A good buddy of mine emailed a good nasa link to me and I'm marvleing at the high res photos.

But here is my question how does that big fuel tank not break loose from the shuttle while it is being held together by a few tubes and clamps. Do the shuttle and booster have the same lift so they zero out?

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/123625main_s114e5070_high.jpg

No but my wifes dad worked for the gov doing optics for satillites in the early days. Ph.D in EE. Smart ****** dude.

Those bolts are probably as big as your leg.

No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

A fake what? I can't even tell what I'm looking at.

its a close up of a pocket rocket.

Is it STS-114 or Estes-114

What is it exactly that you seek?

Yeah, it's from the inside of a toilet tank. Everybody knows that. I saw the WHOLE picture.

I'm no expert in the operation of the shuttle, that's for sure. But the tank is there to supply liquid hydrogen and oxygen to the three main engines on the shuttle. The shuttle provides a fraction of the lift that the two boosters provide. From memory, the main engines provide about 500K lbs. of thrust and the two boosters provide 6 million lbs. of thrust. So, most of the force to lift the assembly is done by the boosters.

I have no specific knowledge of the tank fasteners or the booster fasteners but, you can bet that they are of significant size. They have to take the loads of flight and acceleration, in addition to the weight of the attached components. Additionally, the bolts need to be designed so that they can be quickly blown off so the boosters and the tank can be jettisoned when the fuel runs out. It's quite a feat of engineering.

For your edification.......http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/srb.html

This is the bit your looking for though...probably.
Each solid rocket booster has four hold- down posts that fit into corresponding support posts on the mobile launcher platform. Hold- down bolts hold the SRB and launcher platform posts together. Each bolt has a nut at each end, but only the top nut is frangible. The top nut contains two NASA standard detonators, which are ignited at solid rocket motor ignition commands.
When the two NSDs are ignited at each hold- down, the hold- down bolt travels downward because of the release of tension in the bolt (pretensioned before launch), NSD gas pressure and gravity. The bolt is stopped by the stud deceleration stand, which contains sand. The SRB bolt is 28 inches long and is 3.5 inches in diameter. The frangible nut is captured in a blast container.

The solid rocket motor ignition commands are issued by the orbiter's computers through the master events controllers to the hold- down pyrotechnic initiator controllers on the mobile launcher platform. They provide the ignition to the hold- down NSDs. The launch processing system monitors the SRB hold- down PICs for low voltage during the last 16 seconds before launch. PIC low voltage will initiate a launch hold.




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[http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/01/14/youve-got-problems-not-issues/ ]

"A liberal is someone who feels they owe a great debt to their fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

So I'm wondering why the shuttle can't be more closely mounted to the external tank, like a molded ski boot design where the shuttle fits into a 'print' on the tank. That way, most of the tiles would be covered and protected during launch and the whole assembly would be more solid.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Not a "scientist" per se, but I did design piping systems for rocket engine test cells at Arnold AFB in TN for a while. Also worked on other mil systems (rockets, particle tech, etc.)

As far as the shuttle questions, no answer here. Many have already answered appropriately though.

What am I doing now? Living in my travel trailer at another MB Forum members house ebaying my belongings and looking for a shop to do mechanics work from. Nothing like going from 80K/yr in engineering in the 80's to 14k (if lucky) a year working on cars!

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1984 300D Turbo - 4-speed manual conversion, mid-level resto

1983 300D - parts car

1979 300TD Auto - Parts car.

1985 300D Auto - Wrecked/Parts.


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"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". Lewis Carrol

That sucks.

But, with your knowledge and skills, you have to be able to do better than 14K???