Monday, May 7, 2012

Ride A Shuttle SRB

This video was shared with me today by 2 friends who retired several years ago from the company for whom I still work.  Both of them are excellent engineers, good human beings, and I am a better man for knowing them both.  As engineer myself, I found this video (and it has sound too!) fascinating!   Velocities, altitudes, the entire journey... in 400 seconds, from zero to nearly Mach 4 at 41 nautical miles up, and then back down again, to "sea level". 

If you watched this video, and it had absolutely no effect on you, and you're not an engineer... then you made the correct career choice.  If you watched this and it had not effect, and you are an engineer.... I hope I don't use any of the products you've ever engineered.  It thrilled me. I've watched it 4 times now, (the 4th as I post this).  Wow. And I used to think Solid Rocket Boosters were boring stuff, made in Utah.

No other country in the world (so far) has had the technical ability, and political will power, to build, launch, maintain, and run a recoverable, re-usable, re-entry space vehicle.  Discovery spent 365 days in orbit, ran a 100 missions, and massively contributed to the ability to construct the international space station.  The Soviets designed a space shuttle, but never launched one.  The Russians can't afford it.  The Europeans could never reach a consensus in 'real time' to ever get a viable shuttle program off the ground.  The Chinese.... lol... I've flown on Chinese aircraft and visited several of their aerospace their factories... they won't have a viable shuttle program in my life time.  This video is truly impressive. 

It almost makes me want to sing along with Lee Greenwood  =P  ... but I would sing along with Beyonce.

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