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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."
Anyone know how many times launch pad 39A has been used for previous shuttle/rocket launches?
This guy's the limit!
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.