Everything about yesterday's Starship launch was outstanding, but this might just register as insane. Elon Musk everyone wants to know, what kind of camera did the work here and why isn't it a pile of ash?

@elonmusk They use special high-speed industrial cameras like a Phantom, protected inside a concrete bunker with a quartz or sapphire window and active water/nitrogen cooling systems. (Per @Grok)

@elonmusk @grok One of the coolest videos I've ever seen!

@elonmusk @grok It’s pretty badass! Like everything the Musk companies do.

@elonmusk @grok 💯

@elonmusk INSANE My daughter watched the launch with me and asked if they had camera showing the flames. And I told her that's impossible. what do I know

@elonmusk Now you get to show this to her!

@elonmusk WOW Phil, you made me go viral. 500+ likes and counting. I never had more than 4-5 likes before, and they were mostly bots!

@elonmusk

@elonmusk Your life must be exciting.

@elonmusk Found it

@elonmusk Sure, it's impressive, but this is still the king of launchpad videos:

This is cool (we could kill the cornball music). Starship 10 generates approximately 8.4 million pounds more thrust than the Saturn V, making it more than twice as powerful in terms of raw liftoff thrust. That's 29 Raptors, they are moving to 42.

@ChrisO_wiki @elonmusk Actually it's 33 Raptors for the booster... 20 in the outer ring, 10 in the middle ring, and 3 in the center. V3 will also have 33 on the booster. It's just the upper stage (Ship) that's changing... going from 6 to 9. So for now it's 33+6 = 39. In the future it's 33+9 = 42.

@ChrisO_wiki @elonmusk Yea I fixed that in another post. I can't count. Thanks for the correction.

@elonmusk SpaceX needs to start a video series called "Stuff getting face-melted by Starship". Every launch they place a different object under starship and record it getting melted down.

@elonmusk Everything about @SpaceX is on a complete other level. The best of the best.

@elonmusk I'm torn between this insanity and the six prongs of fire shooting out from the platform in the shot from above the rocket.

@elonmusk A high-quality problem

@elonmusk Your question about the camera underneath Starship’s burning rocket engines is exactly what people have wondered for years about the filming of atomic bomb tests. How did the camera(s) survive an atomic bomb?

@elonmusk Such incredible technology we have, yet @DollarGeneral can't keep their freezers working.

@elonmusk Sapphire window? Maybe a gas curtain to keep it clean?

@elonmusk The same camera that watched all those nuclear tests with the houses blowing down

@elonmusk I won't be surprised if they have a camera inside the Raptor sometime. 🤯 I know that it's impossible, but betting against SpaceX seems unreasonable.

@elonmusk

Ever heard of ‘insulation’? 🙄😂 Joking aside, I was amazed when I saw it, too. The naysayer attitude is just as mind-boggling, unfortunately, in a negative way. People say it’s impossible or ‘How do you know?’, and the simple reply is that it’s not arrogance or nonsense - you just have to be intelligent enough to accept there’s people in the world more intelligent than you. 🤷

@elonmusk How in the fuck is that purple hose not melting

@elonmusk Shot on a Nokia 3310.

@elonmusk There’s a thousand cool things going on at SpaceX! Who has the best longform technical deep dive content on all of it??

@elonmusk ... or tile the Starship with whatever is protecting the camera

@elonmusk Plot twist: this was created with Grok Imagine

@elonmusk Upcoming HW5 camera. This was a durability test😆

@elonmusk It might be the camera, but one of the things they might do is actually use a mirror. The camera isn't pointing at the rocket but pointing at a mirror that's pointing at the rocket.

@elonmusk I think someone else mentioned it, but sapphire glass melting point is like 4k degrees!

@elonmusk I have to pay extra just to get a camera that’s weather sealed.

@elonmusk Seeing those flames up close was quite a sight. It's amazing what smart engineering can do to capture such moments. You have to hand it to the teams making this happen.

@elonmusk They hired Chuck Norris. Filmed the whole thing in his pyjamas on his Nokia 3310.

@elonmusk It’s the reversing camera from Tesla Model 3

@elonmusk Holy hades, that could incinerate a normal camera. How thick was that special window?

@elonmusk Could be high temp cameras or thermal imaging cameras used in furnaces, etc. Also possible that the camera was kept behind another transparent layer of heat resistant screen.

@elonmusk I'm sure it was not a true camera. It should have been a LIDAR, with an AI render 😉...

@elonmusk I bet it’s a @GoPro 🤔

@elonmusk What I would suggest this thing’s manufacturer needs to be hired to the heat shield team

@elonmusk This sort of thing has been about since Apollo. Nothing new here.

@elonmusk Heard of zoom lenses?