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Dying Man Shares Unseen Challenger Video
longacre writes "An amateur video of the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explosion has been made public for the first time. The Florida man who filmed it from his front yard on his new Betamax camcorder turned the tape over to an educational organization a week before he died this past December. The Space Exploration Archive has since published the video into the public domain in time for the 24th anniversary of the catastrophe. Despite being shot from about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle and the explosion can be seen quite clearly. It is unclear why he never shared the footage with NASA or the media. NASA officials say they were not aware of the video, but are interested in examining it now that it has been made available."
Why would someone keep this private and/or secret for so long?
Probably saw it on TV the next day and figured it nothing special. This was before the internet, and judging by the age of the guy, he probably never accessed much media beyond his neighbors and the local paper.
I don't remember NASA ever asking for other videos, and from the footage, it seemed that they had much higher quality stuff to analyze.
Then we get into the idea that this was a betamax camera, it is also possible that it sat in his things for years, and when his younger grandson or nephew realized what was on the tape, persuaded his granddad (great granddad?) to post it up to the internet/NASA.
Lots of valid reasons why this never saw the light of day until now, and I'm most comfortable with the idea that he never thought about it or thought he had anything special. He probably thought there were thousands of such videos from other amateurs in Florida.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
... that betamax did not just have great audio and video, *it can survive years in the attic* without losing much of the quality.
Even distant observations might still be useful if it was shot at a different angle than other observations of the event, and as it's in the sky, and you're 70 miles away, it's a different angle.
The problem with video is that it's not as useful for judging the speed of things coming towards you, or away from you, unless it's of a fixed size, it's not tumbling, and you have sufficient resolution. If this had a different plane of the sky as the other 'official' footage, it could be used to test any 3d models that might've been made of the disaster, and if it disproves them, provide input for a new model to be made.
Disclaimer -- I work at a NASA center as a contractor, but I have absolutely nothing to do with the shuttle program.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.