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General control line discussion => Open Forum => Topic started by: Steve Helmick on June 14, 2012, 02:01:43 PM
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Video & sound of the flight of a space shuttle booster...good audio & video...turn up the sound if you dare! %^ Steve
http://kottke.org/12/03/what-the-space-shuttle-booster-saw (http://kottke.org/12/03/what-the-space-shuttle-booster-saw)
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Who's quote is this?
"I always said I would be more comfortable if the earth was attached to a pole.
I don't care what the pole is attached to."
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I believe that would be a Polar Vaulter! LOL
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Who's quote is this?
"I always said I would be more comfortable if the earth was attached to a pole.
I don't care what the pole is attached to."
Jamilla Deville? #^
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Impressive!
What I thought was very cool was that you could see the rocket plume reaching up from the Cape, especially from shortly after booster separation at the edge of space.
Sigh..... Never see that sight live again, but some of the new heavy lift expendable platforms ( think Atlas 5 Heavy or Delta IV ) with multiple Common Core 1st stages are pretty awe inspiring, but still not a Shuttle!
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Who's quote is this?
"I always said I would be more comfortable if the earth was attached to a pole.
I don't care what the pole is attached to."
Who cares...
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That is awesome. But what keeps them from burning up on re-entry? H^^
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Doc, the boosters only get up to somewhere under 3,000 mph. Orbit requires more like 25,000 mph. So the speed is much less, as is the altitude. I was wondering when they deploy the drogue 'chutes to get the booster pointed right end up and stabilized...maybe 60,000' or so? H^^
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Looks like residual solid fuel is burning off during rentry? I betcha Slim Pickens would have loved a ride on one of those!
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Regarding parachute deployment, it actually began much closer to the ocean (about 16,000 feet) for a few reasons: denser air slowed the booster more and they didn't want the thing drifting too far while on the mains. Aero drag heated up the surface enough to require thermal protection on the major aluminum structures (350 degrees was the limit) while 500 was the limit on steel parts (like the motor case) and the white paint was often scorched brown on much of the structure. CG placement was very important-we didn't want it pointed nose-down as this would make 'chute deployment very difficult. There were 5 parachutes carried on each booster for a total weight of around 15,000 pounds. The recovery sequence was started by a baro switch at 15,500 feet (V= 540 fps) that triggered release of the nose cap and pulling out the 11' pilot chute. This pulled out the 54' drogue, orienting the falling booster more tail-down and slowing it to 360 fps. Then a shaped charge around the circumference of the frustum fired at about 5500 feet, separating the booster and pulling the 3 mains out from the slowing frustum. The 136 ft mains were kept partially closed by reefing lines so that they wouldn't be ripped apart by the air loads and were cut in 3 steps over about 15 seconds to allow the canopy to open gradually and slowing the beast from 360 fps to water impact of about 75 fps. It hung on the mains for almost 50 seconds, giving time to fire a shaped charge around the carbon-fiber nozzle just before impact and reducing damage to the very expensive flexible nozzle bearing and steering actuators. Everything was recovered by two ships standing nearby and reused except the nose cap and pilot 'chute, which usually sank. These ships left Port Canaveral two days before launch and waited about 160 miles off shore, usually within visual contact with the falling boosters but not too close as the boosters weighed around 100 tons and nobody wanted to be conked by a falling nose cap or other stuff.
We won't be seeing things like this again but that's what the Apollo guys said and the Gemini guys before them, and the Mercury guys before them. It is rather sad, though, to think that future returning astronauts will return this way, plopping into the ocean in a modified cannon ball to scramble out all wet, cold, and miserable into rubber rafts, probably getting seasick on the trip back instead of strolling with dignity down an air conditioned jetway into comfy ground transport. I'm told this is progress. Really?
RK
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WOW!! That is a really cool. I love the groaning sounds! The visual was cool but once I got to watch it with sound it really made it cool!!
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<snip>
Everything was recovered by two ships standing nearby and reused except the nose cap and pilot 'chute, which usually sank.
RK
So...The Ocean, just off the Cape is full of "Nose caps & Pilot chutes"?
Shuttle launches X2 = n~
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Thanks for posting this. My first job out of college was at Thiokol where I got to do some of the original design work on the shuttle boosters. And now I'm retired, and so is the shuttle.
Scott
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<snip>
So...The Ocean, just off the Cape is full of "Nose caps & Pilot chutes"?
Shuttle launches X2 = n~
I wonder if anything is left from one of the Saturn first stages down on the seafloor.