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We can land boosters on a barge is the new "We can land a man on the moon."

Awesome!

Before the space shuttle would launch, the main engine would ignite first. After six seconds the two solid rocket boosters would ignite and the shuttle would launch.

The six second delay was necessary because the main engine ignition would rock the "stack" or the entire assembly of the shuttle, fuel tank and boosters forward. It took 6 seconds for the stack to return to the upright position.

This 6 second period of sway was referred to as "twang."

Figured I'd pass that little bit of info on to you in case you're ever asked about twang on a radio quiz show.

Watched it live. Hype was infectious. Seeing the two side boosters coming down together in almost perfect synchronisation was quite a thing.

Going to need to forget this video to partake in this flight.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/How-Not-to-Land-an-Orbital-Rocket-Booster

How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster has been added as a related post - related requested by Mordhaus.

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Your video, How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I lived in Cape Canaveral during the shuttle program and was fortunate enough to watch all but 5 launches live.

An excellent video with scenes I thoroughly enjoyed in slow motion and HD.

A brief mention in the video about the 6 seconds from when the main liquid engines ignite until the solid boosters ignite is called "twang."

When the main engines ignite, the power causes the whole assembly to rock forward. It takes 6 seconds for the assembly to fall back to vertical again and then the boosters light up and away it goes.

ahhhh yeah

geekgasm at the end there.

But ok, now the wheels need to be able to lock tight so it can walk on them and then attach rocket boosters to help it pick up speed and/or hover/fly and you've got mechas. All we need now is to develop hairspray strong enough to maintain those anime dos and we are golden.

I think they should just paint hairy ball sacks on the base of the booster and be done with it.

I had not realized that the solid rocket boosters were steerable....at least I hope they are moving the nozzle intentionally and that it's not moving around on it's own.
Incredible camera...at 1/4 speed you can see the pressure waves move through the flame trail.

@eric3579 Thanks for the quality!

My mom is president of a district school board in Kansas, so the "education" parts of the cuts have hit really close to home for her (and by extension me, even though I'm not living there). Very very tight budgets. Most music programs got drastic cuts years ago, and are effectively gone now. AP programs for college credit? Gone. Good teachers for academic subjects? Usually bail for greener pastures very quickly.

...But, being rural Kansas, plenty of money gets spent on bus / coach / equipment / facilities for the football team. To be fair, a good chunk of that comes from booster clubs rather than gov't. Still shows where the priorities are.

Are they not made of the same substance that fuels solid rocket boosters?

The return was from about twice the altitude of the Blue Origin booster, with a vehicle that's significantly larger and more powerful. I don't have the numbers for the aerodynamic stresses, but I'd be pretty surprised if that was the case.

Here's a comparison of their flight trajectories - http://i.imgur.com/ATkpdAX.png

And here's a comparison of the vehicles - https://i.imgur.com/zrLWBLJ.png

I don't want to take anything away from the ridiculously awesome achievement of Blue Origin, they have the record for first landing of a reusable booster from edge of space and good luck to them.