Success! This photo quickens my pulse.

Gene Nowaczyk’s rocket captured video during its record-setting launch at BALLS in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. This is a frame grab from apogee (posted with permission). The readings are in meters, so this sensor indicated an altitude of ~ 100K ft. The atmosphere ends at 55K ft at this latitude. On-board avionics indicate that the rocket broke Mach 3.5

This launch was a highlight of the weekend, as celebrated yesterday on the cover of the New York Times.

The nosecone is now cooling from a peak of 425° during the ascent. The thermal expansion and contraction of the electronic leads led to a loss of power soon after apogee. But the rocket was recovered in good shape, with just the paint burned off the nose cone.

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31 responses to “Space, the Final Frontier”

  1. BenODen Avatar
    BenODen

    *shivver* Wow. owo wow. That would land a long way away from the pad.

    Reply
  2. andyi Avatar
    andyi

    Ditto on the shivers.

    Do you ever get the electric sensation from imagining the effect that information like this would have on someone from the beginning of our own lifetimes? That a rocket was sent up and took a photo of the horizon from space and millions of people were able to look at it…not because any of this was a mandate from a government agency, but chiefly because a bunch of private individuals thought it’d be wicked cool?

    Reply
  3. drona Avatar
    drona

    Blown away…awesome!

    Reply
  4. jzawodn Avatar
    jzawodn

    Holy crap!

    I want to quit this whole web business and help make space vehicles!

    This is serously cool. And, at the same time, it’s a reminder of how our country has really dropped the ball on space exploration. How long has it been since man set foot on the moon? 🙁

    Reply
  5. thepretenda Avatar
    thepretenda

    yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  6. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Andyi: well put. technological progress perpetually pierces the presumptions of our intuition… (a la Kurzweil). I say this as I’m surfin’ by satellite somewhere over the Pacifc en route to ShenZhen.

    Doing cool stuff is a big motivator. I have to imagine it’s part of what drives Elon Musk and the bigger projects…

    See ya!

    jzawodn: Go for it! Some discussion on your points also here:

    Old Skool

    Reply
  7. oklo Avatar
    oklo

    to slip the surly bonds of Earth…

    Reply
  8. _sarchi Avatar
    _sarchi

    supa dupa crazy

    Reply
  9. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    How do you find them when they come down? I’ve been to the Playa, and it is a *really* big place. Does everyone just keep their eyes open? Or do you have a high-tech solution?

    Reply
  10. benjiman Avatar
    benjiman

    That really is some heart pounding stuff.

    Reply
  11. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    I love the enthusiasm in the comments.

    Oddwick: There are several methods. Victor offers an excellent summary here. =)

    For the high altitude launches, like this one, there are on-board tracking and telemetry systems (e.g., BigRedBee). You can see the ground antenna for this rocket in the pickup:

    Nosecone Prep

    Reply
  12. Todd Huffman Avatar
    Todd Huffman

    Why does NASA get all the cool toys??? Not that an aircraft carrier would do much good in the middle of the desert, but still…

    Maybe you could borrow this boat, it seems to run Ok in the desert.
    static.flickr.com/31/40537887_4e3fbe54e4.jpg?v=0

    Reply
  13. benjiman Avatar
    benjiman

    For more mind blowing orbital shots, take a look at these launch shots….

    I need to book my trip on a Virgin Galactic flight soon!

    Reply
  14. j_silla Avatar
    j_silla

    tie me to it 🙂

    Reply
  15. CherokeeJ Avatar
    CherokeeJ

    ix_silver says:
    tie me to it 🙂

    You’d die. At 7 G’s, you feel a lot of pain. At 9 G’s, you pass out. At 13 G’s, you die. At the 30+ G’s that this flight pulled, your body turns inside out, and your head comes out through your butt. Not pretty.

    Read more about Gene’s little project at http://www.aeroconsystems.com/

    Reply
  16. Chris Maytag Avatar
    Chris Maytag

    Not to be too nitpicky, because this is seriously cool, but the atmosphere doesn’t "end" at 55k…it just keeps getting thinner and thinner, faster and faster.

