Posted by
chrisd
on from the sorry-no-wishlist dept.
mpd2014 writes "When the next shuttle takes off to the space station on October 2nd it will have a new webcam attached to the external tank that is sure to provide spectacular images. If you're interested in the schematics and technical details NASA has also made those available."
personally, i'm looking forward to alien/spacewoman upskirt shots...
and everyone is thinking...
by
Prong_Thunder
·
· Score: 3, Funny
"hey, I can see my house from here"
It has been onboard already
by
jukal
·
· Score: 5, Informative
According to this release by the company which makes the RocketCams: "2002 Aug 21: Two Ecliptic RocketCam(TM) systems have provided launch-to-orbit onboard views during the inaugural launch of the Atlas 5 rocket. The launch was a complete success, taking Eutelsat's Hotbird 6 comsat from Cape Canaveral and placing it into the desired transfer orbit. Both RocketCam(TM) cameras captured dramatic views looking aft: one from outside the Atlas 5's second-stage skin and one from inside the aft end of the second stage. "
Apparently, this is just the first time it can be publicly accessed.
Re:It has been onboard already
by
jukal
·
· Score: 2
> I've been watching Delta and Atlas rocket launches with the rocketcam live on the net for some years.
Ohh, the newsvalue of that article was close to zero then:)
Re:It has been onboard already
by
FrostedWheat
·
· Score: 5, Informative
And this section of there website, you can view these videos. Very much publicly accessible.
They even provide MPEGs for those Quicktime-impared.
Re:It has been onboard already
by
Planetes
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Actually it's been done several times. If you go to Space.com or Spaceflightnow.com you can see archive clips of rocket launches. My personal favorites are of the Mars Odyssey 2001 launch.
It's really neat watching the rocket's SRBs seperate and spiral off.
-- Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
Re:It has been onboard already
by
Jish
·
· Score: 2
This is the first time its been with the Space Shuttle as opposed to just a rocket launch.
How it's gonna look like...
by
arnoroefs2000
·
· Score: 2
To have an idea of the picture you're gonna get from that camera, take a look here. If you ask me, it's really not that novel, oke this rocket is a bit bigger...but it still just goes up....
Re:hope it doesnt get /.ed
by
billstr78
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It will. Unless the frame rate is extremely low, an event of this popularity will quickly consume a 100Mb/sec line. This was the max Ames Research Center (NASA) could host a couple of years ago, but they are probably going with a 3rd party provider. Let's hope they have lots of high bandwith mirrors load balanced and sprikled accross the country. This is the inherernt problem with a popular live event comensing at one specific moment and using at least 20Kb/sec per viewer. I am not saying it won't go off without a hitch, but when I interned at Ames, every event we hosted saturated the 100Mbit/sec line we had that went straight to an OC21 backbone pipe.
The good pictures will be from seperation and re-entry.
I still think they should fly the otherwise wasted tank into orbit to be used as parts or huge additions to the space station.
Multiply the space station's internal volume by 10 in just one trip. After all the tank is a high pressure vessel. It should be able to hold 14.5 lb/sq in atmospheric.
Just give the shuttle a bit more power, drop the boosters and park the tank next to ISS.
Would make ISS look like a toy.
--
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Re:Not liftoff
by
DeanAsh
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The shuttle main engines have been placed central to the mass of the joined shuttle/tank. The OMS engines (Orbital Maneuvering System), being placed much higher, are not. I expect the shuttle would tumble in orbit if the OMS were activated with the tank attached.
The reaction-control jets will have similar troubles. Remember the control problems the astronauts in Apollo 13 faced when trying to control the LEM with the command/service modules still joined?
--
What is the shortest sig that cannot be expressed in fewer than 20 words?
I agree 100% about reusing the Shuttle's External Tanks.
NASA must have a giant stick up its ass to bring the ETs almost completely into orbit, only to let them burn up in the atmosphere.
I still haven't heard a reasonable explaination as to why this great idea has been ignored for so long. IMO, it's because the idea of "Reuse/Recycle/Reduce" is not compatible with getting maximum tax funding. They'd rather blow billions on a shiny new ISS (where maintenance consumes scientific work) than on boosting and retrofitting the large ETs.
Oh, if only it were a giant beer can, then we could host the first Intergalatic Kegger (MIB).
Re:Not liftoff
by
Guppy06
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"The good pictures will be from seperation and re-entry."
