Re: Clueless in Italy part II

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:28:02 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
behlingjo@xxxxxxxxx made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

On Jan 25, 12:20 pm, simberg.interglo...@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg)
wrote:

1. Of course it does. If the vehicle is designed to be so
unreliable as
to need one, it would be foolish to make it either reusable, or
manned. Are you really saying that the RSO is going to destroy a
vehicle with a pilot on board? That's absurd. We might as well put
destruct devices in airliners, in that case, since they carry huge
amounts of fuel, and can fall in populated areas.

2. No, it didn't necessarily. It never went out of control. It
simply
fell down in the lagoon. Had it happened at the Cape, it wouldn't
have caused any damage, or at least not any that would have been
mitigated by destroying it.
1. The RSO would blow up the shuttle if so required.

The Orbiter (the reusable part, that carries crew) does not carry any
destruct devices, which makes my point. They are on the SRB and ETs.
The idea is to separate before utilizing them.

They are not even on the ET any more - they were removed over a decade ago. And today's flight rules rules are strongly biased against performing a range safety destruct of the SRBs with an intact orbiter still attached. For example, the FCO (formerly RCO) will not take flight termination action against a vehicle that violates an impact limit line as long as the Flight Director declares the vehicle is still controllable. (If the stack is uncontrollable during first stage, orbiter breakup is imminent anyway.)
.

Relevant Pages

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