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A Quick Trip to Space and Back - WOW

Posted on: 2006-07-10

Front camera

Aft camera.

Click on 'Solid Rocket Booster Video'

When I was ten I get special dispensation to watch the original Space Shuttle Columbia land, because I was such a space geek. I've been mostly bored by the Space Shuttle missions over the last decade or so - it seems to be mostly PR, while the real cool stuff is landing robots on other planets.

Ho hum another Shuttle mission - but these clips are some of the most fantastic videos I've ever seen in my life. The first one is from the top of the rocket looking down, and you see the launch, the shadow of the pillar of cloud underneath the shuttle, the separation, and tumbling through the atmosphere and into the ocean. The second one is from the bottom looking up, and you can see the puff of cloud as the Shuttle breaks the sound barrier - and then a fantastic view of the shuttle pulling away after the boosters separate. Look carefully and you can occasionally see the smoke trail from takeoff poking into the stratosphere.

Wow.

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