Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Shuttle Status for 10/11/89 (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <1989Oct13.041637.12061@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <33403@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <1621@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM>
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 89 04:16:37 GMT

In article <1621@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM> johnson@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Wayne D. T. Johnson) writes:
>>          ...The controller weighs about 230 pounds ...
>
>Hmmm. Thats about the size of a PC.  And it weighs 230 pounds?  On what 
>planet did they weigh this?  Or is it using lead instead of silicon in its
>chips...

Uh, this thing is bolted to an SSME.  The turbines that drive the *pumps*
on an SSME are rated at over 80,000 horsepower.  The SSME itself puts out
roughly as much power as a *really huge* power plant, in an assembly a
few feet across, burning half a ton of fuel per second at a pressure
higher than that in a compressed-gas cylinder.  The noise alone is capable
of doing serious damage to nearby equipment.  You had better believe that
the engine controller, which is required to be essentially 100% reliable,
is built just a wee bit more sturdily than your tinplate-and-plastic PC.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu