Watch a Space Shuttle or rocket launch in person

“Having never experienced a rocket launch, I had no idea what to expect. I had tickets only 3 miles away from the pad. When the countdown began, I could see through my 700mm lens the Artemis II quietly rise above the tree-line roughly 2 seconds ahead of schedule. A few seconds later, an immense rumble reached our position and the incredible sound of the boosters exploding and popping spooked all the birds in the vicinity. Huge thick clouds formed at the base and beneath Artemis as it accelerated. With the rocket being out of sight within approximately 1 minute, it was exciting, incredible, stressful and an overwhelming task to capture this historic moment. Between the raw power, the insane sounds and the pure admiration behind such an engineering marvel I felt totally mesmerized. It truly was a “you had to be there” moment to describe this day.”

“The first time I saw this in person, I genuinely thought my wife and I were going to die. We had no idea there was a launch going on. Traffic stopped on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City and people were pointing and gasping. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life. Until someone mentioned Musk’s rocket, I was making peace with myself. [...] I thought we were being attacked by some sort of weapon and I was saying “why aren’t we attacking them?”. And my wife was saying “let’s go home”. And then a guy outside a weed shop said “that’s Elon Musk’s rocket!” And it all clicked. I can laugh about it now but I’m that moment I was mentally preparing myself for the worst.”

“We had Feel the Heat tickets, as we had take you on a bus to the Saturn V exhibit building [...] They said it was something slightly less than 3 miles from the launch pad - ironically the distance they claimed depended on who you asked, but it seemed to average around 2.8 miles. I actually got some horribly crappy cell phone footage of the launch. I wasn't going to be one of those 'watch something important (launch, last-ever-concert, whatever) types through my phone' so I just just started recording about about 30 seconds before launch, held my phone in front of my chest, and just tracked the rocket upwards and said "whatever happens, happens..." It actually turned out well for just a cell phone video, aside of all of my yelling and "oh my god" all over it.”