Um... no. Obviously you haven't seen this flick here (some stills are available here). The video from a similar camera mounted on a Delta II is simply stunning. Seriously, I can't begin to describe how beautiful it is, you need to go watch it. I have yet to get tired of watching it.
Re-entry pictures are going to be few if any. But I'm already drooling at the thought of video like this from a shuttle launch.
Not quite. To gain extra altitude on some flights, the OMS are activated in tandem with the SSMEs during orbital injection.
I do not know, however, if the OMS were ever used after MECO and before ET SEP.
-- Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Re:Not liftoff
by
ek_adam
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The tank is not built to withstand vacuum. Some of the resins in the external tank would start to sublimate in vacuum. It would last for a several days in space, but not the months or years that would be required for a space station.
They could redesign an external tank that would survive in space, but it would be significantly heavier and would greatly reduce the payload.
Not quite. To gain extra altitude on some flights, the OMS are activated in tandem with the SSMEs during orbital injection.
I do not know, however, if the OMS were ever used after MECO and before ET SEP.
Not quite. The OMS can be used during second stage for an abort. They could, but would not, be used during a non-abort, since their fuel is needed for orbital maneuvers and deorbit. Moreover, during a nominal mission, it is more efficient to use the OMS for Holman transfer to a higher orbit than to use it to push the extra mass of the tank and fuel in parallel with the SSMEs.
There is no reason that the OMS would ever be used between MECO and ET Sep. That is only a few seconds. Also, as mentioned before, they do not have the control authority required with the ET attached.
The SSMEs cannot be used after ET Sep. There is no fuel for them except a few pounds trapped in the lines, and even that is vented and purged to prevent ice damage.
-- People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
Self-Destructing Web Cams
by
guttentag
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· Score: 2
This is a much cooler way of showing the world a Web cam that destroys itself than that Crushing Experience.
Scores so far: Strapped to the Space Shuttle: 9.7 Sitting in a British museum: 4.2
They should put two cameras on it though.. the other one should be in the same housing, but facing forward. That would be a nice view of the splashdown of the external tank...
-- Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
in my opinion, if they have the webcam, the should also have the blog [blogger.com], so that we would be able to read their comments about their experience in space! =)
Considering NASA's funding problems they might as well become complete CAM WHORES and post a wishlist URL of gifts that their admiring fans could give them.
The actual URL, anyone?
by
hazyshadeofwinter
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Anybody got the actual URL of this thing? I'm thinking y'all could Slashdot it now so it'll be nice and empty come launch time...
The Quest Project already provided an early version of journals (blogs) as well as interactive chats and web casts with NASA crew and astronauts. It was primarily aimed at the K-12 audience though.
Rest assured that the com link between the shuttle and mission control already exists. The cost of the webcam and the infrastructure required to stream it is a drop in the bucket, no a molecule in the bucket of the vast expences that the shuttle already racks up.
The cam has a very slim profile an compared to the enourmous circumference of the tank it is strapped to, it won't make much difference
It's a Rocketcam! Wohoo!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Informative
This is really what the shuttle has been missing. After watching dozens of launches through streaming meadia, shuttle really has been behind Delta and others which have had the rocketcam for years. I am sure going to be following the next launch closely.
Occasional live webcasts from space are nice. But I think it's confusing to call it a "webcam". I expect webcams to be on the web most of the time and to be hooked up more or less directly to the web. Webcams need to be on and there even if nothing is happening. A live broadcast going into a streaming server occasionally doesn't strike me as something to be called a webcam.
This, after looking at the specs and designs they have online, is a regular camera with a regular NASA style live RF feed back to ground control... The only thing that could possibly make it a webcam would be that someone would take that video feed and encode it for the web. Something they did not mention was going to happen.
calling that a webcam is the same as calling a studio camera and camera crew a webcam... It is another monitoring camera / eye-candy camera added to the shuttle launch vehicle.. IT is identical to most cameras that NASA uses on it's launch vehicles.
Too bad that it's a throw-away one time use item.... it's built like a tank and would probably last 100 years at a weather station or pointing at my back yard.
If its the government (and NASA with the 70's era components), then they are probably still using a 28.8K modem (albiet bought with a hefty markup).
The next step will be to upgrade to a 56K. In a couple of years they'll go with a cable modem, they just need to find a big enough spool to hold all that CAT5.
They had one on the Stardust launch vehicle -
by
jpellino
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· Score: 2
A great movie of the launch from a head-down fuselage camera.
