Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: New (!?!?!?!) Shuttle Computers
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.043009.5544@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1991 04:30:09 GMT
References: <1991Mar7.142311.10412@vaxa.strath.ac.uk> <6963@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Mar11.201910.8476@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> <1991Mar12.003321.13988@zoo.toronto.edu> <3356@phred.UUCP> <1991Mar19.235853.6842@zoo.toronto.edu> <3361@phred.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <3361@phred.UUCP> petej@phred.UUCP (Peter Jarvis) writes:
>Well what would you have designers put into a solid rocket booster
>besides stronger, lighter (composites) casings and new electronics?
>Those items are not trivial. The fuel? They've probably optimized solid
>rocket propellant to burn the way they like it. What else are you looking
>for in a solid rocket motor? -- P.J.

What I'm looking for ON a solid rocket motor is dust, plus a museum placard
saying "obsolete form of space propulsion system, abandoned in the early
1970s when ion rockets became practical".  We've known for twenty years how
to build rocket systems that perform far better than any solid rocket
motor ever will.  Bad enough that we are still launching comsats with them,
but it is a disgrace to NASA and mankind that we are still using them for
deep-space probes that are desperate for every bit of launch performance.
-- 
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry