Re: STS51L Accident Questions

From: Derek Lyons (fairwater_at_gmail.com)
Date: 03/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:39:22 GMT

p-stickney@Mineshaft.local (Peter Stickney) wrote:

>Seriously, though - the more I study that era, the more apparant it is
>that the Germans had fallen irretreivably behind, technology-wise, in
>the Jet Race by the Winter/Spring of 1944. While they'd jumped out as
>early adopters, their engine programs suffered from a number of
>serious defects, not counting the lack of strategic materials (THey
>never could get their compressor aerodynamics straightened out, for
>example)
>The Germans were also not playing on the same sheet of paper when it
>came to stuff like guidance systems and automatic control systems.
>They never could get Remote Power Control and feedback systems
>working, while the USN had had it since the mid 1930s, and ground
>based AAA waas using it from late 1943 on.

The essential problem with German technology in WWII boils down to
this: Too many of their advances were based on a flash of genius,
rather than on solid research and theory, if the flash never happened,
the technology never came to be. When the flash did happen, they
lacked the organization to transform the flash into operational
hardware. (There are rare exceptions, such as von Braun's
organization.)

Compare the average German experience with Big Science in the US/UK...
Where, once a flash happened or a need determined, a team was
organized and pointed at the problem, von Neumnann was called in to
consult, and the boffins worked the problem until it was solved, or
the war ended.

D. 

-- 
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

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