Monday, February 16, 2009
NASA Constellation Photo Essay.
Go to the Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" web page for a collection of NASA photos of the Constellation program. (Here.)
This is photograph number 23 from the essay, described as follows: "Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama completed first-round testing on Sept. 11, 2008 of a key motor for the next-generation Ares I rocket. The ullage settling motor is a small, solid rocket motor that will assist in vehicle stage separation and provide the forward motion needed to push fuel to the bottom of the fuel tanks during the launch to orbit of the Ares I rocket."
(Photo credit: NASA/MSFC)
That may be a solid rocket motor blasting away but it looks like a test firing of a death ray. Makes me wonder, if you could line up your ship correctly and get it close enough to the target, how effective would the blast from a propulsion or control rocket be as a weapon in space? But that's another topic. There are other equally cool photos in the collection. Go check them out. (Link here again, so you don't have to scroll back to the top.)
-tdr
This is photograph number 23 from the essay, described as follows: "Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama completed first-round testing on Sept. 11, 2008 of a key motor for the next-generation Ares I rocket. The ullage settling motor is a small, solid rocket motor that will assist in vehicle stage separation and provide the forward motion needed to push fuel to the bottom of the fuel tanks during the launch to orbit of the Ares I rocket."
(Photo credit: NASA/MSFC)That may be a solid rocket motor blasting away but it looks like a test firing of a death ray. Makes me wonder, if you could line up your ship correctly and get it close enough to the target, how effective would the blast from a propulsion or control rocket be as a weapon in space? But that's another topic. There are other equally cool photos in the collection. Go check them out. (Link here again, so you don't have to scroll back to the top.)
-tdr
Labels: NASA
