The following time-lapse video showing the Soyuz spacecraft departing the International Space Station this evening, with perspectives from both the station and the rocket capsule, is flat-out amazing.
Found via Nasa Spaceflight.com.
The Russians achieve so much more with so much less than NASA gets from its own taxpayers. Did you know that NASA has a larger budget than all the rest of the world’s civilian space agencies, combined? Only at NASA is a program’s failure considered proof that the program is somehow underfunded.
LOL. Russia is a third world country that happens to have the remnents of a superpower’s space program. They essentially pay their workers 2% of the wages of western countries.
And what exactly “more” have they achieved? NASA has landed men on the moon and sent probes to every planet in the solar system – Russia has managed a couple of robotic landings on the moon and Venus. The U.S. developed the largest rocket in the world, then the Space Shuttle and was on track to develop the safest launcher in history until Obama cancelled it. Russia is using the same booster it developed for Sputnik.
And I assume your last statement is referring to Constellation. You are sorely misinformed.
then the Space Shuttle and was on track to develop the safest launcher in history until Obama cancelled it.
No, Bush43 cancelled the “safest launcher in the world”. Obama cancelled Constellation, which was more dangerous than the Shuttle according to NASA.
Russia is using the same booster it developed for Sputnik.
Which means that it is reliable and proven technology (i.e., safe technology) with low costs. Why do you object to using something that is safer and less expensive than the Shuttle to get people into orbit?
No, JohnD, you don’t understand the article. It says that several test flight of Orion would be necessary before statistics could VERIFY that it is safer than Shuttle. That would be true of any “new” spacecraft – it is necessary to verify design analysis and prediction before enough confidence can be put in the reliability numbers.
Eric, I liked the video it actually gave a sense of the different motions. Neat to see the earth moving underneath the ISS and the Russian space ship. Any HD video like this?
Haven’t seen one but I’d love to.
KVolk, HD video won’t be available until after the crew lands and delivers the memory cards from their cameras – Soyuz does not have HD downlink.
Neat to see the earth moving underneath
I thought that was neat too. You really get a sense of its speed relative to Earth, in a LEO.
My editor and I both had the same thought about the relative velocity of the Earth beneath the space station. It’s one thing to say the ISS moves at a high rate of speed, but it’s quite another thing to see it.
Uh, guys – this video is time-compressed. The earth doesn’t look like it’s moving THAT fast from orbit. Real-time Shuttle/ISS downlink give a more realistic view.
I must be jaded but this video did not exactly knock my socks off.
One thing that does still quicken my pulse even today though is the view from the camera mounted on the Shuttle showing the two spent booster rockets falling away still burning.
Thank You Eric for another wonderful post. I heard you were getting ready to retire. DON’T DO IT. There are only a handful of thing I read in the Chronicle. Leon Hale, Ken Hoffman, Rick Casey and Lisa Falkenberg. I am sure you can figure out that I am no spring chicken. I miss the days when Houston was a 2 newspaper town.
But that’s life.
Best wishes to you.
Have no worries about me getting ready to retire. I made a quip about being retired in 30 years, the next time a major storm is due to appear in Saturn’s atmosphere.
Wow. The earth is flying by underneath this space ballet.