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Is it me or did the separation of the upper stage look scary? There seemed to be a lot of tumbling going on there. And, at least from my grainy-watching-NASA-TV-on-the-Intertubes perspective, a near collision with the nose cone.
The separation looked strange because the upper stage was not a powered one.
Surprised that no one has commented on the lift-off yet. It appeared to my untrained eye that the tail drifted towards the gantry initially before it finally cleared without contact. I have not seen anyone mention whether that was expected or not. The stage separation was also odd, but as mentioned earlier the upper stage was not powered.
I agree with the previous poster looking at the orientation of the towers along side of it .. it looked as though it was already at a slight angle before it lifted off the pad.. Again that's why they make test flights.. People complaining about the cost should understand spending 450 million on a test is better than losing one single astronaut life due to an untested rocket concept. Computers simulations aren't enough to see the intangibles that go along with aerodynamics.. I was just happy to see the damn thing launch .. Now I wonder did I see the only ares launch for another 3 years or ever? Who knows?
The animations of the intended mission I saw showed a positive separation of the 2nd stage from the 1st stage with small rockets, and then the tumble rocket on the 1st stage was intended to stop the 1st stage catching up with the 2nd, which often happens after burn-out with solid rockets. In the end it looked like the 2 stages separated and the 2nd stage 'fell-off' the 1st. There was a verbal call that the tumble rocket had fired but looks like there was a (minor) anomaly of some sort. Overall, seemed an excellent mission.
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beautiful launch. lifts off faster than the shuttle I think.