The Incredible Sounds of the Falcon Heavy Launch (BINAURAL AUDIO IMMERSION) - Smarter Every Day 189

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day.

So, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy test flight just happened; everyone agrees the footage is phenomenal. It was amazing technological wizardry. Everyone loves it, but there's something that is missing when you view it over the internet. Everyone that's ever been to an actual space launch will tell you it's the sound of the event that just overwhelms your body, and that's kind of lost when you're looking through a screen, right?

So, it's time for me to introduce you to my other YouTube channel. It's called The Sound Traveler. I used binaural 3D audio, if you will, to transport your body to the location. It kind of tricks your mind. It's an acoustic type mental thing going on; just trust me, it works.

Here's how it works: get your headphones. Put your headphones on; it only works if you have headphones. Make sure the left headphone is on your left ear; make sure the right headphone is in your right ear. There. Once you get set up, you're calibrated.

The Vehicle Assembly Building is the largest single-story building in the world. This is where they assemble the rockets. You are one of only 20 photographers credentialed that's allowed onto the top of the Vehicle Assembly Building. With your headphones on, we're gonna walk through the Vehicle Assembly Building with these photographers. Get on some elevators, do some catwalk stuff so that your mind gets calibrated to that 3D audio. Then walk out to the cameras and get ready for launch.

There's three things I want you to listen for: number one, at the countdown, listen to all the shutters firing from the cameras around you; you can hear where they are. Number two, once the rocket lifts off the pad, you can no longer hear the cameras. It's so loud! What kind of aircraft is overhead and where it is relative to your mind?

Okay, go enjoy launch, and then we'll get ready for re-entry.

15. Thank you. 10. Thank you. There it goes! 3, 2, 1, lift-off!

Lots of noise! That sound adds so much for me. That is so incredible!

Okay, the next part that I absolutely love! So, the rocket's up, up, and away, right? The two boosters safely separate, they do a little pirouette, and they come back without touching each other, and they come back in with a re-entry burn.

The part that I love, I mean as an engineer, this just tickles all the right parts of my brain — the fact that the video feed from both of those boosters looks like it's just one booster played on two different screens. I love that! That means the guidance and control algorithm was so finely tuned that they just nailed it. So, tip of the hat to the guidance control team that did that; very, very impressed!

The next thing that you missed by not being there, because we're watching it on a screen, and we're hearing the cheering at Hawthorne or the sonic booms as it approaches the pad.

So, here's how this works: according to SpaceX, there are three sonic booms per booster. And they're caused by, in order: number one, the engine down there causes the first sonic boom; where the legs connect to the booster, that's the second one; and the third one's caused by the grid fins up on top of the booster.

Now, there's three sonic booms per booster. We have two boosters; that's six sonic booms, right? Now experience this in 3D with your headphones still. See if you can count how many sonic booms you hear.

And this is what a person hears when they're down at the Cape when this goes down. Check it out; got them! Woooow! Sonic boom's?

6 sonic booms! Holy, holy mackerel! I didn't count six; I counted ten! Pump! It! Dump! It! Dump! It! Dump! It down!

I went back and looked at the waveform. The reason you see ten, there's supposed to be three per booster: there's three with echoes, and so the waveform overlays in such a way that it sounds like five. It's fascinating!

Anyway, that is a Sound Traveler video. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Sound Traveler. I'm promoting it here on Smarter Every Day in hopes that people will go and subscribe to that.

When I feature a guest Sound Traveler, I write up this little contract here, and I make sure to pay them. I also make sure to promote them, and this particular Sound Traveler was Trevor Maehlman. Trevor helps me with all the eclipse stuff that we've done in the past.

According to our contract that we wrote, I am now supposed to promote Trevor's MySpace page. So if you want to support Trevor Mullin, professional rocket photographer, you can. I'm just kidding! He has a Patreon.

Trevor is trying to figure out how to make a career out of professional rocket photography, and if you know anything about how intellectual property works, it is really, really hard to do that. Everybody wants to offer you promotion when you just need money to eat.

So, I paid Trevor for this endeavor, and I also want to set him up for the long haul, and the way to do that is Patreon. So if you want to support Trevor, you'll notice all the other photographers were more established in their careers. Trevor's not, so if you want to support a young man that's doing awesome things, and on top of that, he gives you incredible photographs in exchange for your financial support, I'll leave a link down below.

So, if you want to pack up your photography gear now with Trevor, I'll let you do that. And I'll leave a link on the screen to subscribe to The Sound Traveler.

One humble request: to subscribe to that channel because it's a pet project; I love it anyway.

I'm Destin; you're getting smarter every day. Have a good one!

Holy cow! Wow! Now I'm the first person to see this footage, but I cannot wait for all of you to see this. This is going to be crazy. This is really going to be awesome!