An earlier two-part diary of mine gave a glimpse of the solar system's natural beauty (part 1, part 2). Now I would like to take a tour of some of the technology that has gotten us into space, is getting us there, or will get us there in the future. Rest assured, I will only post images of real hardware - no viewgraph fantasies.
This is nowhere near a comprehensive viewing of space technology - I've ignored the vast majority of systems by necessity. I group the items in alphabetical order of country, just to mix things up a bit. If you wish to see larger versions of images, which I highly recommend, they may be found on the Flickr page by clicking on them and then clicking "All Sizes" to view the sizing options. Some of them are truly awesome at full resolution.
I. Rockets
Theme music:
(If it won't start, just click a few seconds forward)
- Brazil
- China
- European (excluding Russia)
Countries: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark (in order of ownership %)
- India
- Japan
- South Korea
- Russia
- United States
- Space Shuttle:
- Ares I-X (Boooo! Booo-urns! hissss):
- Delta rocket family
:
- Atlas rocket family
:
Note: I begin with the modern EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) stage of the Atlas family, which is denoted with Roman numerals, and skip the letter-denoted ICBM variants that preceded it (including those used in Project Mercury).
- Falcon rocket family
:
Note: Falcon 9 has not launched yet, but it is complete and is scheduled for first launch early next year.
- Minotaur rocket family
:
- Taurus
:
- Pegasus
:
Launch / Engine Test Vids
Falcon 1, first successful launch (full on-board viewpoint after liftoff):
Ares I-X test flight:
Space Shuttle launch, from inside orbiter:
Space Shuttle launch, external on-board camera:
Space Shuttle launch, objective:
Soyuz launch:
Delta IV Heavy launch, with on-board camera:
Delta IV Heavy launch, objective:
Ariane V launch:
Chang Zheng 2F launch of Shenzhou manned mission:
Resources:
Wikipedia
Global Security
Encyclopedia Astronautica