Perhaps you don't realize what he's saying. I too have witnessed a shuttle launch (well, it was on television, but it's the same principle). The camera is constantly focused on the shuttle, with no jumps in film, and no camera cuts, and after it disappeared from site on the ground cam, they switched over to the shuttle cam, which showed it start to permeate the earth's atmosphere, before it had to be turned off so that it wouldn't cause interference with the radio in the shuttle. On the shuttle cam, I actually saw the sky start to turn darker as it got closer and closer to reaching the end of the atmosphere.