In article , Kevin Willoughby
wrote:

In article ,
lid says...
Anyway, the whole thing was very interesting and informative. I'm very
much looking forward to seeing the next STS launch (someday) and looking
for the contrasts.

Find a theater playing the 3-D IMAX Space Station movie. The two high
points are the Shuttle launch and the Soyuz launch. Lots of interesting
contrasts, including the (by NASA standards) casual attitude about
having visitors on the launch pad shortly before liftoff.

Y'know what's always fascinated _me_ about the Soyuz launches is the
almost total lack of any kind of nearby free-standing gantry or service
tower at liftoff. It looks like pretty much everything related to that
job/s is lowered away from the booster, leaving it pretty much standing
alone on the steppes with just the hold-down arms and that one long arm
whose function I still can't quite figure out (emergency crew egress?).
So, at liftoff, the visual effect is almost like watching an old Redstone
launch; I kept asking, what the hell's holding the thing up?

As a comparison, here's a couple of launches of boosters which are, iirc,
_roughly_ equivalent to the Soyuz booster:

Mercury/Atlas (Friendship 7)
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/S62-00337.jpg

Gemini/Titan (Gemini VII)
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/lores/S65-61628.jpg

--
"All over, people changing their votes,
along with their overcoats;
if Adolf Hitler flew in today,
they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash.
__________________________________________________ _________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike Flugennock's Mikey'zine, dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org