Sunday, April 5, 2009

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt

"I am frustrated, because I don't know what the delay is," the Stick of a Senator said recently.

Duh?

It has also been widely reported how unlikely the Stick of a Rocket could put astronauts into space before 2017, but Viceroy Doug Cooke says the 2015 date is still achievable.

As if?

The largest nonuniform dispersion in shuttle tumble rate in history happened on the most recent flight. Watch the Real Sticks' (SRB) separation videos to see for yourself. One SRB continues to thrust and set up a good push against the ET and orbiter as the other SRB has already expended itself when it comes time to say bye-bye. Oh, and the SRBs ejected "objects" of a large size never before seen in flight. Ever.

Wonder if the new "von Braun" can make up an answer for that one too?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It must be something in the water that makes these people so stupid, some kind of salt or something.

Mark S. said...

"Oh, and the SRBs ejected "objects" of a large size never before seen in flight. Ever."

Yeah, I saw that too during the launch and wondered if I was just seeing things. Or maybe I had just missed this phenomena in previous launches. After rewinding and watching in slow-mo on my DVR, I decided that it was definitely not a good thing, but at least the Shuttle made it to orbit safely.

This should precipitate a review and a launch hold until it is understood. If those objects were large enough and unusual enough for a layman like me to take notice, something seriously wrong is taking place inside the SRB's.

Mark S.

Anonymous said...

Having worked in HQ, the arrogance of the recently-ousted leadership was overwhelming. Unfortunately the remains of the cancer still infests the host, and it will take substantial chemotherapy to save the body.

Anonymous said...

Well... Ares 1Y was cancelled today. Money issues, not technical. No honest, not technical. I'm telling you not technical...

Anonymous said...

I hope those aren't large chunks of solid propellant falling out of the booster. If one of those blocked the nozzle, the whole SRB could over-pressurize and they would be searching the sea bed for the bodies of the crew once again.

If that is what happened on this flight they must stand-down the whole fleet and resolve the problem.

We all know what happened because they ignored the foam strike problem experienced on STS-112 just before losing Columbia.

Anonymous said...

kT said...

It must be something in the water that makes these people so stupid, some kind of salt or something.


Ammonium Perchlorate residue from the SRB's? :)

Anonymous said...

Latest news! Schedule is still KING! Forget the flawed specs, disregard the advice of people that actually build these things, forget the fact that we do not have enough people to do the work at hand - THE SCHEDULE IS KING!

Status quo lives on....

Anonymous said...

One booster tumbled (post separation) at a rate of ~21 seconds per rotation, the other booster was ~18 seconds per rotation. Flight history has been between 15 and 26 seconds, but the boosters usually tumble at a rate more similar to each other. We are looking at the sep motors to make sure we had the expected full performance... As for large pieces being ejected - the radar saw two pieces of slag 2 inches in diameter. You are technically correct that they are the largest ever seen - but keep in mind that we have such a low number of flights with the new radar tracking the plume.

Anonymous said...

I'm not worried about a grain slump blocking the
nozzle and causing an over pressure, but, I do worry
that cracks in the fuel grain will cause burn through
of the casing.

Those casings are not meant to take high heat loads.