Camera attached to Space Shuttle booster rocket

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

I like this film. Note the vapor when the sound barrier is broken.

Pretty neat.

LMAO! A little background for you guys.

The original video was a secret. NASA wouldn't listen to the SRB guys that the tank foam was coming off, so they snuck a camera into a nosecone and filmed it. This was the John Glenn launch, IIRC. I know this because my dad was one of the people to mount the camera, he brought home the raw tape to show us right after. I should try and find it, but I'm sure it's already on the internet somewhere. They brought it to the head honchos, who threatened firings and still didn't do anything. After Columbia they all got promoted and they mounted cameras all over, which is how we got this video.

Pops retired as the co-head of orbiter safety about 3 years ago.

In reply to Javelin:

Awesome story! Another reason this board rocks!!!

man. 0-500 mph in 30 seconds... straight up!

WilberM3 wrote: man. 0-500 mph in 30 seconds... straight up!

But 0-60 in only 4.154.... Who can claim a car that's "faster than the space shuttle!"

-Rob

Yep, It was pretty cool.

In reply to Javelin:

Good for pops. Always happy to see people doing the right thing.

Absolutely awe inspiring!

One day our kids or grandkids will wonder why we aren't still going into space. I wonder that now.

Give Burt Rutan 100 million and a year and you'll see some serious E36 M3.

Appleseed wrote: Give Burt Rutan 100 million and a year and you'll see some serious E36 M3.

If I'm ever voted President (or rise to power in a bloody coup), that will be Executive Order #1.

As a child of the space industry (grew up in Cocoa, Pops worked for USBI building the SRB's, then went to USA as safety) who was fascinated by the shuttles and missiles and has been in the VAB and the Orbiters it truly, truly saddens me that our space program is dust in the wind. I can't believe that we've abandoned the ultimate frontier to a warehouse full of 50-year old Soyuz's.

WilberM3 wrote: man. 0-500 mph in 30 seconds... straight up!

Did anyone else catch how long it stayed at over 2500mph, and then once it re-entered, how quickly is slowed back down?

the scrubbing off of speed was amazing. It almost seemed like the chutes didn't add much to that

In awe!