The Launch of Perseverance Video

This was a pretty extraordinary experience - thanks to NASA for inviting me! The Atlas V 541 rocket took off carrying the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity the Mars helicopter at 7:50 am July 30, 2020. They should arrive in about seven months on February 18, 2021

Video Script:: 

wow this is what it's like to be at the launch of a spacecraft we have this mission launching the perseverance rover and the helicopter ingenuity is going up on a seven month uh journey to reach mars this is just awesome man my first launch of a spacecraft and i just feel like i'm the only one out here it's me and the spacecraft is right over i don't know there somewhere i'm gonna put on a long line so we can see it i think i can see it holy crap holy crap look at it go that is phenomenal you got any advice for me in terms of like what i should be looking out for or you know any advice for a first-timer so it's really interesting to me is how emotional it is so basically what you're going to see is is it's almost like a miracle like you hear it the countdown and then all of a sudden you see this light taking off it's like you know it's like clouds and then you see the light taking off and just like well i don't hear anything all of a sudden you feel it in your body like that the sound of course propagating slower than the light will hit your body and will really shake you and you know it's this almost out of body experience that you're part of really again taking off from the shore of the cosmic ocean you know so for me it's like you know punching a hole in the sky so that was amazing and there it is doing its turn to the east i felt this for the first time a couple years ago when i saw the solar eclipse but there are just some moments in life where you realize that you are really on this rock hurtling through space the solar eclipse was one of those moments for me and seeing this rocket launch to another planet it just hits that home it's like most of your daily life you can go and and just do everything without thinking about that fundamental reality but when you see something like this it just changes your world view for a minute and so you can really embrace this sense that we're on this this rock hurtling through space and we just sent off a a projectile to another planet which is a pretty freaking amazing thing i know we've done it a number of times in the past so you know maybe people get sort of numb to it but uh it's in a pretty extraordinary accomplishment every every time you