What you saw was footage from STS-48 space shuttle mission. If you do a google search with the string "sts-48" you'll find tons of stuff concerning that footage. NASA's official explanation was that it was just space ice/debris being jolted around as the shuttle fired its retro rockets to manuaver. My personal opinion is that NASA is lying but who really knows. Funny thing was, is that immediatetly after the shuttle broadcast this video (it was being fed live on "earth view" channel) NASA cut broadcast...no why would they do that?? People have extrapolated the "plasma" beam and most think it came from somewhere in Australia. The popular conspiracy theory is that it was some test for a star wars weapon...another is that it was an actual firing at some UFO for whatever purposes. Do your own due diligence and reach your own conclusion. Good luck