Awesome aerial video of the launch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4l2wxbMEQg&feature=sub
You can clearly see the separation, and I saw no contact between the upper and lower stages. Also it shows the parachute deployment and you can see one parachute failing. Amazing video!
That was great!!! Thanks for the link!!!
On the Ares 1-Y mission. When it went into the launch manifest, it was simply placeholder for a possible test flight. In an interview, in the Orlando Sentinel I think, the NASA PR person said that the objectives of i-Y was now able to be completed in other test programs and the launch was not needed. The money saved from this flight cancellation could be used to see that the next time an Ares rocket rolls out to LC39 it will be a fully operational rocket, not just a quasi-boilerplate.
As far as my past passionate statements, I have accepted that Ares is the program for our future. I am not happy with it, but is that not what compromise is? Something no one is happy about, but can at least agree on?
I can only hope that other programs (ESA, NASDA/JAXA) can get a manned vehicle flying soon. I really ticks me off that China beat Europe and Japan in the manned vehicle race...
I had a major debate last night, in fact the entire room got animated and involved. I thought I was about to get lynched...
Why?
I was the only space exploration proponent in the room. It took me two hours just to get them beyond the moron-kneejerking reactions and actually critically think about space flight. But i did it!
gablau's post here is pretty indicative of what was said. Why?
I was grasping for straws until I remembered a calculation I had made last month. These folks didn't or couldn't grasp the speeds people were traveling out yonder. To drive to the moon at a rate of 11 hours a day at 60 miles per hour, it takes 1 year, 1 month, 2 days, 23 minutes to get there. Apollo flights took just 3 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes!
The room went silent as this sank in. Apparently none or few of these people had any idea what went on in space flight. One of them said "So that means out of 14 days of vacation, I could spend about 8 of them on the moon?"
"Yep."
The discussion got interesting after that, but fell apart when they realised that the possibility of having a lunar vacation in their lifetimes was somewhere between ziclh and nada.
Until we can get the average Joe and Jane there, even for just a vacation, we will be in the minority. That thought just hurt more than loosing the shuttle and ISS. So I learned something too.