Watch All 135 Space Shuttle Launches At Once

From Kottke comes this spectacular video from McLean Fahnestock showing all 135 of NASA's Space Shuttle launches simultaneously. It ably captures the drama, power, and danger of our ascent into space.

The video starts as the final countdown begins, timed so that you can see the three main engines firing at approximately 6.6 seconds before lift-off.

This is every launch from STS-1 in April 1981 with Columbia through Atlantis on July 2011. While only one of the launches failed, the video clearly highlights the tragedy by gracefully fading out the Challenger's square and isolating the audio.

Here's another take on the same concept.

(Hat tip to @AnnaHolmes)