NEW SMYRNA BEACH —About the same time that NASA astronauts were boarding the Boeing Starliner capsule on Wednesday at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Ted Hou and his wife, Laura, were pulling out of the driveway in St. Augustine on a trek related to the historic mission.
The couple was among a crowd of roughly 100 or so onlookers who arrived ahead of Starliner’s 10:52 a.m. liftoff at Mary McLeod Bethune Beach Park in New Smyrna Beach, one of the prime viewing spots along the Atlantic shoreline in Volusia County.
The throng was rewarded with a flawless picture-perfect launch of the Starliner’s first-ever crewed mission that carried NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore on a historic flight to the International Space Station.
As onlookers gazed skyward and pointed cell phones and cameras, the fiery trail of the powerful Atlas V rocket and its wispy ivory contrails were framed against a nearly cloudless blue sky. For those who had traveled hours to the southern tip of New Smyrna Beach, the effort was worth it.
“It took us about two hours to get here,” said Hou, 67, a retired accountant who came equipped with his Nikon Z6II camera and a powerful 180-600mm lens to document the occasion. “This is the best spot to see it, short of going to the other side,” to Titusville or another spot in Brevard County.
In honor of the occasion, Hou was adorned in a T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoonish space alien and the admonition, “Obey me!”
“When (Space X CEO) Elon (Musk) gets up there, that’s what they’re going to say,” Hou said, chuckling. “They’re going to say, ‘Obey me!’”
On a more serious note, Hou, who retired to St. Augustine from Detroit about two years ago, doesn’t take for granted the opportunities to witness historic space flights from the couple’s front yard.
“It’s another one of those attractions that you have only in Florida,” Hou said. “You don’t get to see this anywhere else. Up north, you’re watching it on television.”
In Florida, "appetite" motivates launch watchers to seek to closer views
Nearby, Gary and Shirley Holtze traveled about 80 miles to New Smyrna Beach from the Marion County community of Summerfield. It’s a trip that they have made numerous times since moving to Florida about eight years ago.
“Up north, you just see it on the news, but down here you get an appetite for it, so you want to get closer,” said Holtze, 78, a retired IT consultant. “When there’s a launch, we can see the contrails from our house, especially at night.”
The Holtzes have booked nights at hotels in Titusville to watch rockets liftoff and made frequent visits to the New Smyrna Beach, including a recent stay at a hotel off Flagler Avenue that yielded spectacular beachfront views of back-to-back launches.
“We didn’t have any expectations about what we’d see, but the nighttime launches were pretty incredible, the glow from the engines was really spectacular.”
Holtze was among the onlookers old enough to remember the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs of the 1960s, which provided the foundation for the current generation of space exploration.
“Our cellphones now have more power than the computers they used to send men to the moon,” he said. “That’s mind-boggling.”
For onlookers, Starliner launch represents 'a new frontier'
That sense of history compelled Atlanta-area resident Karen Molohon, 71, to pack three generations of her family into the car for a rocket launch side-trip from their vacation spot in St. Augustine Beach.
A launch still fills her with the excitement that she experienced as a teenager, when teachers would roll TV sets into the classroom to watch a liftoff.
“It’s still the same,” she said. “The technology that we’ve gotten out of the space program is remarkable.”
On Wednesday, Molohon’s grandson, Flynn co*ker, 13, was along to watch the Starliner launch ahead of his upcoming session at space camp in Huntsville, Alabama.
“We’ve brought the next generation along, to get them excited about it” Molohon said.
More: Boeing Starliner launch recap: Live updates from the June 5 crewed launch from Cape Canaveral
Afterward, as the crowd staked out sunbathing spots on the sand or contemplated heading down Atlantic Avenue for lunch at JB’s Fish Camp, another veteran launch watcher offered a thumbs up.
“This is historic, a new frontier,” said John Neblett, 65, of Eustis, who has rarely missed a launch since the dawn of the Space Shuttle era. “I’ve seen a bunch of them, and it never gets old.”
In Flagler, launch watchers also gather
Some people stood along the boardwalk and on dune walkovers in Flagler Beach to watch the launch. The numbers were not as big as for an evening launch when less people would be at work and the flames from the rocket engines would be more visible against the dark sky.
The rocket carrying the Starliner arched into the Earth's atmosphere as the flames from its engines left a trail of smoke against the bright sky.
People raised their hands to shield their eyes from the sun or raised their phones to record the launch.
“It’s always fun to come and see the launch,” said Patti Malecki of Palm Coast.
Malecki brought a friend with her, Debbie Curran, who was visiting from Longmont, Colorado.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Curran said. “I can’t believe how fast it disappeared.”
Suzie Ripanti of Palm Coast said she had gone down to the cape to watch the previous attempts to launch the Starliner. This time she was watching from Flagler Beach.
“It’s great,” Ripanti said. “We’ve had enough scrubs.”
News-Journal reporter Frank Fernandez contributed to this report
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Starliner launch brings crowds to Bethune Park in New Smyrna Beach
