With the Space Shuttle - the AMC Pacer of orbital vehicles - blasting off today, I decided to capture NASA TV”s coverage of the event. Cool stuff.
As many of you may remember, the last time NASA sent a shuttle up, it didn”t come back - at least not in one piece. The Columbia disaster was caused by stuff coming off the big external tank and smacking the shuttle, so the rocket scientists decided they needed to keep a closer eye on what happens during launch.
And thus we have the Space Shuttle External Tank Cam. It rocks.
For the benefit of Wisdom readers, I took the liberty of burning out some QuickTime movies of NASA TV”s external-cam launch replay. The links below will get you the full show - from liftoff until the tank is jettisoned out in the cosmos. I”m giving you three flavors:
[editor"s note: sorry - videos no longer available. That"s life.]
- Normal speed. This version is in a smaller window, because even at this size it”s 28 megs. It”s about 8 minutes long and things unfold pretty slowly, which is kind of funny since the shuttle goes from 0 - 17,000 MPH during this time.
- 15X speed. It”s 27 seconds of high-speed, high-quality viewing pleasure.
- 15X backwards. Yeah, what the hell. Throw that bad boy in reverse and drop it back on the pad.
It should be noted that these bits were created with great ease using my Dish Network 721 DVR, Mac Mini and Elgato EyeTV 200. All three technologies come highly recommended by The Cap”n.
In fact, if you have a Mac and like TV, you should buy an EyeTV. From Amazon. By clicking this link
If you don”t have a Mac, you should get one. From Amazon. By clicking this link
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