NFB: Take a ride on Discovery!!

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

For those of you that missed it yesterday, you can catch all the camera angles at msnbc.com. The view from the external tank is unbelievable!!

http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylaunch/

[Christopherrr]

now that's cool...amazing stuff. thanks for the find joe

[SSMOKEDU]

Thanks for the link The separation of the main fuel tank was unbelievable footage

[Steel2686]

Great link, Joe. Thanks.

[wolfdogs]

good stuff! thanks man!

[95TransAm]

Awesome stuff. I'm glad to see the U.S. getting back in to space.

Very unique with all the different camera angles. Seeing the separation of the boosters as well as the main fuel tank was amazing. A couple months back on the Discovery channel, they were showing all the things behind the scenes of getting a shuttle in to orbit. It's simply amazing the genius behind the whole concept. Getting those angles/speeds perfectly of how to exit and enter our atmosphere are unbelievable. I also never knew that during the launch, the majority of the smoke that you are seeing is in fact steam. To try and keep those hot temps down from the burning fuel, they are constantly spraying water (and lots of it) underneath and all around the launch pad. Any water that isn't immediately vaporized is collected, filtered, and sent in to a pond/lake that's not far from the launch site and reused at the next launch.