Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!dog.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!crash!pro-canaveral.cts.com!gandalf
From: gandalf@pro-canaveral.cts.com (Ken Hollis)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: SSME's
Message-ID: <5687@crash.cts.com>
Date: 17 Nov 90 06:16:29 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Lines: 38

Greetings and Salutations:

>From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>Subject: Re: New Shuttle Engines
>In article <10948@milton.u.washington.edu> >brettvs@blake.u.washington.edu
(Brett
> Vansteenwyk) writes:
>>Not long ago it was noted that the first of Endeavour's engines had arrived
>>at KSC.  Some mention was made that these engines were "new and improved".

>Don't read too much into this.  There has been no major design change, just
>a bunch of small incremental improvements.

The Main Engine Controller is a major upgrade for the engine, with completely
new programming & components.

>>[5].If not the evolutionary dead-end as postulated in [4], could there be
>>an SSME derivative for an expendable launcher...

>The definitive Shuttle C proposal wanted to use life-expired shuttle engines
>in an expendable launcher.  The Hughes/Boeing Jarvis proposal also used
>expendable SSMEs, after they tried very hard to come up with a viable
>scheme for reviving the F-1 and J-2 and couldn't make it work.  The SSME
>is just too expensive to be a good expendable engine, though.
-- 
>"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto
Zoology
>"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry

Rocketdyne has been discussing the engines for the new generation ELV's
(Expendable Launch Vehicles) and basically said that they would be a scaled
down, less costly version of the SSME's.

Ken Hollis

ProLine:  gandalf@pro-canaveral         
Internet: gandalf@pro-canaveral.cts.com
UUCP:     crash!pro-canaveral!gandalf