Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
From: bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: E'Prime and news about Thiokol
Message-ID: <1254@esunix.UUCP>
Date: 14 Mar 89 23:26:20 GMT
References: <8903091638.AA05474@crash.cts.com>
Organization: Evans & Sutherland, Salt Lake City, Utah
Lines: 39

From article <8903091638.AA05474@crash.cts.com>, by jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery):
> I'm curious as to how E'Prime gets away with saying that out of 17 test
> flights none have failed when Bob claims that the MX booster produced by
> Thiokol has killed several people.  Were the ground tests a disaster followed
> up by a streak of good luck?  

It was a manufacturing accident. While pulling the casting core out of
a motor something happened. Some how the crew running the operation
wound up un the bunker with the pulling equipment. Somehow the motor
fired. All the men on the crew were killed. Morton Thiokol settled out
of court. They also paid some large federal fines for safety
violations.

What it comes down to is that no one seems to know what happened
because all the equipment that was supposed to be monitoring the
operation was broken. Based on the little that was in the local papers
all the safety equipment was broken and had been for some time. It
seems the Air Force contract required the equipment to be their, but
didn't require it to work. So Morton decided to risk the lives of the
crew to save the cost of a repairs.

> What sort of quality controls were imposed by
> Thiokol on the flight-bound boosters to make them so reliable?  What
> additional safety measures were imposed by the Air Force?  Since a decent 
> solid rocket inspection system costs a small fraction of a launch (only about
> $2million amortized over many launches) I would guess E'Prime could afford
> to put all Thiokol's boosters through their own inspections.

I don't know. I believe that the Air Force refused delivery on some
motors. Not all the MX motors that were manufactured for flight
testing were actually launched. At least once the Air Force stopped
progress payments on MX to Morton Thiokol. They were not resumed until
acceptable motors were shipped.

			Bob P.
-- 
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