On Mon, 2003-12-01 at 15:39, Matt W. wrote: > If you have any connections up at Thiokol (or whatever it's called > now-a-days), try to get in on one of their Space Shuttle engine tests (once > every year and a half). Basically they fire one of those huge white engines > that you see on the side of the Space Shuttle into a mountain side for 3 > minutes.
Cool. Essentially they must burn an entire SRB, then, since they only burn for about 2 minutes anyway. > > However, that would be second to going to an actual launch with military > tickets (closer seating). When the shuttle turns away from you, your whole > body shakes and rumbles. It's especially cool to hear the announcer telling > you how fast the Shuttle is going every minute; I couldn't believe he kept > going and going till the Shuttle was moving over 15,000 mph -I'd love to go > that fast. We had Don Lind come talk at a fireside the other day and he talked about his experiences on a mission in 1985 (just about a year before the Challenger tragedy). Showed realtime footage taken out the window the shuttle (the little square window that looks straight up) as the shuttle climbed to orbit. By the time the SRBs separated, they had travelled all the way from florida up the coast to upstate new york. That's a lot of miles covered in just 120 seconds. I've read elsewhere that the shuttle breaks the sound barrior in just 15 seconds after blastoff. > > Matt > > PS Interestingly, I was told that they fill each section with fuel and > transport it by train down to Florida. Occasionally they find a section > with a bullet mark. Apparantly, some people randomly shoot at trains; it > wouldn't be a good thing to fire one of those engines accidentally. Another random factoid is that the srb sections' diameter is constrained by the size of the rail tunnels between here and the VAB in florida. (Which, according to myth, goes back to the Roman times and the width of 2 horses). Michael > > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list -- Michael L Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
