Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!tank!ncar!gatech!rutgers!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet and American Shuttles
Summary: No solids
Message-ID: <7195@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 88 18:21:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: ihlpl.7195
References: <1574@nunki.usc.edu> <3020@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <820@super.ORG>
Distribution: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 23

There are NO solid rocket motors on the Soviet shuttle.
The boosters and main rocket (under the "ET") are Energia
liquid jobs.

As for the jet engines, Newsweek implied that they are not currently
installed, and might not be (tho they may have been included
on earlier test flights).

However, someone here pointed out that to truly *fly* a shuttle,
you'd need some pretty powerful engines and lots of fuel to burn.
My speculation is that whatever jets end up on the Russky orbiter
will have just enough power to extend the glide path,
maybe give one more appraoch if the 1st one is aborted early enough,
but the engines would not be able to keep the shuttle up in level
flight, even while the fuel lasts.

Reminds me -- I still wonder whether, if our Shuttle somehow
got dangerously below its landing glide path, the pilots might
fire the hypergolic OMS engines in order to make it to the runway.
-- 
Mike Knudsen  Bell Labs(AT&T)   att!ihlpl!knudsen
"Lawyers are like handguns and nuclear bombs.  Nobody likes them,
but the other guy's got one, so I better get one too."