Did anyone watch the space shuttle Atlantis launch today? There was a $700k video camera (made by Sony) mounted downward on it, which gave an great view of the east coast as the shuttle lifted further out of our atmosphere. Those of you that get the NASA cable channel can watch live broadcasts from the shuttle.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

Am I the only one who thought the image looked awfully fuzzy for a 700k dollar camera?

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.

Were you looking at it before or after the side rocket-thingies fell off and put all the condensation on the camera? Either way, the image quality was decreasing as the shuttle got further up, but it was still quite a view.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

700k camera that still has to deal with condensation.
Maybe, they should've spent a little more money on the casing.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

condensation on the lense doesn't really have anything to do with the casing. there is no way around it short of having something wipe the lense.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

They should have put shaving foam on the lens then wiped it off.

and saved themselves like 100k


@ wiping it off

But that's the point. It's a 700k camera not some mega-pixel handycam bolted on the side of the ship. I bet they didn't even imagine that this would be a problem.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Good point. Somehow our super-geeks seemed to miss an obvious problem.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.

The 700k number intrigued me, so I did some checking.

"The camera, made by CrossLink, Inc. of Boulder, Colo., is six
inches long and resembles a short, thin flashlight. A similar
camera has been used by The Boeing Co. for video of Delta
rocket liftoffs and by Lockheed Martin Company on Atlas
rockets. "

That's the press release, but dug further and found that they sold their "rocketcam" stuff to Ecliptic Enterprises: http://www.eclipticenterprises.com/

The cost to install and operate the same camera for an Atlas 3 launch, was $500k. So the $700k, for installation and operation price tag for the shuttle launch is on par.

What does each launch cost? That figure is harder to track down, but an article on space.com tags it at $500 million per launch!

hmmm, good planning.
Small efficient size. Protective box and shake proof. .... lolo .... nothing about lens visablility.

Definitely sounds like a C.S.University, San Diego library screw up. Beautiful builing which is an upside down pyramid. Too bad that the 3rd floor is no longer functional.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...