Here's How NASA Got All That Amazing Footage of Rocket Launches and Space Activity

Chances are you've seen historical footage from NASA at some point in your life, whether in a movie, on television, on the Internet. That footage was extremely hard to film, however, and this great video examines the technical challenges behind shooting rocket launches and space.

Coming to you from Curious Droid, this neat video explores the history of filming rockets both on Earth and in space and both why and how NASA did it. Although the footage is awe-inspiring and beautiful, NASA's intent in capturing it was most often for the purposes of scientific study first, though they began adding documentary cameras in later years. It's amazing to see things like 12,500mm lenses and explosion-proof cameras in the blast zone, but I think the most impressive for me were the cameras for Apollo 4, some of which were dropped from space back to Earth and eventually recovered (4 out of 6 of them). Such footage was crucial in determining the success of many critical aspects, as the engineers and scientists couldn't be personally present and relied on both instrumentation and video to show them the events. If you're a space, history, or gear geek, you'll definitely love the video above.