(The Associated Press circulated the following story by Jay Reeves on May 3.)
MYRTLEWOOD, Ala. — A freight train carrying segments of the space shuttle’s solid rocket boosters derailed Wednesday after a bridge collapsed, authorities said. Six people aboard the train were reported injured. NASA said it was not immediately known whether the equipment was damaged.
But space agency spokesman Allard Beutel in Washington said the accident should not delay any shuttle launches.
The cause of the bridge collapse was under investigation.
The derailment
NASA officials said two locomotives, a train car behind them and one car carrying a shuttle booster overturned. The fuel in the rocket, aluminum perchlorate, has the consistency of a rubber eraser and there was no danger of it igniting, according to NASA. Bryce Hallowell, a spokesman for the manufacturer, said the train was taking the same route to the Kennedy Space Center that has been used for 30 years or more. The train trip can take more than a week.
Solid rocket boosters
The shuttle’s twin boosters are 150 feet tall and consist of four propellant segments each. They are used during liftoff and the first two minutes or so of flight to help the spacecraft break free of Earth’s orbit. They are then jettisoned into the sea, after which they are recovered, refurbished and reused. It was a leak of burning gas between two segments of a solid booster that caused the Challenger explosion that killed seven astronauts in 1986.
Shuttle launch
NASA spokesman Kyle Herring said the segments were not scheduled for use during the next shuttle flight, the liftoff of Atlantis on June 8, but for missions in October and December. NASA’s solid rocket boosters and their parts are freely interchangeable.