Space shuttle Endeavour rockets to the International Space Station May 16 as seen in this camera phone picture taken from a Delta flight.
(Credit: Twitpic/Stefanie Gordon)She was charged for the airline ticket, but the mid-flight viewing of a space shuttle launch was free.
Stefanie Gordon of Hoboken, N.J., woke up on Delta Air Lines flight 2285 Monday traveling from New York's LaGuardia Airport to West Palm Beach, Fla., in time to watch the space shuttle Endeavour break through some cloud cover on its way to the International Space Station.
"The captain made an announcement that we would probably see it," Gordon told CBSNews. "I really couldn't hear what he was saying, and then all of a sudden people started getting up and going over to the windows."
Gordon recorded a video and took some pictures, which she then posted to her Twitter account. She wrote in a later post that she was "half asleep" the whole time.
Her pictures show Endeavour's smoke trail, with the massive shuttle appearing as small as a dot.
"It was amazing," Gordon told CBS News.
The shuttle sped toward the stars carrying an all-male crew led by Capt. Mark Kelly, the astronaut husband of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a January assassination attempt yet watched the launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Related links
• Shuttle Endeavour rockets into orbit on its final flight
• Photos: The final flight of Endeavour
• Photos: Endeavour flights
Nearly three hours after Gordon's updates posted to her Twitter page, more than 300 people started following her feed, she said in a message to another user.
"I cannot keep up with all the RTs and tweets," she wrote in one post, referring to other Twitter users forwarding, or re-tweeting, her posts. "This is crazy. Guess it's a good thing I woke up on my flight!"
It didn't take long for her to try to, possibly tongue-in-cheek, take advantage of her sudden popularity.
"Who wants to give me a job?" she asked. "Event planning, photos with my iPhone...or my real camera."
This article originally appeared on CBSNews.com.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/woman-on-plane-films-endeavour-rocketing-to-space/8301-17938_105-20063346-1.html#ixzz1MYo3Iscy
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