Re: Buran evolution - wish I understood Russian!


"Pat Flannery" <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13e48qdtp3u3dc9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The original plan was that the SRBs were going to have burn-through
sensors to work in conjunction with the abort motors; but since the abort
motors were removed from the design, the burn-through sensors were seen as
pointless, so they also were removed. It was a classic example of the
circular logic that ran through the whole Shuttle design process.
"Why doesn't it have a escape system? Because it's as safe as an airliner.
How do you know it's as safe as an airliner? Because if it wasn't, we'd
have given it an escape system."

Here's an article that talks about the ejection seats and NASA's decision to
declare the shuttle "operational" so they could be removed:

STS-5 and the impact of Apollo-era decision-making
by Paul Torrance
Monday, September 10, 2007
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/950/1

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)


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