Why does the shuttle carry small pyrotechnic devices?
A space shuttle contains many small explosives used for deploying certain gear during a mission and for emergencies. If a shuttle’s landing chute ever deployed early, pyrotechnic devices could also be employed to detach it, for example. The shuttle’s landing gear compartment contains small explosives designed to deploy the gear if the normal system fails. An accidental triggering, possibly by heat, could be catastrophic. NASA is now looking into this possibility as a cause of the Columbia disaster. But the measured rise of 30 to 40 degrees in the wheel well is not, for now, seen as a likely trigger. In some cases, the explosives are integrated into a nut-and-bolt setup, and are designed to destroy it. A small hole is drilled into a nut, and something akin to a small firecracker is inserted. A computer-controlled explosion detonates the charge, which splits the metal. Referring to the nuts and bolts as “explosive” is a bit misleading, engineers say. It implies that the firing is uncontr
