Apollo 11 First Stage liftoff in Ultra Slow Motion
An evening pause: This footage was taken on July 16, 1969 at 500 frames per second, and shows only what happened at the base of the launch tower as the engines of the Saturn 5 rocket ignited and lifted the rocket into the air. Though the video is more than 8 minutes long, the actual events recorded lasted only about 30 seconds, beginning 5 seconds before T minus 0.
What struck me most as I watched this was the incredible amount of complex engineering that went into every single small detail of the rocket and the launch tower and launchpad. We tend to take for granted the difficulty of rocket engineering. This video will make you appreciate it again.
It is also mesmerizing. A lot happens in a very short period of time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Coolest thing I’ve seen this week.
The F-1 exhaust temperature was near 6000F. It’s an engineering achievement that anything below the rocket could survive. The site heroicrelics.org has extensive documentation on the F-1 design and build process.