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ILLUSTRATION BY INFOMEN
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
MARCH 2012
Wreck
Room
With their electric propulsion
and plasma fuel systems, the
rockets of today are a lot like
the ones imagined in the sci-fi
movies of yesteryear. There’s
just one problem: They
still weigh a ton (or
3,700 of them, to
be exact). Lighter
rockets would
be cheaper and
more efficient,
but alsomight
crumple under the
stress of takeoff. To
figure out how light
rockets can be and still
work, NASA built a test bay
at theMarshall Space Flight
Center—and hired a bunch of
rambunctious rocket scien-
tists—just to crush them. The
most recent spacecra smash
took place last spring and
cost the agency $5 million.
Here’s how they did it.
BYMICHELLE BANGERT
1
It took 100 people about 18
months to set up the bay and create
a faux rocket out of an aluminum
alloy, and even then, NASA still had
to get the 20-foot-tall can to the
test, which required closing roads
and lifting power lines. “It takes an
army of people just tomove this
thing around,” saysMark Hilburger, a
NASA senior research engineer.
3
Finally, two giant rings held the
rocket shell in place while a hydraulic
mechanismcrushed it from top to
bottom. The shell handledmore
pressure than expected—it failed
after about five hours. Next, the
scientists will crush one that is 20 to
30 percent lighter, continuing until
they reach the perfect balance of
weight and strength.
2
As much as Hilburger might
have wanted to hit the start button
once everything was in place, he had
to take the test slowly. “You don’t
just load it up and let it rip,” he says.
In six days of pretest preparation,
engineers set up 16 video systems
and installed 800 sensors on the
rocket shell so they could keep tabs
on it as it crumpled.
HUNTSVILLE, ALA.
1
test rocket
shell
hydraulic
load lines
(creating up
to 2 million
pounds of
pressure)
3
2
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