A Celebration of American Ingenuity
George Savage ·
June 20, 2012 at 6:25pm
As some of you know, I make my living as a certified nerd. For those of you with similar tendencies, this solid rocket booster view of a space shuttle launch will prove awe-inspiring.
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Comments:
Mar '12
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
As a fellow nerd (although not certified) I totally agree - awe-inspiring indeed! Thanks so much for a very different view of a shuttle launch.
May '12
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
Coolest thing I've ever seen on You Tube. Thank you for sharing.
Aug '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
"Riding the Booster" would be a good title for an AC/DC song.
May '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
It's amazing how long chuff and debris continues to come out of the nozzle.
Jan '12
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
Dang I love that. With the testosterone boost that gave me I think my beard just grew another inch.
Feb '11
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
What an unbelievable ride on The Rocket, even if it was the slow ride back to terra firma, so to speak. Thanks for sharing and I agree that this is one of the coolest videos on You Tube!!
Aug '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
Thrilling and awe-inspiring. I loved watching the acceleration and shock waves in the air, among other things.
Aug '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
I thought the audio would make a good ambient lullaby, I converted this into an mp3. I edited it to take out the extra couple of separations though.
If you're interested, here's a link to the mp3 file. This link will only work for about 30 days or so before it's automatically deleted: http://www.sendspace.com/file/eiewf1
Edited on June 20, 2012 at 10:48pmOct '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
Solid rocket boosters can be impressive, but they are crude and inherently dangerous. They are by their very nature a monopropellant, which John D. Clark described in Ignition! as a compound which “contains in itself both the fuel and the oxidizer…. But! Any intimate mixture of a fuel and an oxidizer is a potential explosive, and a molecule with one reducing (fuel) end and one oxidizing end, separated by a pair of firmly crossed fingers, is an invitation to disaster.”
Indeed…. The entire concept of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and the mobile launcher was that all hazardous operations were done at the launch pad, so even on a Really Bad Day you only lost 1/3 of your access to space. With stacking solid rocket boosters in the VAB, every time you do it you roll the dice, and if they come up snake eyes, you lose your access to space for a decade or maybe forever, given budget constraints.
This is the disaster which did not happen during the Shuttle era. So, of course, the Congress, in their wisdom, have mandated the Space Launch System which will continue this absurd risk.
Oct '10
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
Right out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Awesome in the modern and [even more so] the traditional sense.
Jun '11
Re: A Celebration of American Ingenuity
I've read the Feynman appendix to the Rogers Commission report one too many times. I can't enjoy anything to do w/ the Shuttle's solid fuel boosters.