Nice pics! My question is: what is all of this doing to our atmosphere? Clouds full of toxic fumes can't be a good thing. Looks like pollution to me!

I love to watch rocket launches. It is just awe inspiring what we can do now.

The high-altitude jet stream is wild, 200 mph, you could save a lot of fuel by cruising in that thing.
Thanks for the post.

I missed the sky visuals but atleast they got to get the project up in the wind. When I first heard about this experiment I had thought could this allow for tracking of radiation fallout or cosmic microbes ect. as well?

Sure are some awesome pics... wish I could have seen it in person.

I wonder why there are no videos of the rocket launch, and the release of the chemical tracers into the atmosphere, that would be awesome.

If someone finds a video, PLEASE POST!

Edit: Interestingly enough, in regards to the Virgin Galactic comment... Three nights ago, I had the craziest dream. One of the main parts of the dream that I can fully remember is that Richard Branson had died in some sort of adventurous expedition, or a test run of Virgin Galactic. I remember it had something to do with a runway, that's about it. It felt so real, later that day I had to google Richard Branson just to see if it was just a dream, or if it actually happened and I just couldn't recall when I first heard about it.

Nothing special, just interesting... at least I think so.

ok.... so is anyone else making connections with geo-engineering here ???

spraying chemical tracers (trimethyl aluminum) into the atmosphere to test high altitude winds.... come on please.... surely there are much safer ways of doing this than spraying aluminum in the atmosphere.... maybe this is a ramping up of the program for some unknown reason....

Originally posted by Disclosure Agent
ok.... so is anyone else making connections with geo-engineering here ???

spraying chemical tracers (trimethyl aluminum) into the atmosphere to test high altitude winds.... come on please.... surely there are much safer ways of doing this than spraying aluminum in the atmosphere.... maybe this is a ramping up of the program for some unknown reason....

Lets consider this.... since the industrial revolution, we have destroyed mother earth. Even in attempts to maintain environmental standards... there are those who don't follow the law, there are places with out such laws, and those who even promote these laws while at the same time profit from them being broken.

It's about time we start geoengineering, especially if it can be accomplished successfully. I welcome all studies and experiments that may result into allowing earth to remain habitable for humanity.

Forgot to post, I was up at Camelback Mountain in the Poconos watching this mornings launch. It was quite beautiful.

Something neat happened: my stomach didn't turn when I saw the first picture. With all the war stuff going on, it just surprised me that it took me back to childhood awe when I launched my first model rocket, rather than immediate thought of... yeah, that crap.

It's got me staring at the 2 models I have sitting in my living room, As soon as we get some moisture here, I really wanna go launch them. Even at 36 years old, it's still fun to talc the chute and do my own low altitude testing.

Some updated ATREX rocket launch pics.

Loops of wispy clouds rise like smoke rings against a background of stars—the products of a NASA rocket launch early Tuesday morning designed to study the upper-level jet stream.

The chemical reacts with water and oxygen in the atmosphere to create milky white clouds, which could be seen easily by scientists and the public this morning in clear skies along the U.S. Northeast coast, according to NASA. Two of the rockets also carried instruments for measuring atmospheric temperature and pressure.

Rocket plumes and chemical tracers glow like fireworks during the ATREX launch Tuesday morning.

For the experiment, NASA had cameras snapping from coastal facilities at Wallops, in New Jersey, and in North Carolina.

The launches and the rocket-created clouds were also reportedly seen as far south as Wilmington, North Carolina; west to Charlestown, West Virginia; and as far north as Buffalo, New York, NASA says.

One of the ATREX clouds, as seen by a NASA camera. Each cloud lasted for about 20 minutes, giving mission scientists time to track the rocket-made clouds and measure how quickly they moved away from each other.

Researchers will now use the collected data to model the kind of turbulence that exists in the upper jet stream. (Related: "Airline Passengers, Relax: Turbulence Detectors Are on the Way.")

Three-dimensional turbulence, for instance, is similar to what's seen swirling in rivers and gusting in surface winds. This kind of mixing would mean that Earth's high-level winds are governed by laws of motion similar to those that create small-scale waves in water, NASA says.