PROMONTORY, Box Elder County —An intense flame lances out of a long rocket motor. Big clumps of smoke boil up, churning, lit up by the orange-red glare. Six seconds later the sound hits — a continuous rolling boom that seems as loud as all the world's thunderclaps.
The roaring goes on and on, sometimes a little less deafening, then louder. On the asphalt of the viewing area, the pages of an open loose-leaf notebook are ripped into the sky, flying across the parking lot.
Still, the flame blazes bright enough to hurt eyes, and still the sound shakes the air.
More than two minutes after the blast starts, the flame dies back and the roaring subsides. Hundreds of spectators at the VIP viewing site again find their voices. They cheer and clap. One man remarks, "Great! It's in one piece."
It was a display of raw power, the force needed to put a big spaceship into orbit.
ATK Thiokol had fired the largest space shuttle solid rocket motor ever tested, according to NASA. The test, Thursday afternoon, was designed to check how well the shuttle boosters will stand up to extreme conditions.
Spectators, including those who really count, were impressed.
"That was fantastic. . . . It was just the most amazing sight," said astronaut Tony Antonelli. "I'm ready to climb on board and ride.
"Obviously we, NASA, have a lot of work to do before we're ready to get to flying. And we're busy doing that work. But I'm ready."
This was a static test. Instead of sending a rocket into space, the booster remained tethered horizontally, blasting away and not moving.
Previously, booster rockets built at the northern Utah rocket facility used four segments. This time, in order to stress the motor and test boundaries, a fifth segment was added. NASA officials say the motor delivered not only the usual maximum 3.3 million pounds of thrust — but another 300,000 pounds too.
"Wow!" said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "That was a great test.
"I'm not an expert, but it looked like everything went perfectly to me, and this is going to be the future I think of increasing our payload or our safety or our options in flight."
In a press release sent from Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., shortly after the test, NASA announced that the test proves the motor "can be pushed close to edge, yet still perform flawlessly."
Astronaut Danny Olivas, who was among the spectators, said watching the test-firing was an emotional experience. "You know the ultimate end application of something like this," he said. "This is to help make us fly in space safer."
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said this was a big day for the space shuttle program, which has been needing some good news. "It was really exciting to watch," he said.
"I think it's evidence that this extra stage gives them extra lift capability, and that is good news. They played this long before the Columbia disaster, but I think this shows there's viability in moving forward."
This was Matheson's first test-firing. "It's just a very powerful to see it . . . Both the sound and the visual have a greater impact than you anticipate before you see it."
"The physical set-up is impressive, the way you contain that kind of thrust, for one thing," said John J. Phillips, an astronaut who circled Earth in the shuttle Endeavor. If the five-segment booster could ever be used on the space shuttle it would improve safety by solving some launch issues. It also would allow the shuttle to carry a larger payload, he said.
"But just watching it is really awesome, seeing the huge plume of smoke that it shoots over the hill and the big tongue of flame, and you realize that people who built these things really knew what they were doing."
Daryl Woods, in the NASA system engineering and integration team at Marshall Test Flight Center, said the firing was great. "We've been working on that motor for two years and it was really nice to see the culmination of all the efforts of both the folks here at Thiokol as well as the folks down at Marshall Space Flight Center that have been working on this motor."
Later, lines of cars and buses streamed away from the public viewing area, where school children by the score had witnessed history.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com