Saturday, January 08, 2011

Space Train

As a both a big fan of trains and the space shuttle, it's a thrill to see them converge. The pic above is NASA's railroad carrying segments of the solid rocket boosters - the only way to move 150 ton pieces of rockets. It's interesting to see one of our oldest technologies come to the aid of one of the most modern. The trip starts out in Utah where they're manufactured and traverses more than a few rights of way to get to Florida, including Union Pacific and CSX. Track speeds are kept at a minimum, due to the fact that they are towing 5 million pounds of explosives. If you're interested in more details about this, read about it here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/railroad.html

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