Shuttle Launch Pad Damaged During Discovery's Launch

pumpkinpuss writes "Launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center suffered unusual damage during the shuttle Discovery's blastoff Saturday. Pictures from a NASA source show buckled concrete and numerous concrete blocks or bricks, presumably from the flame trench, littering a road behind the pad."

Comments

anyone know?

[gEvil (beta)]

Anyone know how many times launch pad 39A has been used for previous shuttle/rocket launches?

Re:anyone know?

[TWX]

"42"

Sad thing is, I can't tell if this is a serious answer or a joke, and thus I don't know anything more than I did before the response was given...

Re:anyone know?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Make a funny joke on /.
2. Make a post explaining that it was a joke
3. Get mod'ed as Informative
4. Get Karma
5. ???
6. Profit!

This is

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously the work of terrorists attempting to sabotage the shuttle. We must give up more civil liberties immediately to protect ourselves from this Threat.

Re:how?

[p0tat03]

Thermal cycling. Cracks can occur in many structural materials while *cooling*, not while heating. Next time try heating a piece of glassware to an unholy temperature, and then dropping it into an ice water bath.

Not too surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Disregard the age of the pad; This mission was the heaviest for the shuttle. It was taken all the way to the max. Basically, this one took longer to take off, chewing away at the pad that was designed and built LONG ago to handle such loads.

Re:Thermal Cycling

[TubeSteak]

Making things hot and cold in rapid succession can cause fatigue due to the materials expanding and contracting. Things exposed to the elements, such as this, also have to deal with moisture. I imagine the intense vibrations from 82 launches might have something more to do with it.

Especially since making concrete effectively weather proof hasn't been all that hard for a very long time. You can still go to Italy and find concrete from the Roman times.

Re:How about the Shuttle?

[imipak]

Fortunately, both the SSMEs and the SRBs blow, rather than suck, superheated combustion gases. This effect tends to lead unsecured objects exposed to the blast to move away from the source of the overpressure.

Today's comment was brought to you by the publishers of "My Very First Big Book of Classical Physics".

Re:how?

[p0tat03]

My bad, I didn't mean to imply cracks cannot occur while heating :) Was merely trying to dispel the myth that things only break while being heated.

Re:Also: it's a heavy mission

[Rorschach1]

Got any figures on just how much slower the liftoff is? Based on some numbers I looked up quick, the shuttle has a gross liftoff weight of around 4,500,000 pounds and a payload capacity of 50,000 pounds. That means cargo accounts for around 1.1% of the liftoff weight.

Now, maybe they're carrying less fuel on lighter launches, but I've never heard that before. I can't imagine a 1% variation in liftoff weight making a big difference in time to clear the pad.

Anyone care to contribute some actual time measurements?

Re:how?

[tompaulco]

My best guess is vibrations from launch transmitted through the ground, and possibly shifting of the soil around the flame trenches, are the culprit. I'm thinking along the lines of an undetected void forming over the decades in the soil giving way.
That gets my vote too. Anyone who has been there for a launch can tell you that the vibrations from two miles away are incredible. That and Florida is basically a large sand dune.