Shuttle Tyres Up For Loan

Stories about tyres that travel 100,000 miles are much less of a novelty, but its not very often you come across a set that have been 5.3 million miles. The products in question are retired rubber from the Space Shuttle discovery which, NASA announced last week, would be rolled out as the pilot for a new artefact loan program targeted at museums.

OK so while saying that the tyres lasted 5.3 million miles is, quite literally, an astronomical claim, the performance characteristics of these products should not be underestimated. According to news sources, just one of Discovery’s main gear tyre can carry three times the load of a Boeing 747 tyre or 40 race cars – all hitting the pavement at 250 miles per hour. When you consider that to qualify for a three-year renewable loan, organisations need only insure the tyres for a retail value set by NASA of $250 per tyre, they really do appear to be quite a bargain.