A once in a lifetime opportunity.

We woke up at the crack of dawn (4:15) yesterday so we could drive up to see the NASA SLS QM2 static booster test.  We rode along with our friends Tyler and Noelle so we could carpool and save a little of the planet.   We got there in plenty of time and rode the bus to the test area where we were told they were in a countdown hold due to a data logging problem.  An hour later, it was time!

The booster can be seen right above the berm.

LOTS of people!

The kids were bored.

Electronic devices to the rescue! 

Great clouds.

BAM!!!  It took 5 seconds for the sound to reach us 1.5 miles away!

LOUD!

Toxic cloud rising.

I was shaking it was so exciting and powerful.

12,000 pounds of propellant is burned each second!!

Powdered aluminum, ammonium perchlorate, and an epoxy binder is what makes up this booster's fuel.

2 minutes later, it was silent again.  The crowd erupted into applause!

 We left Mommy up there so she could go to work.  Little did I know that she would be able to get next to the still hot motor!!

The red tank holds liquid C02 to stop the case from overheating on the ground.

The blast zone.  During the test, we could see dust forming from the vibration way at the top of the mountain!

The nozzle.

My rocket scientist.  :)

She said it smelled like stinky fireworks.

Lucky!!

They gimbaled this motor's nozzle to the limit.  That was the reason for the countdown hold, the computer that controls the gimbal had died!

There's also a water deluge system designed to keep the lower portion of the hot case from warping and/ore melting!

C02 probe that swings into the motor to extinguish the fire and cool the case.

Poor mountain!  Note the man out in the blast zone looking for pieces of the nozzle plug.

There were over 500 data channels and over a terabyte of data was collected!

Burnt nozzle pieces.

It melted this steel pipe!!  Nozzle temp is 5,600 degrees!

Water drain for the deluge.

Nitrogen carts.

Liquid C02 tank.

Link to official NASA footage here.