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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!aicchi!dbb
From: dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Ejection Seats
Message-ID: <710@aicchi.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Mar-86 09:30:34 EST
Article-I.D.: aicchi.710
Posted: Sat Mar  8 09:30:34 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 08:29:46 EST
References: <2911@ut-ngp.UUCP> <3046@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: dbb@aicchi.UUCP (Burch)
Organization: Analysts International Corp; Chicago Branch
Lines: 19
Keywords: Ejection Seats Flight Safety
Summary: More Dangerous than they are worth!

In article <6421@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>No, you can eject the lower-deck seats downward.  This is what's done
>on the B-52, which has two decks.  Of course, this means you need ejection
>hatches or blowaway panels or whatever on the underside.

First, There is the little matter of the external tank.  Second, you would
be talking about engineering into the system the means of it's own destruction.
Any ejection seat is a live bomb.  The blow-away panels are capable of 
making an awful mess of the shuttle during any critical flight period, such
as re-entry.  The underskin of the shuttle experiences a variety of thermal
and mechanical stresses during flight, and I would not want to guess about the
ability to design an expolsive that is totally safe in those conditions...

-- 
-David B. (Ben) Burch
 Analyst's International Corp.
 Chicago Branch (ihnp4!aicchi!dbb)

"Argue for your limitations, and they are yours"