What it was like to watch the Falcon Heavy fly

I’m standing in the middle of a wide grassy field, peering at a tiny, smoking rocket three miles in the distance. Hundreds of reporters, producers, and photographers are all standing around me, staring at the same spot. The seconds tick away on a giant, electronic countdown clock located on the field’s edge. At just 20 seconds on the clock, I hear a flight controller’s voice boom over a loudspeaker behind me: “SpaceX Falcon Heavy: go for launch.”It’s actually