This how NASA recovered the SRBs. They landed upright, much like SpaceX's rocket. They were bouyant and floated vertically. The tender would approach the SRB, h

This how NASA recovered the SRBs. They landed upright, much like SpaceX's rocket. They were bouyant and floated vertically. The tender would approach the SRB, hook onto it, pump more water into it so it would sink. It would then carry it horizontally back to land. Seawater is incredibly corrosive and as it evaporates it leaves behind a fine layer of sea salt. Since these were SRBs, they had few moving parts. They were completely disassembled and the individual components were inspected and recertified prior to the next launch. Also, just to give you some scale of how crazy the Space Shuttle program was: the SRBs are the largest lift platform that was ever in use. ICBMs are fireworks compared to them. To land in the water, the SRBs needed not one but 3 of the largest parachutes ever produced.