Bajkonur launch on the cheap

[Mikael]

Watched Progress 52? being launched a few days ago from the highway.

There are two cafes and a truckparking/hotel/restaurant close to the overpass, where we watched the night launch. About 300 meters from the bridge. Price was 5000 tenge for a double.

Launch itself was just an ascending fireball without sound as the ramp is 30 km from the road. Around 100 sec later we got muted rumble. But... stick around... the not yet risen sun lit up the plume. Was very pretty and surreal. Having a hotel room beats sleeping in the desert in a tent IMHO. Especially close to towns as Kasaks also treat nature as their own personal garbage dump.

[steven]

Thank you - I took a note of that.

Sidenote: Inhabitants of the Kyzyl Orda region are like that concerning trash - in different regions (north, Altai, Astana) it is different, though. Almaty used to be very clean, but now has lots of people from other, trashier areas.

[eurasiaoverland]

I watched a Soyuz / Progress (unmaned) launch in April 2011 from the roadside near the underpass which leads to Baykonur town.

Use the following website and make sure your watch is set correctly!

http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html