NASA'S LADEE LUNAR LAUNCH

Last Friday night we went to Assateague to have a bonfire and dinner on the beach with friends as we awaited the launch of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft at 11:27 that night. I've only seen a few launches in the daylight, so this was my first nighttime launch. It was AMAZING! It went off exactly on time, a half circle of orange lit up the sky at the horizon and then the rocket appeared out of that half circle. We watched as the rocket separated from a couple of its booster rockets and then arched over us and flew out over the ocean. It will go around the Earth a few times as it sling shots itself to the moon for armospheric tests. I didn't take my fancy camera with me so I snagged these shots off of Google. The launch shot looks pretty close to what we saw and obviously the other is a shot of the rocket prior to launch so far as I can tell. Another cool thing about this launch is that they recycled ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and used them for a peaceful mission.