Engineering Connections

Richard Hammond reveals the engineering connections in NASA's Space Shuttle - the world's first re-usable space craft. He goes backstage at Kennedy Space Centre, in Florida, to discover how an organ pump, tram tracks, a WWII anti-sonar device, a camera iris and a cannonball all helped create the most technologically advanced machine ever engineered by man. Conceived in the early 1970's as the successor to the Apollo Moon missions, the Shuttle is a delivery system, designed to transport payloads such as the Hubble Telescope, and most of the International Space Station, into orbit, and return for its next cargo. The delivery van is the Orbiter - what most people call the Shuttle - which is mated with a huge external fuel tank and rocket boosters which are all jettisoned. Surviving the huge destructive forces of traveling to space and returning in usable form called for ingenious engineering compromises.

Richard Hammond reveals the ingenious engineering required to transport one of the most potentially hazardous cargoes in the world in some of the biggest vessels afloat. The huge ships, bigger than the Titanic, carry enough fuel to heat a city the size of London for a week - the energy equivalent of 55 Hiroshima atom bombs. Shipping this potentially volatile cargo required engineering solutions inspired by cutlery, mid-air refuelling and fire engines.

The Burj Al Arab (Tower of the Arabs) is a luxury hotel located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. At 321 m (1,053 ft), it is the fourth tallest hotel in the world. The Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 m (920 ft) out from Jumeirah beach, and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. It is an iconic structure whose shape mimics the sail of a ship.