Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!nickw
From: nickw@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nick Watkins)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: For All Mankind [was Re: center engine out]
Message-ID: <3498@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Date: 24 Sep 90 10:56:46 GMT
References: <7294@eos.UUCP>
Distribution: sci.
Organization: University of Sussex
Lines: 39

From article <7294@eos.UUCP>, by brody@eos.UUCP (Adam R. Brody):
>>> The book also mentioned that Apollo took 1.5 orbits around the Earth before
>>> TLI to gain momentum much like a discus thrower.  Can somebody explain this?
>>> Can it be like a gravity assist to another planet?
> 
>>The parking orbit was just to check out the vehicle before proceeding to
>>the moon.  There was no momentum gain.
> 
> That is what I thought also but the book very clearly and explicitly
> mentioned the gain and the analogy to a discus thrower.
Indeed. The book is wrong. The book also says:

1) Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X15

2) Saturn V first stage uses liquid hydrogen

3) "Direct Ascent" means firing engines all the way to the moon.

4) Saturn V  Rockets only accelerate because they are getting lighter (he
also seems to think that G force increasing means gravity is increasing). My
personal favourite, this.

5) LH2/LOX is hypergolic.

etc etc. 

Book claims to have numerous proof readers & researchers but what they
were doing escapes me. Only value of this book is the astronaut stories
& even there a lot is borrowed from "Carrying the Fire" etc. 

Book also acknowledges Larry Hagman ("JR"). I wonder how he helped ?


Nick

-- 
Dr. Nick Watkins, Space & Plasma Physics Group, School of Mathematical
& Physical Sciences, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, E.Sussex, BN1 9QH, ENGLAND
JANET: nickw@syma.sussex.ac.uk   BITNET: nickw%syma.sussex.ac.uk@uk.ac