Hevach
Senior Member.
Flat Earth usually goes hand in hand with general space denial, and one claim I've seen repeated several times is that there are no uncut videos of launches or reentries.
Of course, there are a small number (and fairly good reasons why so few exist), and now there's one more which is easily the best quality reentry video I've seen. NASA recently released this uncut video captured through the window of the Artemis 1 capsule during its reentry directly from translunar space.
Source: https://youtu.be/U88DzZcsubs
The Orion spacecraft has six windows. This video was shot through one of the center two in the crew compartment by one of several GoPro cameras installed in the unmanned test flight. The windows in question are visible in this picture from the recovery operation:
The window is three layers of acrylic and follows the conical surface of the spacecraft, creating the pronounced distortion to the sides of the image.
Some points of interest:
The "thunk" noise that can be heard through much of the video is the sound made inside the capsule when the thrusters fire.
The spacecraft goes through two phases of plasma trail. This is because Orion uses a "skip entry" to reduce peak deceleration and improve splashdown target precision, unlike Apollo which used a single point reentry on its return from the moon.
The side to side rolling plays into this as well. Conical space capsules have their center of mass slightly off center, and this actually gives them very small but still significant aerodynamic control - not much better than a brick but it's going very fast. On the first skip, Orion orients to generate lift, causing it to "bounce" out of the atmosphere on a shallow suborbital trajectory. On the final reentry it orients itself for cross range control to precisely control its final splashdown site.
This maneuver was developed in the 60's but was not used on Apollo. Artemis 1 is the first time it was performed by a human-rated spacecraft.
Of course, there are a small number (and fairly good reasons why so few exist), and now there's one more which is easily the best quality reentry video I've seen. NASA recently released this uncut video captured through the window of the Artemis 1 capsule during its reentry directly from translunar space.
Source: https://youtu.be/U88DzZcsubs
The Orion spacecraft has six windows. This video was shot through one of the center two in the crew compartment by one of several GoPro cameras installed in the unmanned test flight. The windows in question are visible in this picture from the recovery operation:
The window is three layers of acrylic and follows the conical surface of the spacecraft, creating the pronounced distortion to the sides of the image.
Some points of interest:
The "thunk" noise that can be heard through much of the video is the sound made inside the capsule when the thrusters fire.
The spacecraft goes through two phases of plasma trail. This is because Orion uses a "skip entry" to reduce peak deceleration and improve splashdown target precision, unlike Apollo which used a single point reentry on its return from the moon.
The side to side rolling plays into this as well. Conical space capsules have their center of mass slightly off center, and this actually gives them very small but still significant aerodynamic control - not much better than a brick but it's going very fast. On the first skip, Orion orients to generate lift, causing it to "bounce" out of the atmosphere on a shallow suborbital trajectory. On the final reentry it orients itself for cross range control to precisely control its final splashdown site.
This maneuver was developed in the 60's but was not used on Apollo. Artemis 1 is the first time it was performed by a human-rated spacecraft.
