Rocketobsessedperson - If It's Not A Rocket, It's Not Awesome Enough

The earth and moon as seen from the Cassini near Saturn. Gives much needed perspective.

Your Smile Hides Your Pain by SkyeyPony

Twilight’s Rainbow Power form by FantasyBlade

An incredible view of the mighty Saturn V.

And now we have the Apollo 8 launch. These were the first guys outside the Low Earth Orbit, flying right by the Moon. You can see the stage separation from outside, this time from the better angle and in color. Dem J-2 cluster though...

The S-Ic was running on RP-1 (airplane fuel)/liquid oxygen mixture, thus the orange bright flame. S-II on the other hand used liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen mixture, which means the exhaust (water vapor) is invisible.

Around 1:28 you can see the vapor cone around the front of S-II, which appeared when the rocket was passing through the sound bareer, and disappeared shortly after.

After stage separation you can see that first stage engines are still glowing orange. The center engine however isn’t - is was shut down thirty seconds before (around 2:40) to avoid oscillations.

At the end of the video you can see the interstage separating, which was done to reduce the spacecraft's mass.

An AC-130U gunship jettisons flares over an area near Hurlburt Field, Florida.

When we work together as a nation, we can do great things. Happy July 4th, 2015.