Zero-gee porn has been done before. See The Uranus Experiment (yeah there's naughty stuff there, but look up the name on this fancy intarweb thingy)
In fact, the THREE episodes all have music by Liam Howlett, the guy behind the Prodigy.
What would really be cool...
by
somebaudy
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· Score: 2, Insightful
- a webcam on a satellite: check for yourself what the weather looks like where you're going.
- webcams on the moon, one of them showing the earth seen from the moon.
and of course...
- plenty of webcams on Mars, monitoring the red planet in case the little green men thta live up there (?) show up.
B.
-- http://www.somebaudy.com
It sure will be spectacular, indeed...
by
Pig+Hogger
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· Score: 2
... if the shuttle blows-up again, à la Challenger...
The name of the story was, "Tank Farm Dynamo" about a privatized effort to reuse external tank, written by David Brin. I read it as part of a collection bound in dead tree form, but it's available on the web at: http://www.orbit6.com/et/tankfarm.htm
-- The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Considering that very few modem component makers are desiging or building newer systems that can withstand the radiation and other riggors of space travel, I'm not terribly surprised.
You don't need a shitload of computational power to run the shuttle. What you do need is a computer that will actually work in space. And guess what, Sparky? That brand new Pentium 4 or Athlon you've got on your desk won't work. The systems need to be hardened at the fab level in order to work.
-- Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It's been used 21 times; this is the 1st STS use
by
T.Hobbes
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· Score: 2
STS-112 will be 21st launch for RocketCam (if you don't count the first demo launch in 1997). All of the RocketCam's have worked so far. A total of about three dozen cameras have been flown.
...
The view of the Earth falling away will be familiar to anyone who has watched a Delta rocket launch lately - but will be a first for the Space Shuttle program.
Alternatives to spaceflightnow.com footage?
by
Buran
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· Score: 2
I used to use Spaceflight Now to watch launches and retrieve video later of those I was not able to watch. Now, the videos are locked behind a password which they demand a fee for.
As a taxpayer who (willingly, mind you! note my name!) supports the space program already with tax dollars, I don't feel I should have to pay to view something I already helped to fund. While I still read SFN's text coverage, which is still free, I can't view the videos.
Is there another site out there that posts timely (SFN does it same day or next day) videos of launches? And if the Ecliptic's site fails to post the entire sequence, all 10+ minutes of it, where might I find it?
Heck, what about archives of on-orbit ops, other launch shots, reentry/approach, and landing? I've a video project in mind that I'd like to use footage for...
Slashdot Mirror
personally, i'm looking forward to alien/spacewoman upskirt shots...
"hey, I can see my house from here"
Apparently, this is just the first time it can be publicly accessed.
To have an idea of the picture you're gonna get from that camera, take a look here.
If you ask me, it's really not that novel, oke this rocket is a bit bigger...but it still just goes up....
that web cams server load will be sky-high
The good pictures will be from seperation and re-entry.
I still think they should fly the otherwise wasted tank into orbit to be used as parts or huge additions to the space station.
Multiply the space station's internal volume by 10 in just one trip. After all the tank is a high pressure vessel. It should be able to hold 14.5 lb/sq in atmospheric.
Just give the shuttle a bit more power, drop the boosters and park the tank next to ISS.
Would make ISS look like a toy.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Scores so far:
Strapped to the Space Shuttle: 9.7
Sitting in a British museum: 4.2
X-10: It's not just for vouyers anymore!
They should put two cameras on it though.. the other one should be in the same housing, but facing forward. That would be a nice view of the splashdown of the external tank...
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Considering NASA's funding problems they might as well become complete CAM WHORES and post a wishlist URL of gifts that their admiring fans could give them.
Anybody got the actual URL of this thing? I'm thinking y'all could Slashdot it now so it'll be nice and empty come launch time...
That is, assuming it's woodpecker-proof.
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
The Quest Project already provided an early version of journals (blogs) as well as interactive chats and web casts with NASA crew and astronauts. It was primarily aimed at the K-12 audience though.
Rest assured that the com link between the shuttle and mission control already exists. The cost of the webcam and the infrastructure required to stream it is a drop in the bucket, no a molecule in the bucket of the vast expences that the shuttle already racks up.
Estes has been doing this since the sixties.
see.
The cam has a very slim profile an compared to the enourmous circumference of the tank it is strapped to, it won't make much difference
This is really what the shuttle has been missing. After watching dozens of launches through streaming meadia, shuttle really has been behind Delta and others which have had the rocketcam for years. I am sure going to be following the next launch closely.
c am.shtml.
