Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Heavylift Boosters
Summary: Shuttle packs punch into orbit
Message-ID: <6956@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 29 Sep 88 17:40:10 GMT
References: <28624@think.UUCP> <9210001@hpsel1.HP.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 15

Thanks for those thrust figures.  Assuming that by SSME you meant
ONE engine, the Orbiter packs 1.5M lbs thrust without the SRBs.
This is what it goes into orbit with.

It's still only 1/5 of a Saturn 1st stage (or almost exactly
one F1 engine), but if you look at the thrust figures
for the 2nd or 3rd stage of the Saturn or Titan, you see that the Shuttle
blows everything else away in terms of thrust into orbit.
Gratned much of that thrust goes into the ET and the orbiter that
has to return to Earth, leaving a fraction for the payload,
but still I was impressed.

I was pretty impressed late this morning too :-) :-) :-)!
How about when they got to T-30 sec and announced that no, they
were NOT going to hold....