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From: sjeyasin@phoebe.axion.bt.co.uk (swaraj jeyasingh)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: 104% thrust from SSME
Message-ID: <1460@zaphod.axion.bt.co.uk>
Date: 28 Apr 89 16:30:04 GMT
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Reply-To: sjeyasin@axion.bt.co.uk
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Organisation: British Telecom Research Labs, Martlesham Heath, IPSWICH UK



Reading the mail there appears to be several schools of thought on this:

1) it is  100 + x% increase on the design spec or nominal.
Presumably this is due to improvements in the basic design.

2) it represents an operating thrust higher than what would be considered
"peak efficiency" (with implications for saftey etc). Or as someone put it,
"revving past the red line on the rpm counter"

3) To do with the fact that on gets "more thrust the higher one goes"


My bet is with (1): Improvements on the original design requirment,
which presumably was always known about, but only realised with time
and experience. Similar to the way aircraft engines "grow" with time
to give more thrust as engineering improvements are made. Then they are
given a "new" name.  e.g RB211-524 grew to be -535C which then became
535D which grew again to be -535E etc etc.  (Don't qoute me on the exact
marques for these)


So what's the "consensus fidelium" and what is the RIGHT answer - anybody ?




Swaraj Jeyasingh          sjeyasingh@axion.bt.co.uk
BTRL
Ipswich IP5 7RE
UK