Friday, October 06, 2006
For space geeks.
If you like anything to do with space exploration and space travel, and you haven't visited NASA's website, you're missing out on a good thing. There's a cornucopia of goodies there to see and explore. NASA has a huge collection of pictures and videos on their site. It's all there for the looking, copying, etc, and it's all free for the taking. And why not? After all, we paid for it. There are even links to pictures and videos from older programs such as the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programs.
For instance, here's a neat video about the Apollo 8 mission that's narrated by Burgess Meredith.
Here's another page with photos from the Mercury missions.
Here's the search page where you can reach videos and pictures from a variety of past NASA projects and programs. It's quite extensive. You can even go back quite a ways. Some of the earliest I've been able to find of the shuttle, for example, goes back to 1994.
Here's a couple of videos that really caught my fancy. After the shuttle Columbia was lost on re-entry in 2003, the fleet was grounded while they devised ways to better assure that the remaining craft were undamaged and fit to make the return back to Earth after launch. Amongst other things, they started mounting cameras on places they never had before. One of those places is the solid rocket boosters. (SRBs) They're those tall skinny thingies on either side of the brown main fuel tank. The main idea is to see if any of the foam from the main tank comes off during the launch and hits the shuttle. These two videos come from cameras mounted on the SRBs and start out looking at the main tank while the SRBs are still attached to the stack. So you have to be patient while that happens. But after the booster detach, you get to go for a wild ride while the boosters do their tumbling re-entry and fall back to earth. The cool thing about all this is that while all the other cameras are video only, these cameras have microphones attached, and you get to listen to the sounds of space flight. Forgive this old techno nerd, but I think this is great stuff!!
The first video is from the left booster during STS-114's launch on July 26, 2006. Be patient. It's not much of a view at first. What you first see is a view of the re-enforcing ribs on the side of the external tank during initial climb out. But after the booster separation, you get an incredible view of the other booster, as both do the "tumble" back to earth. Then, you get an incredible view of the earth itself, as the booster spirals down to the ocean. Finally, you get a neat view of the drogue chutes as they do their "staged" deployment. First, they're rather small as the boosters are still falling pretty quickly. Then, as the boosters are slowed, the retaining straps are released and the chutes, in stages, get bigger and bigger. In this video, the sound is somewhat muffled, but as the boosters come back down to earth and re-enter the atmosphere, you can hear the sound the air makes as it whistles past the nozzle openings. It's kind of a "moan" that increases, then decreases as the angle of attack changes. Sort of like blowing across the mouth of a pop bottle when we were kids. This is a damn big pop bottle, so it's sort of a bass note. Really cool.
This is a video of the same camera position on the right side of the stack. There's a much better view of the other booster as they both tumble down. Pay close attention to the back ground. You can see it for quite a
ways. The sound is much better also. You can hear "moaning and singing" as it descends.
I've seen the ones from STS-115, and they're even better. First, the sound quality is better, and in one of them, you can see the other booster much longer than in these. And after the camera carrying booster splashes into the water and settles out, you can see the OTHER booster splashing down in the distance. Way cool, and I'll keep looking for them. In the meantime, enjoy these.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
For instance, here's a neat video about the Apollo 8 mission that's narrated by Burgess Meredith.
Here's another page with photos from the Mercury missions.
Here's the search page where you can reach videos and pictures from a variety of past NASA projects and programs. It's quite extensive. You can even go back quite a ways. Some of the earliest I've been able to find of the shuttle, for example, goes back to 1994.
Here's a couple of videos that really caught my fancy. After the shuttle Columbia was lost on re-entry in 2003, the fleet was grounded while they devised ways to better assure that the remaining craft were undamaged and fit to make the return back to Earth after launch. Amongst other things, they started mounting cameras on places they never had before. One of those places is the solid rocket boosters. (SRBs) They're those tall skinny thingies on either side of the brown main fuel tank. The main idea is to see if any of the foam from the main tank comes off during the launch and hits the shuttle. These two videos come from cameras mounted on the SRBs and start out looking at the main tank while the SRBs are still attached to the stack. So you have to be patient while that happens. But after the booster detach, you get to go for a wild ride while the boosters do their tumbling re-entry and fall back to earth. The cool thing about all this is that while all the other cameras are video only, these cameras have microphones attached, and you get to listen to the sounds of space flight. Forgive this old techno nerd, but I think this is great stuff!!
The first video is from the left booster during STS-114's launch on July 26, 2006. Be patient. It's not much of a view at first. What you first see is a view of the re-enforcing ribs on the side of the external tank during initial climb out. But after the booster separation, you get an incredible view of the other booster, as both do the "tumble" back to earth. Then, you get an incredible view of the earth itself, as the booster spirals down to the ocean. Finally, you get a neat view of the drogue chutes as they do their "staged" deployment. First, they're rather small as the boosters are still falling pretty quickly. Then, as the boosters are slowed, the retaining straps are released and the chutes, in stages, get bigger and bigger. In this video, the sound is somewhat muffled, but as the boosters come back down to earth and re-enter the atmosphere, you can hear the sound the air makes as it whistles past the nozzle openings. It's kind of a "moan" that increases, then decreases as the angle of attack changes. Sort of like blowing across the mouth of a pop bottle when we were kids. This is a damn big pop bottle, so it's sort of a bass note. Really cool.
This is a video of the same camera position on the right side of the stack. There's a much better view of the other booster as they both tumble down. Pay close attention to the back ground. You can see it for quite a
ways. The sound is much better also. You can hear "moaning and singing" as it descends.
I've seen the ones from STS-115, and they're even better. First, the sound quality is better, and in one of them, you can see the other booster much longer than in these. And after the camera carrying booster splashes into the water and settles out, you can see the OTHER booster splashing down in the distance. Way cool, and I'll keep looking for them. In the meantime, enjoy these.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov
