How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
Ammonium nitrate + sulfur, some 55++ years ago we (15 yo kids) could buy it at the pharmacy just across the street.

My eldest brother managed to generate a beautiful explosion at the entrance of a garage next to us, with little more than a tile, a generous handful of that mix and a heavy stone dropped from some 4 meters above.

Now as IMO cargo, everything is a nightmare with it. And is very good to thoroughly corrode steel cargoes in few days.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009

95 years later, that chemical manufacturing site is now the biggest in the world. It is 5x the size of Oppau, employs 35000 people and ships material out by pipeline, barges (along the Rhein) , rail cars and hundreds of truckloads per day.

I visited this site often. Amazing place. Thousands of trucks doing a dance as they bring material in/out. Not a single traffic light, only a handful of stop signs on the whole site(simply obey, "priority to the right"). Zoom in to see the detail ( between Oppau and the Rhein).

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.5090383,8.419141,14z/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en-us
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/space/os-bz-ksc-new-photo-policy-20190430-story.html
NASA is trying to clamp down on employees taking photos inside the gates of Kennedy Space Center — and warning them they can be fired if they do so — after a video leaked showing SpaceX’s astronaut capsule exploding during a test.

Contractors employed under the Test and Operations Support Contract, which NASA awarded to aerospace company Jacobs for ground systems capabilities, flight hardware processing and launch operations, were notified Monday of the new rules in light of the SpaceX video.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
It could be ploy to increase interest. I just saw a bit of a documentary about Evel Knievel. He staged his unmanned "test" of the Snake River rocket to fail, so that the dimwitted media would run with the story and draw more eyeballs. It worked like a charm.
If this is a ploy then it's one designed to hurt SpaceX badly.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Maybe. Rockets get tested and blow up all the time. It's sort of par for the course and expected. Painful, embarrassing, costly, but not unexpected.
This was a test of the manned launch escape system after a flight recovery not a booster rocket. It was very unexpected to have an explosion with this critical safety system at what looks like even before escape engine ignition.
https://www.space.com/29329-spacex-tests-dragon-launch-abort-system.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_sas.html
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
This was a test of the manned launch escape system after a flight recovery not a booster rocket. It was very unexpected to have an explosion with this critical safety system at what looks like even before escape engine ignition.
https://www.space.com/29329-spacex-tests-dragon-launch-abort-system.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_sas.html
I think the fine points and implications would be missed by the public at large. People that know and care what it means will know about the event whether they see the video or not.

I'm not arguing any point other than things aren't always what they appear to be as reported by the MSM.
 

Thread Starter

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
https://www.spacex.com/news/2019/07/15/update-flight-abort-static-fire-anomaly-investigation
Initial data reviews indicated that the anomaly occurred approximately 100 milliseconds prior to ignition of Crew Dragon’s eight SuperDraco thrusters and during pressurization of the vehicle’s propulsion systems. Evidence shows that a leaking component allowed liquid oxidizer – nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) – to enter high-pressure helium tubes during ground processing. A slug of this NTO was driven through a helium check valve at high speed during rapid initialization of the launch escape system, resulting in structural failure within the check valve. The failure of the titanium component in a high-pressure NTO environment was sufficient to cause ignition of the check valve and led to an explosion.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
He was an interesting, but flawed, fella.
He was on a Lecture Tour in the 60s and came to our High School in East Tennessee from the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville AL where he and his fellow Germans were living and working at the time. I met and spoke with him for several minutes after his lecture. Seemed to be a very nice, open and friendly man.
 
Top