The crowds within the park and on the near A. GHB Brewer Bridge when} numbered within the thousands well-nigh disappeared after the ballistic capsule program resulted in 2011. But, now, the park — like different launch viewing sites around Brevard County — is seeing a comeback, as excitement builds over again concerning the programme.
Titusville resident Robert "Ozzie" Osband may be a fixture on launch day at house read Park. He provides the launch audio for spectators, yet as production up Lavazza coffee, the whole of low on the International artificial satellite.
"I {consider|think concerning|contemplate|take into account} this as my very little niche hobby in serving to to share the information about launches," aforementioned Osband, throughout an opportunity from responsive spectator questions on the February. nineteen SpaceX Falcon nine launch on a resupply mission to the International artificial satellite.
Spectators crowd close to the shore, shortly from house read Park's monuments and plaques observance milestones within the U.S. programme. As rising time nears, several purpose their phones or cameras within the direction of the launch pad across the stream.
"For several of them," Osband aforementioned, "it's a once-in-a-lifetime expertise."
Hotel official city Evans has noticed the thrill, too.
Evans, director of sales at the 96-room Fairfield hotel & Suites by Marriott in Titusville, aforementioned concerning one-quarter of her hotel's business is tied to the programme, together with tourists coming back to visualize a launch or visit the Kennedy house Center traveller advanced, or space industry workers here for a business trip.
A typical guest question at the hotel front desk, Evans said is: "Where is the best place to watch the launch?"
Branded "Space Coast"
Space Coast Office of Tourism Executive Director Eric Garvey aforementioned his agency is working to promote space launch tourism. That includes organizing launch viewing parties at venues around the northern part of the county, such as Port Canaveral's seven-story Exploration Tower; upgrading the SpaceCoastLaunches.com website that focuses on launch activity and other things to do in the area; and debuting a Facebook Live show in the 30 minutes leading up to the opening of a launch window.
"We try to make sure that we're known as 'Florida's Space Coast,' " not just locally, but nationally and internationally, Garvey said. "It's a part of our brand identity."
The show won't be just for space geeks, however, and won't try to mimic a NASA broadcast, for example. Instead, it will discuss the launch and the underlying mission, but also talk about other tourist-focused venues in the area, and include things like a surf report and interviews with local celebrities.
"We'll cover space, and we'll also cover the destination" from a tourism standpoint, Garvey said.
The Office of Tourism doesn't have a specific breakdown. But the tourists who watch launches include a mix of people who may drive over for the day from a vacation elsewhere in Florida, such as from the Orlando-area attractions, and people who plan their vacations around a scheduled launch and stay at Space Coast hotels.
Orlando resident Isao Obatake brought four visitors from Japan to watch the Feb. 19 SpaceX launch from Space View Park. Although the rocket disappeared into the clouds after just a few seconds that morning, he said it was "very exciting" for he and the visitors, and he expects to be back.
Sherry Sharlow, a retired teacher from Massena, New York, who was visiting Brevard County, also was watching her first launch that day from the shoreline of Space View Park.
"It's pretty cool," Sharlow said, just after the SpaceX rocket lifted off. "And I can't think of a nicer place to see a launch."
But the crowds reached only about 300 people that morning — certainly not like the crowds last seen for the final launch of a space shuttle in 2011.
Historic perspective
Titusville resident Charlie Mars has witnessed the evolution of the space program for more than a half-century. Mars worked on the Mercury, Gemini. Apollo and space shuttle program. After his retirement from NASA, Mars was president of the U.S. Space Walk of Fame Foundation and Space Museum in downtown Titusville. He currently is vice chair of the board of director's at the organization, now known as the American Space Museum and Space Walk of Fame.
Mars recalls two launches when an estimated 1 million spectators were watching the launch from Brevard County — the 1969 launch of Apollo 11 that would land the first astronauts on the moon and the first launch of the space shuttle in 1981. Mars said the 1988 return to flight of the space shuttle after the 1986 Challenger accident was a launch that brought an estimated 750,000 people to Space Coast launch viewing sites.
