Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (03/31/89)
>... My question is why were there no cabin views during >the launch? Come to think of it, I don't recall cabin views at launch I have seen two different films with out of the window pictures during launch. Both were quite impressive. The earlier one was in a film from Rockwell, and you could watch the horizon as the sky turned darker and darker blue.... and then suddenly the sky was BELOW you, a thin film visible on the horizon. The other showed more clearly than any numbers how fast the shuttle picks up speed. The shots were from the last Spacelab flight (Chang Diaz, monkey shit, etc) and was in a northerly trajectory that seemed to parallel the East coast of the US. You could watch the coast of Florida slowly appear and then Georgia slide into view, and then in rapidly increasing succession you passed everything up to Boston. Marvelous piece of film. Incidentally, a scientist crew member who was on the flight was giving a talk and told of the problems of prefitted trojan-like male urine collection devices. The fit tends to not be very good under several g's and stress. Remember that there are crewmembers in seats above other crew members during the boost phase. Space flight isn't ALL glory you know.