    In fact, the Sun’s "atmosphere" (as opposed to the photosphere mor chromosphere mostly human/arbitrary boundaries) extends pretty much halfway to the nearest star. Likewise, the Earth’s atmosphere extends a great distance, enough so that satellites much, much higher than 55k have to consider the (admittedly small) effect ofair resistance when dealing wth orbital calculations.

    Reply
  17. BlackBirdCD Avatar
    BlackBirdCD

    Oh wow. I was at Balls 15, but this is the first time I’ve seen this picture. Just astounding!

    Reply
  18. sbove Avatar
    sbove

    Great Balls…what a view…

    A question:

    What is the minimum altitude at which one can see black "space" clearly differentiated from blue atmosphere? I would have thought it to be much higher than only 100k feet…but this picture clearly shows otherwise…

    As for where the atmosphere ends…here’s another interesting perspective on the difference between aeronautics and astronomics:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space

    "There is no clear boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space as the density of the atmosphere gradually decreases as the altitude increases. Nevertheless, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale has established the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) as a working definition for the boundary between aeronautics and astronautics. This is used because above an altitude of roughly 100 km, as Theodore von Kármán calculated, a vehicle would have to travel faster than orbital velocity in order to derive sufficient aerodynamic lift from the atmosphere to support itself. The United States designates people who travel above an altitude of 80 km (50 statute miles) as astronauts. During re-entry, roughly 120 km (75 miles) marks the boundary where atmospheric drag becomes noticeable, depending on the ballistic coefficient of the vehicle."

    PS: my new goal — to one day own a personal-travel vehicle with an advertised "ballistic coefficient" 😉

    Reply
  19. cosmosjon Avatar
    cosmosjon

    This ain’t your father’s Estes Rocket!

    INCREDIBLE shot. (Haven’t seen any Flat Earth Society members commenting…. they’re strangely silent here!) 😉

    Reply
  20. kite man Avatar
    kite man

    Wow! That’e sure getting up there. I am not a model rocket person as all of my aerial photos are done with kites. I like the sharp aerial photos captured by kites but these high altitude shots are amazing as well.

    You may also enjoy some of the KAP flickr sites wich show photos taken from kites. You may even want to check out one of my other groups called Giant Kites as it also contains some aerial shots of giant kites.

    Thanks for posting this shot on our Unmannes Aerial Photos photo gallery.

    Thanks again,

    Eric

    Reply
  21. Craig Taylor - Orkney Avatar
    Craig Taylor – Orkney

    I also take aerial photos with my camera attached to kites and found this photograph amazing.

    Regards from The Orkney Islands,

    Craig.

    Reply
  22. madrigar Avatar
    madrigar

    Awesome!

    re: Cherokee – I don’t feel pain at 7 G’s… I used to do rapid onset (15 seconds at 5 G’s, then 15 seconds at 9 G’s, then back to 5) in centrifuges. My resting G tolerance was just under 5 G’s and it is common to do 9 G’s in tests using proper breathing techique and using a G suit.

    Reply
  23. AndyM_ Avatar
    AndyM_

    My dad used to throw me higher than that when I was a kid.

    Reply
  24. spaceguy Avatar
    spaceguy

    Wow!

    Reply
  25. hushed property Avatar
    hushed property

    I think the correct altitude for this photo is 104,364 feet. The display is showing meters. I’ve flown on commercial airline flights at 36,000 feet and have never seen the curvature of the earth. Very impressive flight.

    Reply
  26. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Yes…. I just rounded to ~100K ft. in the caption. Even more interesting, note that it is still supersonic at this point…. =)

    Reply
  27. attractive cook Avatar
    attractive cook

    Although, at that altitude supersonic is much slower. What units for velocity 320? Meters/Sec? That’s a good clip…

    Reply
  28. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    exactly… yes, all metric…

    Reply
  29. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    WIRED issue 16.11 has a cool story and diagram of this rocket.
    .

    Reply
  30. disgusted bear Avatar
    disgusted bear

    Incredible! I always ended up missing BALLS but went to a few LDRS.

    Reply
  31. BlackBirdCD Avatar
    BlackBirdCD

    BALLS is a good time. I’d go back again sometime.

    Reply

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