Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aristotle!pjs
From: pjs@aristotle.JPL.NASA.gov (Peter Scott)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Single SRB Ignition
Keywords: if the worst should happen
Message-ID: <1990Apr6.175518.20857@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 6 Apr 90 17:55:18 GMT
References: <9535@ingr.com> <1161@urbana.mcd.mot.com> <19521@grebyn.com>
Sender: news@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Usenet)
Reply-To: pjs@aristotle.jpl.nasa.gov
Followup-To: sci.space.shuttle
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech
Lines: 18

In article <19521@grebyn.com>, pat@grebyn.com (Pat Bahn) writes:
> 
> IF anyone wants to check, Spectrum magazine did an article on the
> shuttle in mid 87.  In there they stated that if the shuttle were
> to explode on the pad, under the right weather conditions, it would
> be equivalent to a 1.2 megaton warhead going off.
> 
> This would require a thermal inversion to reflect shock back to
> the ground.

This still has to be outta whack.  A NASA study I read ages ago said that
the worst scenario they could imagine was the entire stack plowing into
the ground at high speed.  The force of the vehicle above the point of impact
would contain the explosion for an equivalent effect of 10kT, half the
Hiroshima bomb.  A megaton warhead will devastate a medium city.

This is news.  This is your       |    Peter Scott, NASA/JPL/Caltech
brain on news.  Any questions?    |    (pjs@aristotle.jpl.nasa.gov)