"There was a passion for the entire program," said Mars, who headed Kennedy Space Center's projects office for the Apollo lunar module and for the first three space shuttle missions. "Everyone felt they were a part of it, down to the pizza delivery person."
Mars says he doesn't know if we'll see that kind of passion or those kinds of crowds again on the Space Coast. But the fascination with Elon Musk's SpaceX, which launches from here, and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which is building a factory here, suggests the area might.
And, pizza delivery people still are excited about the space program. Case in point: The delivery driver who created a social media stir on Reddit discussion boards a little more than a week ago when he posted a photo taken from a helicopter of a new robotic device sitting on the deck of SpaceX's autonomous spaceport drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.
Speculation abounds that crowds approaching 1 million could turn up again for some special missions, such as the first launch of SpaceX's planned tourist flight around the moon and the first launch of astronauts on a mission to Mars.
"To go to another planet — that gets to people," Mars said.
Former astronaut Jon McBride, who piloted a 1984 space shuttle mission — the first shuttle flight with a crew of seven — and now is director of astronaut education programs for the KSC Visitor Complex, said another thing that draws crowds: the roar and rumble of larger rockets.
"The bigger the rocket, the bigger the crowd," said McBride.
Higher-profile missions
Osband says he has seen as many as 500 people coming to Space View Park for launches recently.
Spectators also watch launches from the Cocoa Beach Pier and the beaches of Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral, as well as from Port Canaveral's Cove area and Jetty Park.
Jetty Park "is packed, just packed," when there is a rocket launch, Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer John Murray said.
Jetty Park typically averages 400 to 600 vehicles for launches, depending on the scheduled launch time. And with Exploration Tower near the port's Cove area, their is another location to see a launch.
"Obviously, there's not as many people as in the shuttle days" watching launches now, said Charles Radley of Palm Bay, a volunteer with the Florida Space Development Council, a chapter of the National Space Society.
But 2018 will be a big year. Both Boeing and SpaceX plan to launch astronauts to the International Space Station, which would mark the first crew launches from U.S. soil since the final flight of space shuttle Atlantis in July 2011. NASA also hopes to launch its new deep space rocket, the Space Launch System, and an unmanned Orion capsule on a test flight from Kennedy Space Center.
The crowds viewing such launches "very well may approach shuttle levels," Radley said.
And with SpaceX not only launching rockets, but also landing its first-stage booster, in many cases, viewers not only get to see a rocket lift off, but also return. Crowds on the beach applaud when they hear the booster's sonic boom signaling its return.
"It's exciting. It's unique. It's an incredible thing to watch," Evans said. "It's very 'Star Trek,' "
Important for hotels
Tom Williamson, a partner and general manager of the Courtyard by Marriott and Hampton Inn in Cocoa Beach, said about 50 percent of the room rentals at the 156-room Courtyard are tied to the space business and 30 to 40 percent at the 150-room Hampton.
"Just the increase in the launch activity is tremendous," Williamson said. "It's bringing more visitors and it's bringing more contractors. There's so much going on."
There could be as many as 30 launches from the Space Coast this year, up from 18 in 2016.
Garvey said the Office of Tourism also plans to work more closely with the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to boost the number of people coming to Brevard County to view a launch.
The Visitor Complex already is Brevard County's most popular paid tourist attraction, and its attending has rebounded following the gap of the ballistic capsule imaginary place exhibit in 2013. traveller advanced attending rose to one.66 million in 2016, up forty eight % from the one.12 million United Nations agency came there throughout 2012, the primary full year once the tip of the shuttle program.
"Everybody is worked up concerning house and house exploration," McBride aforementioned, adding that the joy are even additional intense with the come of launching humans into house from the house Coast.
Garvey said, notwithstanding spectator counts for individual launches do not reach Phoebus Apollo or ballistic capsule numbers, "I assume we're reaching to exceed those numbers" for a full year "when you add all of them up."
