They have been testing some crazy stuff and filmed this one.  NASA is testing a new system that may improve safety and overall performance with some of their ignitions.  There have also been “em drive” tests and some other neat ones they have reported on in the past year.  Here is more from the article:

NASA has a certain “flare” when it comes to safety on the launch pad.

Those flares are called hydrogen burn-off igniters — which resemble celebratory sparklers — and were successfully used to mitigate risk to a launch vehicle for space shuttle missions.

A team of engineers is testing hydrogen burn-off igniters for NASA’s Space Launch System at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the program is managed for the agency. SLS will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever built. It is designed to be sustainable and evolve to carry crew and cargo on deep space missions, including an asteroid placed in lunar orbit, and ultimately to Mars.

Do you think they will get a mission going to Mars within the next 10 years or so?? (with astronauts that is)

Here is some more background on how this new system potentially improves things:

NASA uses highly combustible propellants: liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to power the RS-25 engines. These engines, along with solid rocket boosters, lift the rocket into orbit.

“When the engines start up on the launch pad, there is a small amount of free hydrogen that can potentially collect at the aft of the rocket,” said Don Nance, a Jacobs Technology Inc. employee in the Fluid Dynamics branch of the Engineering Directorate at Marshall. “About 10 seconds before liftoff, the igniters burn off that excess hydrogen rather than let it burn on its own, which could be a safety concern.”

Below are two videos one of they hydrogen test and one safety test video.

Keep up the good work NASA and we hope you enjoy the video!

thanks to NASA for the great info and pic