Amazing NASA footage
Ever wonder what it would be like to parachute from the edge of space to the ocean? Me neither. But NASA strapped a camera to the side of one of the solid rocket boosters that helped launch the shuttle Discovery into space last week, and has posted the results for all to see. Just click on the link, and then on the "cool movies" link in the text.
The video begins at launch. We're looking down the booster as the launch pad and the ground drop away. We're on the starboard booster - one of the two reusable rockets on each flight - as it separates from the shuttle, and falls away while the orbiter continues on toward orbit. Then we ride with the booster as it falls back toward the Atlantic Ocean, tumbling at first before it pops its parachute. And we're there when it splashes into the water and bobs around in a tangle of parachute lines waiting for the recovery ship. So cool.
Comments
This IS cool- thanks for linking us to these awesome perspectives.
One surprising thing about the movie is how little vibration is visible between the camera, which is mounted on the booster rocket, and the shuttle. My impression of the shuttle launch is that the entire assembly, including the astronauts, experiences tremendous vibration as it overcomes gravity to get up to speed.
The lack of vibration in the movie must indicate that the connections between the camera and rocket, and those between the rockets and the shuttle are very rigid connections, so that the whole thing vibrates as a unit. Either that, or the distance between the camera and the edge of the shuttle is big enough relative to the resolution of the camera that you just don't see the vibration at that resolution.
Any aeronautical or structural engineers or photographers or others out there have insight on why no vibration in the movie?
Posted by: Susan | July 13, 2006 12:51 PM