March 11, 2015 -- Promontory, UT -- ATK and NASA fired off a solid rocket booster which was simply two minutes and six seconds of pure awesome.
For most of my life I've been close to ATK and have heard now and then of their solid rocket booster tests but I've never been able to attend a rocket firing. So after making arrangements to skip out of work I was pretty excited that my first would also be the biggest ever tested.
It really was pretty awesome. We got to the spectator site at about 7:30 for the 9:30 'launch'. That turned out pretty fortunate because there were roughly 7,000 people wanting to catch a glimpse and even as they counted down there were miles of cars on the road waiting to get close.
Being a mile away at first it was just a silent flash of light coming from the end of the rocket. You could see the flame and I thought for an instant to myself, "well that's cute". Then about four seconds in the sound boom hit us and as flames shot out of the booster dirt columned hundreds of feet in the air, and it was REALLY COOL!
For the next two minute we just stared in awe at the power harnessed in the rocket.
There is an awesome video available via NASA if you want to see the test in it's entirety and for more information on the Qualification Motor 1, or QM-1 visit here.
