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Wouldn't the transportation journey be quicker if they started the rocket motors?![]()
I think there's a Baikonour route on the DLS: it's called "USSR Baikonour" or some such. the same guy made the Somerset and Dorset and the Lickey Incline routes...TLBlade is his username?
Most likely the car is moved. If not, then its not going to be there after the rocket's launch. The heat from those is enough that if left there, they would quickly melt the concrete pad under them.
When NASA still launched shuttle missions, they would flood the pad just under the shuttle with water, about 7 inches deep, form the near by water tower. This prevented the Shuttles engines and SRB's (Solid Rocket Booster's) from melting the concrete launch pad base. This is also why, when ever you see footage of a shuttle launch, there is a huge white cloud covering the pad.
And yes, I am saying the are hot enough to melt concrete. So a iron and steel rail car is not going to last very long. The only way rocket engines keep cool is the fact that the fuel going in is very cold. About −418 °F. The engines them selves are around 6,000 °F. Concrete, mostly silica, will "melt" around 3000 °F. By melt, it more or less crumbles to dust. The rock and silica that make it up can turn to lava, if heated hot and long enough.