The launch of the Atlas 5 rocket in March 2015
If you love to see a space-bound rocket taking off in a giant fireball then look no further as someone has collated 32 minutes of nearly all the rocket take-off videos of 2015.
A video showing nearly all of the rocket takeoffs from last year is definitely one way to celebrate a rather incredible year for space exploration, in terms of what we know about our own solar system and universe, to a new beginning in commercial space travel.
From the former perspective, we as a species were treated to our first glimpse of our solar system’s outermost reaches, specifically, Pluto and its giant heart, with the help of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
But from a commercial perspective, just before the year concluded, Elon Musk’s SpaceX confirmed that after a number of failed attempts it had successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth in one piece, potentially ushering in an age of significantly cheaper and more accessible space exploration.
Not only was SpaceX busy, but Jeff Bezos and his own aerospace company, Blue Origin, also achieved a similar feat with its own re-usable rocket that it landed back safely to Earth, albeit from a slightly lower altitude than the Falcon 9.
Despite the online goading between Musk and Bezos, 87 rocket launches took place last year – not too far behind the 93 seen in 1994 – of which 83 are featured in this brilliant video.
Unfortunately, the four major Chinese launches of last year didn’t make the cut.
Gigglebit is Siliconrepublic.com’s daily dose of the funny and fantastic in science and tech, to help start your day on a lighter note.
