Aug 312010
 

Shortly after today’s ATK rocket test… it started raining dirt.

 dsc_7328.jpg

dsc_7330.jpg dsc_7331a.jpg  dsc_7331b.jpg  dsc_7333.jpg  dsc_7334.jpg

My guess is that the rocket exhaust kicked up many tons of burnt dirt and chucked it into the sky, borne aloft in the “mushroom cloud.” The wind conditions were just right for the fallout to cover my property (and my neighbors’… who is thrilled because she had just cleaned her swimming pool). The stuff is *everywhere.* It’s part fine dust, part grit, and sticks to everything. If I come down with cancer or some other crazy-ass disease… well, you know where it came from.

Hmmm.

Maybe I can sell this on eBay?

dsc_7336.jpg

 Posted by at 11:25 am

  12 Responses to “And then THIS crazy thing happened”

  1. Yeah there was a press release a few days ago:

    http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/aug/HQ_M10-117_DM-2_Test.html

  2. File a claim with ATK for your time to clean up. They did legitimately damage your property, though you can’t expect much since the damage wasn’t serious. But it may be worth a try.

    And it isn’t like you don’t need the money.

  3. And be careful… SRB exhaust is not exactly nice stuff. Hopefully it is just dirt and nothing worse.

  4. Is it sticky from the burnt urethane in the fuel?

  5. ATK…and now time for revenge has come for you! Sue them to last penny, Scott

  6. Yeah.
    Nail ATK’s balls to the top of a fencepost, and then push them off of it backwards.

  7. I got to thinking about the idea of selling it on eBay. Maybe it could be sold as “rocket fuel debris from the next generation of booster.

  8. Which begs the question, how much of this stuff is scattered all around LC39 at KSC due to the many launches there? What is the environmental impact of it?

  9. >> how much of this stuff is scattered all around LC39 at KSC

    Virtually none. The test here in Utah has a horizontal motor that spends 2 minutes blasting away at a hillside made of dirt. A Shuttle launch has a concrete and steel structure being flooded with water and exposed to only a few seconds of direct impingement.

  10. […] up with lots of informational boards… largely revolving about one single topic: the fact that ATK dumping dirt on your dirt is not a […]

  11. […] Rocket dirt. Sure, why not. This is a 2 ounce glass vial filled with some of the dirt that fell from the sky following the ATK test of a five-segment modified Shuttle solid rocket booster for the now-cancelled Ares rockets, back in […]

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.