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The Roar of Innovation
The space shuttle's main engines are the best performing chemical rockets on Earth. You can listen to one roar during a live webcast of a engine test-firing on Nov. 8th
Nov. 6, 2002
They can lift 375,000 pounds and outrun a speeding bullet. They consume fuel that's colder than interstellar space, yet their exhaust is as hot as a small star. Three of them working together unleash as much power as 23 Hoover dams.
They're the space shuttle's main engines (SSMEs).
Onlookers who have seen the shuttle take off and land many times might be excused for thinking the engines must be old technology. What else could be so reliable? In fact, says NASA engineer Everett Runkle, the shuttle's engines are cutting-edge.
"The SSMEs are the best-performing engines on Earth," he says. They have a specific impulse (a measure of fuel efficiency) of 450 seconds--higher than any other chemical rocket. "If we wanted a better combination of power and 'gas mileage,' we would have to go to nuclear propulsion."
A space shuttle main engine undergoes a full-power test firing at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. [more]
Even more remarkable, perhaps, is their resiliency.
Consider this: Almost every rocket engine ever launched lies in pieces at the bottom of the sea or scattered across remote terrains. "Most rocket engines are built to fly just once," explains Runkle. "They deliver their payload to space and then fall back to Earth." An Apollo moon rocket is a good example. "When we launched Saturn V rockets during the Apollo program," he recalls, "the first two stages of the rocket would be discarded during ascent. They ended up in the Pacific Ocean. A third stage, the S-IVB, was either crashed into the Moon or sent into orbit around the Sun."
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Cheers,
Dan
The Roar of Innovation . . .