Space shuttle Discovery blasts off (Video)

via itn.co.uk

NASA has finally launched its space shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with seven astronauts on board.

The 13-day flight aims to deliver new laboratory equipment, supplies and spare parts to the International Space Station.

Technicians began pumping more than 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into Discovery's fuel tank on Friday afternoon for a third launch attempt.

The mission, the 128th in the shuttle program history, had been on hold since Tuesday because of poor weather and a technical issue concerning a drain valve in the ship's fuel tank.

The Discovery is carrying more than seven tons of science instruments, food, supplies and spare parts for the station, which is nearing completion after over a decade of work 220 miles above Earth.

The US, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada will have spent about $100 billion (£61.2 billion) on the outpost by the time it is finished late next year or early 2011.

NASA then plans to retire its shuttle fleet and rely on its partners and commercial carriers to ferry cargo to the outpost.

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Images from How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb by Peter Kurin

VIP observers are lit up by the light of an atomic bomb, Operation Greenhouse, Enewetak Atoll, 1951.

How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb

by Peter Kuran

VCE, 142 pp.

Castle Bravo detonation, March 1, 1954. 15 megatons. Largest nuclear test conducted by the United States.

Troop maneuvers during Operation Tumbler-Snapper were covered extensively by the media including a color featurette entitled “Operation A-Bomb” produced by RKO-Pathe. Twenty-one hundred marines participated in the test. May 1, 1952.

Dominic Truckee, 210 kilotons, Christmas Island Area, June 6, 1962. Speed Graphic camera. Film, Ektacolor.

Five volunteers sent to witness the Genie air strike at ground zero

“One afternoon I was at Lookout Mountain right here in Hollywood, and I got a call from a Woody Mark. He said ‘George, I need you out here tomorrow for a special test.’ I got there that night and he said, ‘Tomorrow morning you’re going to go out with five other guys and you’re going to be standing at ground zero.’ I said, ‘Ground zero?’ He said. ‘Yeah, but the bomb’s gonna go off 10,000 feet above you.’ I said, ‘Well, what kind of protective gear am I going to have?’ He said ‘None.’ I remember I had a baseball hat, so I wore that just in case. He gave me a still camera, and two motion picture cameras. These were 35mm Eyemos. I set up the two Eyemos, and had little trip wires that I could trip with my foot starting about 5 seconds before the blast. And the still camera, I also had a trip wire so that I could trip it. I could get one exposure only. The five other guys were scientists and they volunteered to be there. I wasn’t a volunteer. I didn’t find out until I got there.”

-George Yoshitake

Crossroads Baker, 21 kilotons Bikini Atoll, July 24, 1946.

Plumbbob Hood, 74 kilotons, Nevada Test Site, July 5, 1957.

Cameramen photograph shot of Grable at the Nevada Test Site, May 25, 1953.

Nuclear Testing Timeline

Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted over 300 atmospheric nuclear tests above the ground, in the ocean or in outer space.

On August 5, 1963, the United States and the former Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, effectively banning the testing of all nuclear weapons except those tested underground. Atmospheric nuclear test blast photography came to an end.

via calitreview.com

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