Text 7639, 78 rader
Skriven 2006-09-05 11:07:00 av Robert E Starr JR (8136.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Orion CEV...Apollo St
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* * * This message was from Douglas Bullard to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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<1157089134.365132.150710@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com><3Pidndj8-vcIPWbZnZ2dnUVZ_vOdnZ2d@comcast.com><Xns983478410F899me

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Not to nitpick... OK, I'll nitpick.  I used to work at Morton Thiokol, 
and saw the whole Challenger incident from the "inside".

Here are the facts:

There was no explosion.  You saw a fireball in the sky - that was a 
whole lot of flame, but not an explosion.  The external tank collapsed 
when the top was crushed by the solid rocket motor that had the leak.  
One of the two bottom attach struts had failed (two at the bottom , one 
at the top), and the entire booster pivoted on two remaining attach 
struts until the top of the booster hit the top of the external tank.  
The tank, under high aerodynamic stress, collapsed and disintegrated, 
spraying the liquid oxygen and hydrogen into the air.  BIG fireball, but 
no explosion.  If all that had exploded, there wouldn't have been 
anything left.  Think "small thermonuclear device".

The orbiter, no longer protected from the low-altitude high-velocity 
airflow, disintegrated from the extreme aerodynamic loads it was never 
designed to encounter.  Sure, it's going Mach 30 at reentry - but that's 
in a near vacuum.

The orbiter's crew cabin was surprisingly intact (but unpressurzied), 
and the crew alive, until it hit the water several minutes later.  NASA 
was very reluctant to reveal that fact, and it was quite a while after 
the incident that they disclosed the existence of the crew cabin voice 
recordings.

The really sad thing about all this is that there were many safer 
designs for the shuttle that weren't adapted - this was the cheapest 
design up-front, but more costly in the long run.  

The other sad thing was that management should ALWAYS listen to and 
respect the opinion of their engineers.  Remember "Time to take off your 
engineering hat and put on your management hat"?  Or, "My God, Thiokol, 
when do you want us to fly, April?"

The CEV doesn't have the "gee whiz!" factor that the Shuttle does (want 
to wipe that away?  Go look at a Shuttle stack close up.  It's not 
nearly as shiny and impressive), but it's simple, survivable (those 
escape rockets do work, they were extensively tested), and based on 
well-known technology, with very little extrapolation or unproven 
technology required.  And, really, it's all about getting people up and 
down from space (or getting cargo up).  Wings just get in the way.

Of course, my friends still at Thiokol are very, very happy that the 
current design was chosen.  And, of course, the hardware I designed and 
worked on will be flying for many more years to come.

Douglas Bullard


In article <Xns983478410F899methuselahaltgeekorg@216.196.97.131>, 
methuselah@altgeek.org says...
> Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of
> Anson Macdonald of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated make plain: 
> 
> > Challenger sat right next to the exterior fuel tank, and the explosion
> > demolished the spacecraft.
> 
> Actually, the cockpit section was blown clear of the explosion; the 
> astronauts survived until impact.
> 
>
                                                         
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