Antares explosion up close

Credit: Joel Kowsky/AP

I didn't post about this event, but nearly a month ago, a cargo ship to the ISS had an anomaly seconds after launch. It was pretty spectacular, despite the fact that 230 million dollars of hardware was lost right at the pad.

It doesn't happen that often, and rarely do failures happen this close to the pad (they are usually way out to sea high in the air where nobody can see it), but it is a stark reminder that this is rocket science. It is hard.

I have to admire the small band of individuals that placed remote cameras near the launchpad. There was no embargo on posting the video or images after the failure, but since they were all close friends in the photography business they decided to wait till they all got their cameras back before posting. They did not wan to "one-up" one another, so they posted at the same time one everyone got their stuff back. They news media could learn a think or two from them.

Here is a video from Matthew Travis's GoPro. The best part in my opinion is at about 5:20. Enjoy.

http://youtu.be/t1j9TEiqaXM?t=5m20s

Also, you can find more photos here from the story from zerognews. They cover all the remote images from the site: http://www.zerognews.com/inferno-over-wallops-a-first-hand-photo-and-video-account-of-antares-launch-failure/

Ad astra per aspera.