how did you determine 200 ft?
What do you estimate then?
Eh, question wasn't directed at me, but I feel like chiming in. The Ares I-X, the rocket imaged in that picture, was around 327 feet tall. It traveled it's own length between three and four times at that point in the picture, so between 981 and 1308 feet.
Even if the distance couldn't be approximated, does that entitle you to pull a number out of nowhere?
After 8 seconds, it's arse barely clears the pylon.
Also note the huge crowd that naturally would gather from all over the world to see space rocket launches. Obviously this crowd dispersed because a hamburger van turned up in the back ground and just left a few dozen sensible ones that had already had lunch, I suppose.
Or maybe they came to watch the birds and there was no other crowds and hamburger van.
What seems more likely in this scenario?
Anyone?
Note the first 8 seconds of the video and notice the terrain from that video angle. Tell me what you see.
This just gets sillier and sillier.
#ws" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ARES I-X Launch
I'm sorry, and how does any of this give you the right to pull a number out of nowhere, when a simple reverse image search on google followed by basic approximation and math could have given you at least something close to where it was?
You recognize that this was a test, and that only the press and members of NASA were allowed anywhere near this thing? The issue of safety is a big one, and it's not worth having to supervise hundreds, if not thousands of people at the location for a test where nothing significant actually happens other than confirmation that the new design works as expected.
Okay, let me rewatch the video. I see some grass, a launch pad, some towers, and a rocket... Now some grass, some people, a countdown timer, a flagpole, a lake, some trees on the other side of the lake, a raised clearing to the left of the image, and the rocket and towers peering up above the trees... And now another - possibly the same - lake, a hill leading out of the lake covered in trees, the launch pad, rocket, and towers again, and a clearing behind and to the right of the pad which has a cylindrical building with a domed top in it. Nothing of much interest, I don't think, but if you like trees so much I can't disagree.
If you're talking about the rather obvious difference in the audio and countdown timer, it's probably bad syncing on the part of the video maker. The timer could be wrong, too, I guess. Don't really think the launch depends on that one being right.