Local Watches Final Atlantis Shuttle Launch

When space shuttle Atlantis rocketed off the launch pad Friday at the Kennedy Space Center and into space for the historic final mission for the program, David Parmet of Pound Ridge was watching from just three miles away—the closest spectators are allowed to get.

With an estimated one million people watching along Florida’s Space Coast—including 150 twitter users selected to view the launch as part of a NASA Tweetup—the three man and one woman crew lifted off from Launch Pad 39A and began their 12-day mission to the International Space Station at 11:29 a.m.

The flight, which had been threatened by inclement weather leading up to the launch, lifted off nearly three minutes after its scheduled launch time. NASA held the countdown at T-31 seconds to confirm the refueling arm had fully retracted from the external fuel tank–which led to confusion among the thousands gathered at the media site–before the countdown resumed.

“From where I was standing I couldn't see that the countdown clock had stopped at T-31 seconds so the hold caught us completely by surprise,” said Parmet in an interview after the launch. “Then someone shouted 'here it comes' and we saw the steam from the vibration suppression system grow around the pad and we saw the Shuttle start to rise.”

Parmet said looking into the engine fire was like looking directly into the sun.

“The shock wave from the engines and solid rocket boosters took about twenty seconds to reach us…you could feel the pressure building up as it approached us and then bam! It was so strong it knocked my iPhone off of my tripod,” he said.

More than 5,500 people from around the world registered for the opportunity. A Tweetup is a gathering of people who use the social media messaging service, Twitter, to communicate and arrange to meet. The two-day event gave those who were selected a behind-the-scenes tour of the Kennedy Space Center and launch.

Parmet has sent 12,123 tweets under the user name @davidparmet and has 4,528 twitter followers.

, his fourth NASA Tweetup. He reunited and stayed with other Tweetup alumni, with whom he’s kept in touch with through a NASA Facebook group. Many participants are interested in or heavily involved in science and technology and all are enthusiastic supporters of the space program,” he said.

They arrived onsite by 6 a.m. on launch day, he said, and in the Tweetup tent had the opportunity to speak with astronauts and NASA officials.

“One moment I won't forget listening to Bob Crippen [a pilot on the first Shuttle launch],” Parmet said. “It was very poignant to be hearing from someone from the first shuttle crew at the same time that the final shuttle crew was preparing for lift-off.”

Parmet was in eleventh grade when the first shuttle launched in 1981. He said he can still remember how his physics teacher rolled in a television set so his class could watch. “That launch happened 20 years after Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961. Fifty years after that—we have a permanently staffed space station in orbit and plans to move out to the Moon and beyond,” he said. “We've certainly come a long way in a very short time.

Though he isn’t dreaming of space flight for himself, he said he’s “pretty sure” it will be an option for his children, with spaceflight being privatized and access to the International Space Station likely to become a reality for everyday citizens.

Parmet plans to share more photos and video from his trip at the next meeting of the Westchester County Amateur Astronomers, to be help September 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Miller Lecture Hall at Pace University. The event is open to the public.

Atlantis’ return to Earth will mark the end of the Space Shuttle Program for NASA. For more than 30 years, the shuttle transported astronauts, satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope, in addition to delivering components into orbit for the International Space Station.

The five orbiters have flown 537,114,016 miles, and an estimated four million additional miles will be added to that total by Atlantis.

When the shuttle lands on July 20 at Kennedy Space Center, it will be on the 42nd anniversary of the moon landing.