Re: Griffin Wants Inline SDLV and 5 Segment SRB/CEV

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 14:14:53 -0400, in a place far, far away, "Murray
Anderson" <murraya@xxxxxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

>> >> >The original reasons for Shuttle are lost in the mists of time.
>> >>
>> >> Not really. It's all pretty well documented.
>> >
>> >I think I'd challenge that. Do the documents tell the truth, for example
>> >about why solids were chosen?
>>
>> You mean, because they were trying to minimize development costs, and
>> because Fletcher was from Utah?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> >In a practical sense though, it makes no difference why they did things
>the
>> >way they did 30 years, except if the the facts tell why they failed to
>> >achieve their objective.
>>
>> They do.
>
>I think I'd wonder if they really were trying to minimize development costs.

Why? They requested ten billion. They were given five. Bye bye,
liquid flyback booster (among other things).

>Perhaps rather because the solid rocket engineers had been excluded from
>Apollo and had to be part of the next National Project - or they'd cry.

No.

>Do you think the shuttle SRB is being proposed as the first stage of the new
>launch vehicle because it minimizes development cost?

Yes.

>Meets the 2010 schedule?

Yes.

>Makes the system safer?

Well, they seem to think so. Others' mileage (like mine) may vary.

>As for why the shuttle failed so completely to achieve its goals, I wouldn't
>be so sure I knew the answer.

Again, that's pretty well understood, to people who've studied the
issue.
.

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