PROMONTORY, Box Elder County — NASA strapped its oldest Space Shuttle rocket motor to a concrete slab Thursday and lit the match, initiating a two-minute burn.

Rocket scientists conducted 32 tests during the firing, primarily checking the motor's performance compared to the performance of a new motor. The tests were done while a sizable crowd of onlookers gathered 1 1/2 miles away watched the nozzle glow orange and thick, brown smoke billow for several seconds before the roaring sound caught up with them.

"Awesome," was the single word people used to describe the event.

Time will tell whether test results vary from an identically designed motor burned on the test pad several years ago, while the motor was much newer.

Engineering specifications say there should not be a difference in the performance when the results are in, said Doug White, vice president of test and research services for the rocket motor's builder, ATK Launch Systems.

Many components of the four-stage rocket have significant Space Shuttle experience, going off the launch pad a total of 30 times and used as components in 11 test motors, said ATK spokeswoman Trina Patterson. ATK, previously Thiokol, has conducted 51 ground tests on Shuttle motors since 1977. The first Space Shuttle went into space in 1981.

Testing from the rocket burn is also part of a technology transition from the legacy Space Shuttle program, scheduled to end in 2010, and the next-generation Ares I rocket program, for which ATK will also be building rocket motors.

How the already-developed rocket technology will be used in the next generation rockets will be a component of "every test between now and the end of the (shuttle) program," said Mike Kahn, ATK vice president of space launch systems.

Acoustic measurements during Thursday's blast collected data that future launch support technicians will use to design systems that will dampen shock waves future rockets will produce when launched.

One year from now, Shuttle motors now used in a four-stage stack will be configured in a five-stage stack, like they will be used for the Ares rockets, and ground tested for the first time in the new configuration, Kahn said. The first manned flight of the Ares 1 rocket is expected in 2014 or 2015, he said.

While the shuttle configuration allowed astronauts to deliver huge space payloads, such as components to the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope, the Ares rocket program is designed to blast astronauts back to the moon and farther into space, possibly to Mars.

Astronaut Heidimarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper was among a number of NASA observers at Thursday's burn. She said the event stirred memories of her actual shuttle launch aboard Atlantis in 2006. She is also scheduled to fly in November aboard Endeavor, but even then she will have seen many more launches and test burns from the ground than from inside the shuttle.

While flying in an Ares 1 capsule, called Orion, compared to the more spacious and sophisticated shuttle, would be "like trading an RV for a more sensible car," she said the newer rocket capsules will also be much less complicated than the shuttle is, making the future technology even safer for astronauts.

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