Xref: utzoo sci.space.shuttle:2048 sci.space:8439
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rutgers!att!ihlpl!knudsen
From: knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space
Subject: Re: USSR and the Moon [was "Beyond the Energia crisis"]
Keywords: Soviet/American shuttle comparison
Message-ID: <7827@ihlpl.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Nov 88 19:38:40 GMT
References: <880@cernvax.UUCP> <18263@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <18420@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 30

In article <18420@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) writes:
> 	that the second stage collapsed. In any case, the rocket fell
> 	back on the pad and blew up. Everything within a mile was either
> 	destroyed or heavily damaged in the fiery explosion. THe gantry
> 	observation towers, support equipment, and pieces of the launch pad 
> 	itself flew in all directions, while some of the attending 
> 	Soviet engineers perished."

Well, this jibes perfectly with the rumored story that I alluded
to in last week's respone to the original posting that started
this thread.  Big rocket, blew up, wrecked the launch complex
and even killed some engineers/scientists.

However, in that article I questioned whether you can really get a
big explosion out of a failed rocket.  A big messy fireball, yes,
that would probably melt and destroy the gantry along with the
crew.  But "everything within a mile?"  And the people in the
blockhouse?  Maybe if the two tanks of hypergolic fuels
crunched together you could get a fairly explosive fire?

Anyway, I have to agree with this latest posting, that this was
a real act of desperation on the Soviets' part.  It probably
set their space program back several years -- if so, maybe
Apollo was worth it politically, tho one can argue that Apollo
set *ours* back even more.  Myself, I'm just glad that we walked
on the moon.
-- 
Mike Knudsen  Bell Labs(AT&T)   att!ihlpl!knudsen
"Lawyers are like nuclear bombs and PClones.  Nobody likes them,
but the other guy's got one, so I better get one too."