Okay, this is cool. Astronomy Picture of the Day has an animated GIF of Discovery flying away from the spent solid rocket boosters, taken with cameras mounted on the boosters themselves.
There’s a smoother version of it, but with less supporting text, on NASA’s site. You can see some other videos, as well, including the external tank falling toward the atmosphere. Oh, and be sure you watch the one called “STS-121 Right Forward Solid Rocket Booster Video” for a rocket’s-eye view of the liftoff, followed by a long, graceful fall back into the ocean.
By the way, having spent last weekend at Readercon, I’m now really burrowing into work on Sunborn. I’ll post an update soon.
Charlza
I watched that the other day…very cool stuff. It was surreal to see the Earth spin by every few seconds, them zoom through the clouds to splash into the water.