On a recent trip to Utah we were driving from Salt Lake City to Promontory Summit (where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads met in 1869 when laying tracks for the first transcontinental railroad) when we saw a sign that said "Rocket Exhibit". Now the landscape near Promontory is about as bleak and desolate as you can imagine, with undulating hills, salt covered low areas and not a tree in sight, so we were surprised to see a sign for just about anything at all out there:

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But soon we started to see some buildings here and there (all very spread out), with what appeared to be escape chutes (?!) out of their sides:

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Then it dawned on me...this was Morton Thiokol, now known as ATK! And sure enough we then saw this very
employee-motivating sign to confirm that:

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The (free) rocket exhibit itself was near the main buildings; quite an impressive collection of rockets and (solid fuel) rocket motors. In the background is an empty (!) full-size Shuttle SRB; in the left foreground is just one SRB segment (specifically, the aft segment) with a (grey) STAR 30BP apogee motor just to the right of it to show the difference in sizes. Standing tall in the center of the display are Minuteman and Trident C-4 missiles:

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This is the clevis side of the infamous SRB "field joint"; really much smaller than I imagined it to be and quite
delicate looking (as compared to the overall scale and size of the full SRB). You can see the grooves where the "O" rings fit in:

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The business end of the SRB:

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If you have ever wondered what a Minuteman first stage looks like inside, this (inert!) propellant grain has the characteristic star shaped cutouts to control the rate of burn; the pebbles presumably are no doubt not original issue:

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I can't quite remember what this one is, but I think it is a Minuteman first stage too:

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Also on display were various other much smaller rocket motors made by Morton Thiokol:

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And I'll finish with a puzzle: who knows what this strange looking contraption is? I'll post the answer (or confirmation of a successful response) in a couple of weeks or so!

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Airbag

Wow - cool thing to stumble across

I'll take a guess at the last thing. Is it to do with a rocket sled of some sort - it looks like it's designed to fire one way for thrust, then the other to separate or slow down.

Doug

Hmmm... perhaps it's one of those thrust augmentation thingies?

Isn't it sweet when you stumble across such cool things!

Is the thing some kind of device to measure thrust without use of a robust test stand?

You missed my favorites: The STAR (PAM DII) motor used as a space stage in many communication satellites is in the first rocket garden photo - the small gray motor on the right, and the strap-on (it is either a Castor or Gem) motor used to launch Cassini, Dawn, G-probe B and many other unmanned mission is on the left side of the same photo.

Hint: The plumber's nightmare he has you guessing about was designed `late 50's as actual flight hardware for a specific type of mission...

Okay, I'll bite: Corona/Discoverer?

Cassini used SRMU motors, not Castor's or GEMs.

The Alliant Tech (ATK) SRMU (Solid Rocket Motor, Upgrade), was a Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM), Albiet one on steriods, ~34m long and 320cm in diameter.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/hi...y/castitan.html

http://www.satnews.com/stories2005/1549.htm

I'll guess it is a water spray head used for cooling on a launch pad. Saturn V????

And this photo specially for Littlebit, who I suspect knows what the correct answer is!

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And as creative, varied and interesting as your answers are so far, they all share the same property of being wrong

Airbag

Guess it"s a *-48 aka PAM-D? IIRC, an IUS 2nd stage looked a bit squatter to my myopic eyes.

Just to clarify, the puzzle is not as to what the item in the picture above is; it is quite clearly marked as a STAR 30BP in the caption itself. The puzzle is what the items in the last picture of my original post is.

Airbag.

And the answer is:

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Doug was closest; he had the right idea, but wrong vehicle.

Airbag

No responses? Perhaps nobody saw I posted the answer to the "mystery rocket engine" a while ago?

Airbag

Saw it, Airbag; ya got me, and everyone else! The era should have been a big tip-off; ICBMs certainly had the lion's share of developmental activity at this time...

[Clears throat discreetly] Polaris was not an ICBM. It was launched with a live nuclear warhead though, which no US ICBM ever was.

The display is about a 20 minute scooter ride from my house, so I didn't feel like it would be fair to compete. The nice thing about being nowhere is the sky is still dark - except for the milky way, so the neighborhood star parties; which are common this time of the year; are within an arm's length of the fridge.

Some of these guys are real lens-grinding fanatics: One of them build an observation platform out of freeway retaining wall blocks.

Whups...my bad. SLBM is probably the most proper term.