Last Tuesday evening our family gathered just after dusk at the extreme east end of White Street near the ridge on that street adjacent to the cemeteries, hoping to see a new rocket launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island.

The payload consisted of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station. The sky was a little cloudy, unlike the previous evening when the rocket was originally set to launch until a ship interfered by wandering into a safety zone.It was not the first launch we observed from the cemetery. Within the past few years, I think we observed three successful launches from the White Street location. Each time was exciting, but the first one for me was special.I am old enough to remember the later Apollo flights. I was only 2 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but I can remember one of the later flights on television. I probably am thinking of one of the last two, either Apollo 16 or 17.It was pretty awesome and I enjoyed seeing them, but I wondered why they ceased such flights.Later in the 1970s, the next spaceship I remember was the USS Enterprise, which was strapped to the back of a large jet. They used the technique to move the shuttle from base to base efficiently. Later it was also used to test landing the spacecraft.Most folks older than me remember our space program first as a series of rocket missions, but my memory is of shuttle missions. They flew for most of my adult life, and it was cool to watch them blast off and later land. After several years of these flights, they became rather commonplace.In the 1980s though, the space shuttle was novel. I remember a favorite Atari game was "Space Shuttle." The game simulated the launch, orbit, opening the bay doors and using the arm. It was pretty neat and it came with maps and control panels and all types of information about piloting a shuttle mission.My favorite segment of the game though was landing the shuttle. I remember we had to use the joysticks to ease the nose just right into the proper trajectory and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.From there it was like landing a plane in a flight simulator. I think later my brother bought a computer version of the game, but by that point we were both grown and I had moved to college.Of course the final shuttle mission launched in July 2011 and was the space shuttle Atlantis. It was the 135th mission NASA supervised and it successfully concluded a program lasting 30 years.Admirably, of those 135 missions only two ended tragically. Unfortunately, I unwittingly saw both of the accidents as they occurred and were televised live.The 1986 Challenger explosion was one of the most shocking tragedies I have witnessed through the power of television. I can still recall those haunting words, "Challenger, go with throttle up," followed by those few seconds which seemed to last an eternity as the shocking realization settled on Mission Control.The Challenger was vaporized. It was a horrific moment and led to months of grief over the loss of seven true heroes.The shuttle program did recover and continued strong until a second tragedy hit in February 2003.It was a Saturday morning and I was chatting online with my then fiancee and now wife Katie. We were watching the shuttle landing together and they had just spotted it on camera over California when the Columbia vaporized on live television.Again all seven of the crew died during the explosion. Later investigations concluded that breaches in the thermal protection coverings on the left wing caused by damage during the lift off was the cause of the accident.The shuttle program continued safely after this accident and several months of investigation and recommendations. Another 28 missions occurred after this second tragedy and the program successfully concluded in 2011 with the Atlantis mission.By that time the shuttle program had several different orbiters. Besides the Columbia and Challenger, the shuttle fleet also had the Discovery, Endeavor, Atlantis and the Enterprise.With all of the missions collectively from the Mercury program to the space shuttle, only 17 astronauts were killed during missions, the 14 shuttle astronauts and the three who died when a fire broke out in the Apollo 1 rocket.Of all those flights however, the flights from Wallops were the first ones I have ever seen live. Granted, we were a couple hundred miles away, but it was so neat to see the first one take flight from the cemetery. We had our smartphone there so we could stream the launch and see it blast off.Almost instantly as the video reached the phone, the bright light from the rockets appeared in front of us and we were treated to a Mars Mission rocket as it went through its first and second phase separations before leaving our sight. Tuesday night though was a sad contrast. As we watched the launch on the phone, we saw the fireball as the rocket flew out of frame, but when we looked up there was nothing.It took a minute or so to realize we witnessed the rocket explode above the launch pad.While this flight ended disappointingly, the next time a rocket is launched from Wallops, head out to the nearest open space and enjoy the view. You won't regret it.Till next time …