Cool Shuttle Video

Keith Lane

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Keith Lane
Here is something you don't get to see every day. Cameras mounted on the sides of the Space Shuttle booster tanks.
Notice when it breaks the sound barrier and watch the speed notation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=2aCOyOvOw5c#!

Note in a couple of instances (@3:40 for instance) you can see the smoke trail coming up from the launch pad.
 
Don't get to see it at all, anymore. :(

Too many folks didn't know about NASA TV when Shuttle was flying. Post-launch, they'd do an hour of replays of every camera they had on board.

I could watch that stuff for days. (And have.)

We rebroadcast Shuttle audio (technically the PAO feed, not the raw feeds that lucky folks who work at places like JPL could go listen in on in the auditorium) for well over ten years on the local Amateur Radio repeater linking system during launches and dockings and other "interesting" events. Had it set up so locals could talk over the NASA feed if they needed the repeater.

Going to miss doing that. Had to dig through every day's updates to the flight schedule and set up the automated connect/disconnect stuff for the audio link. A little part-time "job" whenever Shuttle was up.

Other ham groups would just continuously rebroadcast. Houston's hams had a considerable interest in doing so, for example. ;)

As streaming on the Net became more commonly available, the feed was less useful, but we kept doing it. Nothing like listening to the Astronauts all day on a handheld radio.

Our early system long before the Net was fast enough for streaming audio even, let alone video, was a C-Band Satellite dish at one of the club Officer's houses back when NASA Select was on C-Band, and a 220 MHz link up to the mountain.
 
Here is something you don't get to see every day. Cameras mounted on the sides of the Space Shuttle booster tanks.
Notice when it breaks the sound barrier and watch the speed notation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?feature=player_embedded&v=2aCOyOvOw5c#!

Note in a couple of instances (@3:40 for instance) you can see the smoke trail coming up from the launch pad.

That was cool! Thanks for posting. Looked like a shockwave forming when it hit 700 MPH. Lot of moisture in the air.
 
Cool video!

I have a question if anyone knows. At the upper right it shows speed in mph. When after separation why does the speed not go down to zero as they are still going up and then when they start falling back down i thought it would speed back up? Instead it slows down a little but then speeds back up before slowing down in the atmosphere. Mph in relation to what?
 
Cool video!

I have a question if anyone knows. At the upper right it shows speed in mph. When after separation why does the speed not go down to zero as they are still going up and then when they start falling back down i thought it would speed back up? Instead it slows down a little but then speeds back up before slowing down in the atmosphere. Mph in relation to what?
At the end, it says something about velocities are calculated from flight data recorders.
 
Cool video!

I have a question if anyone knows. At the upper right it shows speed in mph. When after separation why does the speed not go down to zero as they are still going up and then when they start falling back down i thought it would speed back up? Instead it slows down a little but then speeds back up before slowing down in the atmosphere. Mph in relation to what?

They don't go straight up. At SRB seperation the shuttle is already 26 miles downrange from where it launched. SRB splashdown is 141 miles downrange. Someone better than me at math can figure out the angle based on that info.

If you throw a baseball at the same angle you'll see it slow down then fall back to Earth but it won't completely stop before falling.
 
Very cool video. Thanks for posting that. It always amazed me how stable the launch looks, especially when the are slow at the very start of the launch
 
One of my favorite tid-bits from Shuttle launches is that the main engines fire up and the entire stack leans over quite a ways (nose down Orbiter pitch from the crew perspective, who are lying on their backs looking straight up), and the SRBs are timed to blow the explosive bolts and light as the stack recoils back from the thrust of the Orbiter main engines.

You can see it quite well in that video. Also can see it well in side-on shots of any launch.

The sheer number of system checks going on in those few seconds while the lean happens and recoils is impressive, too. If the Orbiter engines don't start correctly, the SRBs don't fire.

Once the SRBs fire, you're going for a ride, one way or another. You have 6.6 seconds from main engine start to SRB firing to decide. :)

The pad abort mode happened five times.

The freakiest Abort mode that never was used was the RTLS ( return to launch site ) where the Orbiter would burn its engines in retrograde after SRB separation and come back. That would have been a wild ride.

Once those candles lit, you were going up for 123 seconds no matter what.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes
 
One of my favorite tid-bits from Shuttle launches is that the main engines fire up and the entire stack leans over quite a ways (nose down Orbiter pitch from the crew perspective, who are lying on their backs looking straight up), and the SRBs are timed to blow the explosive bolts and light as the stack recoils back from the thrust of the Orbiter main engines.

If memory serves, that lean over & back was called the "twang." Kinda makes me think of flipping then little spring door stoppers when I was a kid. But with a million pounds of thrust!

The cable company (C*mcast) where I used to live had NASA TV as an always-on channel; I judged this as one the company's few redeeming qualities. Unfortunately where I live now, Veriz*n doesn't have that as part of my FiOS plan, so I have to resort to watching it online.

But at least the streaming works so much better now it's a viable option - I can remember streams being just miserable just a few years ago.
 
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