Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson
From: mjohnson@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (Mark Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Heavylift Boosters
Message-ID: <484@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM>
Date: 30 Sep 88 21:00:36 GMT
References: <28624@think.UUCP> <1074@bucket.UUCP>
Reply-To: mjohnson@encad.UUCP (Mark Johnson)
Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, Kansas
Lines: 19

In article <1074@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>I wonder if Alan Shepard (Mercury-Redstone) and Gagarin (early Soviet
>boosters were solid fueled too, as I recall) would agree with you?

NO NO NO NO NO!!!! The Redstone booster was a liquid fueled vehicle, as was
the Atlas, the Titan, AND the USSR's RD-107 standard booster (used for Vostok,
Voskhod, Sputnik, etc). The RD-107 was a low-tech booster with a cluster of
20 fairly small kerosene/LOX motors running at about 1100 psi chamber pressure
but it was indeed a liquid burner. The Shuttle is the first attempt anywhere
that I know of to actually build man-rated solid motors (although they would
have been used on the Titan 3 which would have lofted the Air Farce (-: MOL
project, which was cancelled). I think we've paid pretty dearly for this
so called 'cost saving' on those solids. 

-- 
Mark Johnson (Mark.Johnson@Wichita.NCR.COM)
NCR Engineering & Manufacturing-Wichita, KS  phone: (316)636-8189    
email:...!rutgers!hplabs!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson 
US snailnet: 3718 N. Rock Rd., Wichita, KS 67226