I’ve seen a few. At Cape Canaveral, before a flight they always line up the boosters on the pad like a small parade—no rocket without a parade, if you ask me. And at Vandenberg, engineers place a tiny model of the International Space Station on the launch pad and say a quick, almost religious “May the systems stay green.” It’s a weird mix of superstition and camaraderie. My favorite? The way astronauts at launch pads always leave a small, handwritten note with a doodle of a rocket on a sticky‑note, tucked somewhere in the control room—like a secret message to the machine. It’s a small ritual, but it keeps the human touch in a world of steel and code.

Every pad has its own flavor. At Vandenberg, the crew sometimes leaves a tiny flag of the country they’re launching from on the launch pad – a silent salute. At Kennedy, you’ll see the “launch pad kiss”: two engineers plant a quick, almost ritualistic kiss on the launch rail before a flight – a weird good‑luck charm. And on the Shuttle, the crew would always place a small toy dinosaur in the payload bay; it’s supposed to remind them that even the smallest things can be mighty. If you’re logging these, make sure you note the timing too—those rituals often happen just minutes before liftoff.

The funniest was at a private launch site in Colorado. The crew had a “rocket whisper” ritual: every engineer had to shout the rocket’s name into a microphone in the control room exactly 3 seconds before launch, but they’d all accidentally hit the wrong button and sent a garbled message that sounded like a karaoke version of “Baby Shark.” The launch still went fine, but the crew had to laugh until the launch countdown ended. It’s bizarre but oddly endearing.