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because the SRBs put out over 6 million pounds of thrust of the 7 and a half million pounds that the shuttle has at liftoff, it looks a good deal less spectacular without the SRBs. nonetheless, the bird you see in these pictures is moving away from us at over 12,000 miles/hour in the last pictures. the "bird", by the way, is the white, star-like dot.      i noticed something i had never seen before in the following pics. when i looked out over the ocean, i saw two white trails to the left of the shuttle. they were parallel to each other, and went straight down. they could only be the last of what was left in the solid rocket boosters as they fell to the atlantic for retrieval.   i tried to get some boats in these pictures to give some sense of perspective. i don't know if it worked, but i like the panorama.   |