What's even cooler than watching a spacecraft land? Watching a spacecraft crash. Luckily, Landing Impact and Research Facility (LandIR) has released a video montage of aeronautical shuttles, capsules, and gantries busting into stuff in celebration of the lab's 50th year.

Originally named the Lunar Landing Research Facility (LLRF), the testing site was constructed and completed in 1965 at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to the tune of $3.5 million. The area was solely dedicated to aid astronauts (alumns include moonwalkers Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong) train, mostly replicating scenarios that might cause piloting issues and using them to help would-be space travelers figure out what to do in them. After broadening the facility's purposes to include researching landing impact and crashes on various types of spacecrafts – and after a brief shut down in 2004 and reopening in 2006 – LandIR continues this type of work, and is now also in service of the International Space Station. Like in 1965, gantry cranes and frames are used to simulate landings with the proper amount of force.

It's not only spacecraft that get the mass destruction treatment: you can watch helicopters, planes, and a landing probe or two crack into walls (and in two), land and fall apart on the ground, or sink in the water after some deep impact. 

Check out LandIR's montage in the video below.

Via: Motherboard