Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet shuttle
Summary: Central tank == LH?  Pogo, FFT.
Message-ID: <7246@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 17 Oct 88 17:11:07 GMT
References: <1988Oct1.224801.11041@utzoo.uucp> <1109@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> <1988Oct14.170639.1828@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 25

In article <1988Oct14.170639.1828@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> It goes deeper than that.  The things that look like strap-ons are not;
> each of them contains one fuel tank and (at the bottom) one engine.  The
> central core contains a single oxidizer tank, and no engines.  [I just
> might have fuel and oxidizer reversed here.]  It's all one, oddly-shaped,
> piece, not a central stage with strap-ons.  Bizarre.

If the engines are liquid hydrogen, then from our own ET I'd expect
the side tanks to be LOX and the larger central tank to be LH,
since the LH needs so much more volume.

BTW, a guy I used to work for told us stories of using the
world's first FFT analyzer (special-purpose computer) on rocket
accelerometer data to diagnose and pinpoint Pogo effects in one
of NASA's early rockets, probably the Mercury booster.
Pogo was a big problem; apparently it still is.

Those helium cavities in the Satrun fuel lines sound like the
same principle as the air chamber on top of old steam fire-engine
pumps.  Similar gadgets can be installed in plumbing to reduce
water hammer.  Talk about recycled technology ;-).
-- 
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."