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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Space Shuttle Destruct Switch - NASA Prepared to Blow Up Discovery - Popular Mechanics. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Space Shuttle Destruct Switch - NASA Prepared to Blow Up Discovery - Popular Mechanics
by CypherGhost at 10:08 am EDT, May 11, 2008

Each time the space shuttle rises from its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., an Air Force officer waits anxiously for the first 2 minutes to pass safely. If the spaceship were to veer off course and endanger a populated area, this range safety officer would bear the terrible responsibility of flipping a pair of switches under a stenciled panel reading “Flight Termination.” The first switch arms explosives on the shuttle’s two solid rocket boosters. Flipping the second switch would detonate them, destroying the shuttle and crew.

“If something happens when it’s just off the pad, there’s only a couple of seconds [to react],” says Bryan O’Connor, a former shuttle commander and NASA’s chief of safety and mission assurance.


 
 
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