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Comment by ArnoVW

2 days ago

those engineering cameras were not your regular run-of-the mill cameras neither.

NASA published a 45 min documentary of the 10-15 engineering cameras of an STS launch., with comments on the engineering aspets of the launch procedure.

Very beautiful, relaxing, has an almost meditative quality. Highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwqZ4qAUkE

Yeah and Shuttle cost a fortune per launch.

Views are distinctly secondary to an affordable launch program.

  • And the cost of the camera program was paid back a hundred times as that footage was used to diagnose, correct and improve countless systems. Accident investigations would have taken ten times as long without that footage.

    • I absolutely love that beautiful film footage, particularly well-exhibited in one of my favorite documentaries, the spectacular "When We Left Earth" (a lovely and lengthy series). That said...

      Modern rockets have the ability to stream a great deal more data, including live camera streams, than the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo or Space Shuttle could. This increased real-time data bandwidth is probably much more valuable than high-dynamic-range cameras were.

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  • I'd assume that BO has plenty of high-res/high-contrast-range imagery - that's just too useful for engineering analysis, post-launch.

    What they release to the public is a separate issue.