Coming home in the carpool I heard on
NPR that the Space Shuttle mission
STS-128 was being diverted to Vandenberg Air Force Base,
150 miles west of Long Beach. Upon getting home, I was able to time the sonic boom by finding
live video (click for replay) online and waiting for the narrator to say that its speed was approaching 600 mph. We all sat on the porch with the laptop running, not knowing what to expect, and heard two rapid and suprisingly loud sonic booms. All supersonic airplanes create two booms but because the shuttle is 122-feet long, they are spread out by half a second to make them distinguishable. Ethan and I thought it was pretty cool...not so sure about the girls.
Someone also recently sent me
this video of a guy getting a ride on a U2 spy plane at 70,000 feet. I always get choked up at videos like these related to orbiting Earth, though I'm sure the background music helps. If I happen to stumble upon $200k of disposable income, I'll consider calling
Virgin Galactic.
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