Help Identifying Possible Solid Rocket Fuel

Hi all, strange request here. I found what I believe is part of a rocket booster crash site while spearfishing off Cape Canaveral. There was some strange maroon/purple clay stuff underwater near the debris and being the curious type I removed a small piece thinking it might be solid rocket fuel. Odd thing is, after I removed the maroon clay from the water, it turned turqoise green overnight. I don't know much about rocket fuel, kinda wondering if it is dangerous or harmful in some way (I realize it is a little late to be asking that). Just peaked my curiosity and figured you guys could tell me more.

Thanks in advance for any info.

op::clap::merry-christmas:

Welcome!

Well, it would be hard to know for sure unless you run it through a mass spectrometer. Even then, it may be hard to know for sure.

That said, obviously it couldn't be a liquid fuel rocket, sense it would disperse over time if the tanks were ruptured. That leaves solid propellant rockets. There was a spectacular explosion when one of the GEM's* cracked on what was a Delta (or some other launch vehicle, can't remember which one exactly) causing the case to split and ultimately destroying the rocket, not very long after launch. If you had pictures or dimensions, it could help on the educated guessing.

Whatever it was, the color change is likely from oxidation since it is now on the dry side of the waterline.

Greg

* Graphite-Epoxy Motor

I never spearfish without a camera. My guess is a 3-4 foot diameter and maybe 10-12 feet long (from memory). You can see the clump of "fuel" in the end-on photo. There were some small chunks of it laying around and I grabbed one. I will go snap a pic of it now.

Welcome to the forum. How deep of water was it in. I've been on the coast here for a long time and have seen rockets blow from time to time. Did it look like a dump site maybe instead of a crash. I would think the debris would have spread out more but I guess anything is possible out there. When I had my boat and was off shore fishing I used to see a lot of stuff on the bottom with the finder.

I doubt this will help much, but here is a pic of the stuff.

What was the approximate diameter of the casing. If it was 3"-5" it could be the booster from meteorological sounding rocket booster, possibly a Loki or equivalent, which would fall in the ocean within 10 miles of the launcher.

Bob

Water depth was about 25 feet I think. I dove on this based on my sounder too, I have a Humminbird Side Imaging Sonar that makes a photographic image of the bottom. It just looked like a rectangle with a bunch of fish around it so I jumped in to see what was swimming around. Nothing worth eating, but the rocket was so cool I hung around for a bit checking it out. This was about 6 miles out up near the kingfish grounds. I don't think this was the actual rocket, way too small. I think it was just a solid booster for a much bigger launch vehicle. It is dented in a way that is consistent with it falling empty to the water in my opinion. I was hoping to find some numbers or letters on it but it is just white and quickly getting covered in marine growth.

Hi Bob, It was much larger than that, at least a 3 foot diameter and about twice as long as me, roughly 12 feet. I never saw a nose cone or a nozzle but I didn't look too far away from the object itself.

NASA_Hunter said:

Hi Bob, It was much larger than that, at least a 3 foot diameter and about twice as long as me, roughly 12 feet. I never saw a nose cone or a nozzle but I didn't look too far away from the object itself.

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Possibly a Castor 1 or 2 booster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_(rocket_stage) based on the Sargent missile.

They were commonly used as strap-ons for a number of rockets.

https://www.astronautix.com/stages/castor1.htm

https://www.astronautix.com/stages/castor2.htm

https://www.astronautix.com/engines/castor4a.htm

Bob

That looks more like it Bob, thank you! That looks to be a great resource. So I guess i can dispose of this fuel without concern? I certainly don't want to do something harmful to the environment.

I'de throw it into a Fire Pit.

That sounds like a GREAT idea. LOL

I was thinking that the scientific thing to do would be to use a torch to see if it was flammable.


Kirk

ahhhhh, do an igniter at a distance please with something of unknown provenance. Will save on a large hospital bill. Kurt

Very cool. I suspect there's all kinds of cool aerospace stuff that could be found by diving in the right places.

Back in the mid-70s, a friend of mine in pre-med went on a summer college diving field trip to Florida as part of some course of instruction. When he got back, he mentioned that he'd found some kind of "rocket or something" on the bottom, still very orange. We went through a Jane's at the library, and it was one of these, an AQM-37A supersonic target drone:



I told him that if I'd found something like that, that alone would have occupied the remainder of my diving trip.

If he remembers even kind of where it was, please tell me I'll go get it!


So many rockets, so little time, and money.

Lowpuller said:

If he remembers even kind of where it was, please tell me I'll go get it!

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Lost contact with him many years ago. I know he was a pathologist in CA, perhaps a psychiatrist by now since that's what I heard from his sister years ago he was considering going into. I would have gone there myself if I possibly could have (I couldn't) to salvage parts of it at least, but I would have had to learn to scuba dive, something which I would otherwise have had no interest in doing. There's probably something about it still being US government property anyway. I know nothing about the salvage rights for such things.