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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"
I doubt the men in suits will be very pleased that you've been recording their activites.
There's probably something in the PATRIOT ACT reguarding this.
Roland Piquepaille and slashd
I wonder if the author will find himself being tailed by suited guys in cars from now on....
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
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.
Lasers Controlled Games!
"Anonymous Coward writes.." ... "regards, Brian Webb".
nice anonymity!
A suspected terrorist was arrested in California today. He was reportedly gathering military intelligence and distributing it to terrorist cells via the internet.
Now for the weather....
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Some of the launches are published on-line from Vandenberg AFB. And there are hobby sites tracking them. Not new.
Aviation Week & Space Technology (trade magazine) has run numerous articles on the activities at VAFB. There are regular ICBM launches from VAFB to test/train missile crews and to test the reliability of the ageing ICBMs in the USAF arsenal. The warheads are removed from the ICBM and replaced with a telemetry and range safety package.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
(You can proceed to mod this lame joke down now)
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
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.
I grew up in Camarillo and we could see these from our backyard. The trails were always purple and blue. It was exciting....
I like V8Juice.
There are actually a few good viewing sites on or around the base that are accessible to the general public, including the viewing stands at the base weather station.
I run the website that hosts the official base launch schedule (http://mocc.vandenberg.af.mil), and I've tried a number of times to get Public Affairs to compile - or allow me to compile - a list of these sites and related information, but I haven't had any luck so far. I get email from people all the time asking about this, and usually all I can do is direct them to Brian's page.
The commercial launch operators are usually pretty good about releasing information on launch schedules, payloads, and so on. The military is understandably more restrained, and you won't even see all of the military launches listed on the schedule. They are generally listed on a number of sites like Brian's, though.
Now, before anyone starts freaking out about classified information, it should be noted that even the classified launches have an unclassified launch window published. There's simply no way to keep such an operation secret. The real launch window, though, is often classified. For example, a launch might have a published 8-hour window, even though the real window could be a few minutes or less. (For the record, I don't deal with classified schedules. Even when I'm spending the night working launch support, I often don't know the exact launch time until I hear the countdown on the radio.)
If you're ever in the area for a Delta or Atlas launch especially, it's worth watching. Of course, they're even cooler to watch when they blow up. Liquid-fuelled rockets turn into huge fireballs, and solid-fuelled rockets fragment into thousands of little tiny shooting stars of burning fuel. And then they start thousands of little brush fires if they're low enough, which isn't so cool.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They'd like you to THINK it was the /. effect.
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.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
It's only the /. effect we assure you. Please forward any further inquiries along with your street address and SSN to the mangement at siteadmin@notagovermentagency.langley.gov
Thank you
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
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.
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Chapter and verse huh? a. Drive up to any military base and look at the big sign at the gate saying "no cameras...".
b. Go read the Patriot Act.
Nuff sed.
Oh well, what the hell...
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.
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