a live Shuttle launch
May 11th, 2009 | Published in general | 4 Comments
I can’t remember the last time i watched a live launch of the space shuttle, and i just missed seeing it live online today through the NASA live feed. It’s a wonder to see though, and i recommend it highly.
There are many may different cameras recording the launch, and afterwards NASA replays the launch from a dozen or so different viewpoints, including pad-side and VIP area views. Not that you get to choose which one you’re seeing, but two of them stood out for me.
One is a particular side view (i don’t remember the camera number) because it clearly shows both of the engines at work. The shuttle engines themselves are massively powerful, but they’re candles in comparison to the blow torches of the solid rockets on either side. Not being a rocket scientist, it’s a marvel to me how they can so precisely steer the conglomeration of 2 rockets, shuttle and external tank during the first few seconds of massive thrust to put the shuttle neatly on it’s back while climbing thousands of feet per second straight up.
The external tank camera is the best view to stick with though, putting you on the shuttle as it leaves the pad, showing the tower, then city, state, and finally the horizon shrink like playthings. This is also the last view they show live during the live feed.
The details of this view are amazing; the overall picture seems static after a couple of minutes because the background is so far away, but you can clearly see the skin on the external fuel tank shiver while they climb, presumably either from passing through the atmosphere or because of the sheer force of the boost. The external booster rockets flicker and flare up in the final seconds before they’re ejected back into the ocean, like candles being blown out. This view lasts several minutes into the flight, through their roll in low orbit until just a minute before tank separation, when the feed is out of range for transmission. That last roll though is suprisingly quick and precise; it’s a few seconds of rolling over, then a precise stop, shuttle belly down.
This space shuttle mission is to rendezvous with the International Space Station for a service call to the Hubble space telescope. It’s becoming increasingly easy to take these sort of things as commonplace, but the Space Station and shuttle really deserves more attention than it gets. We launched people into space today, to meet up with other people who are temporarily living in space, to fix a tool that has permanently changed our view of our place in the universe.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm (#)
It’s too bad they’re shutting down the shuttle program. As a kid who came of age in the 80s, they represent the space program.
May 11th, 2009 at 7:03 pm (#)
They are even better in person. Growing up on the Space Coast we routinely get out of class to watch.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:44 pm (#)
I grew up during the Gemini and Apollo programs and remember clustering around a little TV to watch the first moon walk while I was at scout camp. I’ve always been fascinated by space and was pretty certain as a kid that I would have been there by now. I wonder how long it will be until it is routine for us to visit space.
May 12th, 2009 at 11:03 pm (#)
I agree on the end of the shuttle program; to a whole generation of kids, that IS the space program. It seems like such a great solution for regular trips to the space station. I still have my Space Shuttle Operator’s Manual from 1982!