For previous rocketcam footage, check http://www.eclipticenterprises.com/gallery_rocket
Occasional live webcasts from space are nice. But I think it's confusing to call it a "webcam". I expect webcams to be on the web most of the time and to be hooked up more or less directly to the web. Webcams need to be on and there even if nothing is happening. A live broadcast going into a streaming server occasionally doesn't strike me as something to be called a webcam.
This, after looking at the specs and designs they have online, is a regular camera with a regular NASA style live RF feed back to ground control... The only thing that could possibly make it a webcam would be that someone would take that video feed and encode it for the web. Something they did not mention was going to happen.
calling that a webcam is the same as calling a studio camera and camera crew a webcam... It is another monitoring camera / eye-candy camera added to the shuttle launch vehicle.. IT is identical to most cameras that NASA uses on it's launch vehicles.
Too bad that it's a throw-away one time use item.... it's built like a tank and would probably last 100 years at a weather station or pointing at my back yard.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
10...9...8...7...EMERGENCY LAUNCH HOLD!
"We have a warning light!" "What's wrong!" "The External Fuel Tank, It's The Camera. It melted."
Ummm. It doesn't splashdown. It burns up on re-entry.
Best Slashdot Co
The Gates brothers flies some of the coolest rockets in HPR today, and they have hands-down the best video.
"An object declared as type _Bool is large enough to store the values 0 and 1." -- 6.1.2.5, C99 standard.
visit Camville.com
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Very
I'll have to add this as a news feature.
Live web cams
If its the government (and NASA with the 70's era components), then they are probably still using a 28.8K modem (albiet bought with a hefty markup).
The next step will be to upgrade to a 56K. In a couple of years they'll go with a cable modem, they just need to find a big enough spool to hold all that CAT5.
A great movie of the launch from a head-down fuselage camera.
l
A 3MB version is here - http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/movie/part10.html
The biggie is here - http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/launchanim.htm
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Wouldn't /.'ing the webcam cause enough heat to set of the highly explosive chemicals in the tank?
Although, I gotta admit, it'd be an impressive explosion.
-Ed
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That's true. But you just replied once - that's cheating!
Money for nothing, pix for free
Zero-gee porn has been done before. See The Uranus Experiment (yeah there's naughty stuff there, but look up the name on this fancy intarweb thingy)
In fact, the THREE episodes all have music by Liam Howlett, the guy behind the Prodigy.
- a webcam on a satellite: check for yourself what the weather looks like where you're going. - webcams on the moon, one of them showing the earth seen from the moon. and of course... - plenty of webcams on Mars, monitoring the red planet in case the little green men thta live up there (?) show up. B.
http://www.somebaudy.com
... if the shuttle blows-up again, à la Challenger...
The name of the story was, "Tank Farm Dynamo" about a privatized effort to reuse external tank, written by David Brin. I read it as part of a collection bound in dead tree form, but it's available on the web at: http://www.orbit6.com/et/tankfarm.htm
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Considering that very few modem component makers are desiging or building newer systems that can withstand the radiation and other riggors of space travel, I'm not terribly surprised.
You don't need a shitload of computational power to run the shuttle. What you do need is a computer that will actually work in space. And guess what, Sparky? That brand new Pentium 4 or Athlon you've got on your desk won't work. The systems need to be hardened at the fab level in order to work.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
STS-112 will be 21st launch for RocketCam (if you don't count the first demo launch in 1997). All of the RocketCam's have worked so far. A total of about three dozen cameras have been flown.
...
The view of the Earth falling away will be familiar to anyone who has watched a Delta rocket launch lately - but will be a first for the Space Shuttle program.
I used to use Spaceflight Now to watch launches and retrieve video later of those I was not able to watch. Now, the videos are locked behind a password which they demand a fee for.
As a taxpayer who (willingly, mind you! note my name!) supports the space program already with tax dollars, I don't feel I should have to pay to view something I already helped to fund. While I still read SFN's text coverage, which is still free, I can't view the videos.
Is there another site out there that posts timely (SFN does it same day or next day) videos of launches? And if the Ecliptic's site fails to post the entire sequence, all 10+ minutes of it, where might I find it?
Heck, what about archives of on-orbit ops, other launch shots, reentry/approach, and landing? I've a video project in mind that I'd like to use footage for...
i am a soviet space shuttle
The smell... liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen...
Think about it for a minute.. It will come to you.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.