I grabbed the camcorder last night and went out to watch the launch of NASA’s Kepler Telescope from my front yard located about 150 miles west-southwest of the Cape Canaveral. To my eyes the engine glow was quite red (atmospheric effect?). It was very clear and dark so there is nothing in the way of skyglow to put the image in perspective. I zoomed out and fiddled with the gamma a bit to try and give some.
At any rate, here it is. This was definitely one of those launches that looked ALOT better to the maked eye from my location and didn’t transfer well to video.
NASA released a report Tuesday on the last minutes of Space Shuttle Columbia citing problems with the crew’s helmets, spacesuits and restraints, which resulted in “lethal trauma” to the seven astronauts aboard. The report also discloses that the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds prior to catastrophic breakup that they did not have control of the vehicle.
Although all seven were wearing their pressure suits, not all helmets, gloves and glare shields were on or in place and clearly in the ultimate course of events would not have played any role increasing chances of survival.
I’ve downloaded the four-part PDF report and mirrored it here.
I was browsing the Mars Exploration Rover Mission Website and took a look at the latest Flight Director’s Update video entitled “Jan 17: It’s the fourth anniversary of the Mars Exploration Rovers.”
It’s a nicely produced little piece that is more of an overview of the mission (for those of you that have been living under a rock) than a true update. Nonetheless I though it was interesting.