alt Hacker NewsI really don’t think budget cuts prevented the camera operator from panning up at the right time…
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Less budget = less tooling + less competant people
So actually, yes, it could have affected it. Did it really? We will never know.
Also NASA has less experience in this than SpaceX, hopefully it will be better next time!
> panning up at the right time…
I've watched hours of athlete parents try to track their athlete kid and it's marginally useful at best. Lots of shaky cam even at Pop Warner football speeds. So panning at the right time, with the muscle control to keep the object centered, is harder than you think.
If they have a professional videographer on staff working that camera it almost certainly would have never happened. Elon, who was in charge of DOGE, didn't take communications and marketing seriously so I'm almost certain they were one of the first to be let go.
I really don’t think budget cuts prevented the camera operator from panning up at the right time
Tilting is up and down.
Panning is left to right.
You can't pan up, unless you've fallen over.
Presumably they had more than one camera and the fault was with people in the booth.
There are plenty of ways that money could have solved this though.
More thorough prep/training for camera operators, so they can pan the camera according to a plan, instead of by reaction.
Maybe this camera operator wasn't supposed to pan because it was trying to capture diagnostic imagery that wasn't really intended for viewers, but because of budget cuts, they opted to use diagnostic views as presentation views.
Maybe there was supposed to be a cut to a different camera. But the production room was not sufficiently staffed to coordinate the switch.
Maybe there was no broadcast plan at all and it wasn't clearly coordinated who should be taking what shots.
Maybe they were underpaying the operators and they were not qualified.
Maybe they were underpaying the operators and a single operator was stuck operating multiple cameras and was framing a different camera at the time.
Automated tracking systems.
Sure, it's very likely that this might have happened anyway, but there are a lot of ways that reducing budget reduces planning and coordination. Especially if there is enough budget squeeze to move funds from public support campaigns (this entire stream was a public support campaign) to critical things (like building a rocket).