➰ NASA’s Sound Suppression System

The giant white clouds billowing around this shuttle launch are not smoke, but water vapor, generated as the rocket exhaust boils away huge quantities of water. The process, which NASA calls its Sound Suppression System, dramatically reduces the destructive acoustic energy created by the firing rocket engines. The water is pumped into the mobile launch platform from an 88 meter tall water tower (shown in the foreground of the video), which empties its entire 1.1 million liter contents into the site in less than one minute!

Here’s an additional video showing a test of the Sound Suppression System without the rocket launch, so you can see much more clearly the phenomenal quantity of water drowning the launch pad…

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