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Path: utzoo!linus!axiom!paul
From: paul@axiom.UUCP (Paul O`Shaughnessy)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Other types of SRBs
Message-ID: <165@axiom.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 12:50:31 EST
Article-I.D.: axiom.165
Posted: Tue Feb 18 12:50:31 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 07:56:34 EST
Organization: Axiom Technology, Newton MA
Lines: 41

A friend who has followed the shuttles from way back recalls that there was
an alternate bid for a non-segmented SRB by Aerojet-General.  NASA turned it
down apparently because lugging the SRBs around in one piece would have been 
too expensive.  I also hear that the Air Force has or is developing a non-
reusable, non-segmented SRB with a wound filament composite casing (the same
sort of material used in fighter aircraft), and that they intend to launch
their shuttle flights with these boosters.  Does anyone know the state of 
either of these alternatives?  Certainly an untested boooster has unknown 
risks, but the lack of segmentation would reduce the chance of any burnthrough.

I also have heard that someone once added up the MTBFs (mean time before 
failure) of each major part of the shuttle, tank, and boosters, and calculated
that NASA would lose a shuttle in this manner every thirty flights.  Apparently
the physical complexity of the SRB's was a major part of that calculation.  
Again, can anyone confirm this?  If such a calculation was accurate, the
result would have been one shuttle per year and the loss of all the shuttles
presently in use.

Finally, it seems that there was no lack of apprehension about the SRBs and 
this launch in particular on the part of NASA's engineering staff, but that
many decisions were made by managers and administrators contrary to this 
advice.  In particular, launching in such low temperatures.  Some of these
administrators are now getting some heat in the press.  Does anyone share 
this perception?  I have certainly witnessed many engineering organizations
becoming dominated by administative politicos who don't know their butt from
their elbow.  Has this happened to parts of NASA?

I am posting this particularly to get some of the net back into a discussion 
of things that cannot be found in the morning paper.  The stuff about what
the group should be called, what celestial bodies should be named after who,
why the Russians only want female names on Venus, and diatribes about Canadian
television has really played itself out, and the density of worthwhile discourse
has been dropping.  Can we gently move on and see more of the hard facts,
informed speculation, and philosophising?


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Paul O'Shaughnessy
Axiom Technology Corperation
Newton, Massachusetts