Re: Briefing on SRB based CEV at NPS with Scott Horowitz

On 13 May 2005 11:36:47 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Tom Cuddihy"
<tom.cuddihy@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


>I've heard all this before, and I had some preconceived skepticisms,
>among them:
>1. Didn't an SRB failure cause the Challenger accident?
>2. Don't SRB's cost alot?
>3. Isn't that too much thrust to handle for a small vehicle?
>4. thus Wouldn't extensive modifications to the burn profile be
>required, costing even more?
>5. Does the steerable nozzle have enough control authority?
>
>Scott Horowitz was pretty convincing that these are not legitimate
>concerns, for the following reasons:
>1. Yes, but the explosion happened because hot gas burned through the
>LOX/H2 tank. Solid rockets don't explode.

The people at the rocket lab, who lost half a mountain to a Titan
booster test failure, will be surprised to hear this.

>5. Absolutely, in fact, it can launch under worse conditions than the
>shuttle. Finite element analysis modeling shows that with the ker/lox
>upperstage, CG, or rather cm is in about the same place as the shuttle,
>and even under worse case wind conditions, etc, the steerable nozzle
>has more than enough control authority to handle it, and lots of margin
>to spare.

How about roll control?
.

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