Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
Wannabe astronauts, edgy filmmakers, and space history nerds, get prepared for many lost evenings: NASA is uploading hundreds of hours of rare archival footage.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center are in the process of uploading the videos onto their YouTube channel and website. These channels have been active for years, but the past few weeks and months have seen a flurry of uploads.
The collection of videos, most of which are just around the one-minute mark, include events throughout the space agency's 70 years of history, including rocket launches, crash tests, geoscience missions, interviews, and experimental test flights.
There are simply too many cool videos to explain, with many more still waiting to be processed and uploaded, so here’s a short hand-picked selection to get you started.
Footage from June 19, 2002, shows the Space Shuttle Endeavour as it touches down at the Edwards Air Force Base after its 14-day mission to the International Space Station.
The Helios Prototype solar-powered aircraft in June 2003, which looks a lot like something out of Wacky Races over Kauai, Hawaii.
A Controlled Impact Demonstration crash test of a Boeing 720 passenger jet airliner from 1984.
The YF-12 "Blackbird", an experimental fighter-interceptor that set a speed record of 3,331.5 kilometers per hour (2,070.101 mph) in May 1965, flying above the Mojave Desert.
Footage from the 1950s that show a fleet of NACA high-speed experimental research aircraft outside the main hangar at South Base at Edwards, CA.
