Just eyeballing it, it's about 600-700 ft from the center of the pad to the tree line, so perfectly doable -- would cameras have been watching the tree line? If someone had shot from the top of a roof or something, I'd think cameras would have caught him leaving/hiding. It would be very, very obvious they shouldn't be there.
Leaving before anyone could notice you would be a bit more of a problem.
In my experience security is often not as good as people think it is in general, especially when large orgs are involved. Look into all the cases of anti nuke activists sneaking into nuke plants for example, or the endless cyber security compromises of large companies and governments.
A place like the Cape is tough because you have many, many contractors and commercial users along with multiple civilian and military fed personnel and even academics. It's likely full of people trying to get their work done, not playing "if you see something say something."
How secure is the Cape? Anyone got any experience?
When I was there I was taken into the VAB with a group. The SRBs for the next Shuttle launch were there. Nobody else was in there. "Security" consisted of a guy asking if I had any lighters or matches.
>>Leaving before anyone could notice you would be a bit more of a problem.
So you sit. Hope they don't have dogs, wait for dark, then exfiltrate. Hell, there are even ways to counteract dogs.
How many former snipers do you think there are in civilian life? How many smart rednecks who can shoot well enough to hit a rocket-sized target at 300 yards? (hell, I'm in that category...)
Somewhere in the union of those two sets, there may exist somebody with sufficient motivation to pull something like this, and enough spare time to prepare well enough to succeed.
I'm not saying that this is what happened, but I am saying that it's far from impossible.
It takes about 4-5 seconds from the noise to the explosion. Wouldn't that be a pretty slow bullet? I wonder how much evidence of such a thing would be left after an explosion, too.
Leaving before anyone could notice you would be a bit more of a problem.