buildings.

If you look up Pasadena and Vandenburg on Yahoo Maps you'll see they are quite far apart, yet still we got an exciting view.

It was quite cool, not just because of the launch itself but because one of the project scientists was a Caltech professor who had recently given a talk on IRAS to one of my physics classes. We knew when it would launch, and knew all about what was being launched and what it would be expected to accomplish.

Also quite cool was that it was a night launch, so we saw this glowing dot rise up, accellerating, against the night sky, that was strikingly visible even against the glow of all of LA's light pollution.

In the summer of '85 I saw another launch, watching from Rosemead, near Pasadena. I don't recall what the project was called, but it was an atmospheric science experiment in which they launched a rocket into the ionosphere and blew up a bunch of sodium, blasting sodium vapor across a wide swath of the sky. The electrically excited sodium glowed a ghostly yellow in an expanding ball that slowly faded as it grew.

Vandenberg launches are fun to watch

[Thagg]

I watch as many as I can, they're pretty easy to see from Los Angeles, on a clear day (and most of them are!)

I've seen the Delta II launch of both Ikonos and Gravity Probe B. Both of these were daylight launches, and would have been impossible to see if they didn't have extremely tight (and nicely publicized by Aviation Week) launch windows. If you know where to look, they're quite nice to see. The arc of the rocket as it bends over and smoothly accelerates to the south is math in motion, just beautiful.

I've also watched a couple of the Minuteman launches testing missle defense systems. Again, these were well publicized events. On my street in Calabasas for the last one, everybody was out in their lawn chairs waiting for it. It did not disappoint. Compared to a satellite launch, the Minuteman gets out of the atmosphere in a hurry, and the solid fuel exhaust blooms into a huge flower-shaped colorful cloud once it is in space.

Still, it's basically impossible for me to see the beauty in a Minuteman launch. It's a goddamn ICBM, its only purpose to kill millions of people.

Any you idiots picking on the maintainer of the site -- get real. Read the site, there is absolutely nothing there than any third-grader couldn't figure out with ten minutes, a road atlas and a blunt crayon. There are a few other good Vandenberg launch sites out there, too, like
this one

I've fantasized about burying a cellphone near Vandenberg, and set it up to call me when it feels the vibration of a launch. It'd be cool, cheap, and easy. Obviously the solar charger and antenna would have to be above ground. The problem with most Vandenberg launches is that you don't know when they are going to happen -- but if you knew they were firing you could just step outside and see.

Thad Beier

See the launch sites.

[Hans Lehmann]

If you get a chance, take a ride on the Amtrak Coast Starlight (for non-USA'ns, Amtrak manages what is left of the American passenger train service.) Do it while you can, there's been talk lately of eliminating this money-losing route. The track runs along the beach for much of its route, including the section through Vandenberg Air Force Base. There aren't any public roads through this section of the California coast, so this is the only way to see it without getting a visitor pass to the base. As you go whizzing by, you'll see not just some launch pads, but also the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building, similar to the one NASA has in Florida. Built in the early days of the shuttle program, but then mothballed in favor of the Florida facility.