Last night the Space Shuttle Endeavor launched for mission STS-126 with new components and crew for the International Space Station.  Liftoff was at 7:55pm Eastern Time from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida.  I wasn't at the launch, but I did see it from about 60 miles away 4,000 feet in the air.  In short, it was awesome.  At the moment of liftoff, the northeastern sky lit up and an orange streak ascended into the sky.  We were about as close as we could legally be in an aircraft, and the view was nothing less than spectacular.  A few moments after liftoff there was a quick flash and the color changed from orange to a bright white.  It kept moving up and away and just resembled a very bright star moving through the sky.  After a moment of this we had to turn around and return to the Earth ourselves.

Originally my best friend and his wife were going to accompany me on the trip, and he unfortunately was not able to make it.  His wife and his brother came along instead, and we had a great time.  His brother had never flown at all before, so it was an honor to be his first pilot.  Aside from the launch of the shuttle, the flight itself was relatively uneventful.  There were some clouds over the middle of the state which would have blocked the view, but we were able to get past them just in time.  After watching the launch just south of Orlando, we headed south around the restricted areas and headed toward Sebring to land.  We landed there to rest for a few minutes before taking off again to head back to Sarasota.  The clouds were getting lower and one stuck up on me.  We were inside the cloud for no more than a few seconds as I descended back down to visible conditions.  There was a little bit of rain, but nothing so bad it restricted visibility, so we kept heading west.  Eventually we left the weather behind us and we had a great view of Sarasota and the surrounding areas.  We followed another airplane in to land at Sarasota and returned safely to the ground.  Total flight time was about two and a half hours, and makes for one of the nicest and most relaxing flights so far.  I'm glad that I have the privledge to share the experience with friends.