Recovering the SRB's

[Gargamel]

As the Era of the Space Shuttle is drawing to a close, here's and article and some good HD video of a part of the operations you may never have seen, thought about, or even knew that they did this!

http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa...hd-110319.html

When they dropped the recovery device over the side, I said, "That looks like a cork!" few minutes later.... "Oh it is a cork!"

[Growler]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

As the Era of the Space Shuttle is drawing to a close, here's and article and some good HD video of a part of the operations you may never have seen, thought about, or even knew that they did this!

http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa...hd-110319.html

When they dropped the recovery device over the side, I said, "That looks like a cork!" few minutes later.... "Oh it is a cork!"

This is cool, Garg. Combined with the footage of the flight from the SRB point of view, this is a neat way to show that half of what happens after they splash down.

[razark]

When my father retired from NASA, some of the people he had worked with at KSC presented him with a plaque. Mounted on the plaque was half of one of the hold down nuts from an SRB. Those things are huge.

For those who don't know, the shuttle stack is bolted to the pad by the SRBs, and upon SRB ignition, the nuts are blown in half with explosives. The pieces are captured by devices on the SRBs, and go along for the ride. (If the nuts fail to fracture, the thrust from the stack is more than enough to break the bolt.)

[papa_smurf]

Great video, never realised so much went into the recovery of the SRB's.