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From: ths@lanl-a.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Trivia
Message-ID: <10000@lanl-a.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Jul-84 14:32:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl-a.10000
Posted: Fri Jul  6 14:32:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jul-84 00:55:42 EDT
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 18


O' Henry....that was a trick question! The LEM was hardly a
"major" piece of Apollo hardware being less than 1% of the
Saturn V launch weight. No doubt there were two people on each
flight that thought otherwise.

Your reference to the LEM as a "modern" rocket was also
a bit questionable, since the LEM hasn't flown in the
past twelve years. I would guess that since there wasn't
anyone on the Lunar surface that needed protecting from
an errant missile a self destruct system was not seriously
considered.

While your thinking up another trivia, let me run one up the
flag pole...."what was the first missile to fly using gimbaled
engines for control". This was also perhaps the first liquid
fueled rocket to employ the cluster concept since it was powered
by four engines.