Posted on 10/10/2002 11:43:50 AM PDT by NonZeroSum
Edited on 04/22/2004 12:34:52 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
After more than 20 years of operations, NASA provided a new view of a shuttle launch on Monday, as they returned to flight after a four-month hiatus.
For the first time, television and internet viewers of the launch were able to see first the launch pad, then Cape Canaveral, then Florida, and finally the earth itself get rapidly smaller as the shuttle ascended on its tail of fire.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Not a "deposit." The lens was sandblasted by the exhaust of the separation rockets -- which includes aluminum oxide, just like you get on sandpaper.
Most of that was non-recurring development costs. All subsequent cameras will cost a couple of thousand bucks.
Even so, I tend to agree that this is a gee-whiz thing, rather than anything immediately useful. (It could be valuable to pin down the cause of a conveniently-located hardware failure....)
The unprecedented picture show comes with a $760,000 price tag.
The color video camera, an off-the-shelf model just six inches long, costs $2,200. But design and installation of the heavily insulated camera system jacked up the price. Two antennas had to be placed on Atlantis' fuel tank to transmit the video to ground stations, along with an electronics box.
$2200 for the camera, ~$758,000 for integration and pedigree. Seems like a lot to us, but the same camera is used on Delta and Atlas launches at a similar cost. Most of NASA's costs break down in a similar fasion. SR&QA for zero faults is expensive.
Or compare it to the $100 billion cost of the space station which is nearly useless.
Who cares, it's just government money! <>
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