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  • NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given

    NASA tests composite material for lightweight rockets

    by 
    Mariella Moon
    Mariella Moon
    07.20.2016

    NASA has subjected an 8.4-foot-tall barrel made of composite materials to a series of abuse for the sake of building lighter and stronger rockets. The agency put it under extreme loads of almost 900,000 pounds to determine just how tough the material is. In order to get detailed data of the seven tests they performed, the scientists outfitted it with thousands of sensors and had high-speed and low-speed cameras monitor the whole process. Thanks to those cameras, you can see the barrel suddenly snapping under all that weight in the video after the break.