viewing rocket launches

[nigelk]

Hi all,

 

Hope I'm posting in the right place - feel free to re-direct me to a more appropriate location.

 

One of my long-held ambitions is to see (in person) the launch of a good sized space rocket - say 500kg payload or more. If I was in the US I'm sure I would have already managed to achieve that - being in Australia, there's not too many nearby launches.

 

If anyone has info or options about where I could travel, to see a launch, that would be much appreciated. I guess the ideal would be a location - or multiple nearby locations - that has multiple launches in a shortish space of time, so that a cancelled launch wouldn't be such a big deal.

 

Thanks in advance

[CaptainPanic]

Here's a list of all spaceports that will launch satellites (wikipedia).

 

Seems that the nearest location (geographically) for you is the Marshall Islands, where SpaceX launch their Falcon 1, which can carry 670 kg to LEO... but I have no idea if that is the nearest in terms of travel costs. Sea Launch also launch from the pacific, but I guess they will go a little bit away from the coast for safety reasons.

 

The list I linked to also mentions how many rockets were launched. Some spaceports are busy places, some are hardly ever used.

[nigelk]

Cool, thanks for the info. Looks like they don't have plans to use the Marshall Islands much in the near future:

http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

 

Shame the Ruskies aren 't a bit more open to foreign visitors in their military areas - lot's of launches there, although it's a bit unclear to me how many of those were in recent years. I guess my best bet is to take a trip to Cape Canaveral and take my chances on the weather, etc.

 

Thanks again.

[CaptainPanic]

Is Baikonur so secretive?

 

Quite recently a Dutch guy got launched and it got a lot of media coverage over here in the Netherlands. I heard that the journalists were quite surprised how close they could get to the actual launch site in Baikonur (Russia). They said they could get 3x as close as in the USA, or something. Not sure whether they needed special permits, or if that was just a public area.

 

Also, treat this as hearsay... It's a little while ago, and I cannot seem to find a link to back this up.