[AR] Re: FTS (was Re: $1M prize for a student rocket reaching 100 km)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2018 01:05:09 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 22 Sep 2018, Saad Mirza wrote:
Here's some more info I found. This is from the User's guide for the
Eastern and Western ranges...
More precisely, it's their Range Safety Requirements spec... as it was 20
years ago. More or less -- a review by the National Research Council (see
<
https://www.nap.edu/read/9790/chapter/5>) observed that in practice, each
new launcher effort used 127-1's "tailoring" process to essentially write
its own custom version, partly because 127-1 was too prescriptive -- too
much detail on how things were traditionally done, rather than setting
down *requirements* and letting the user figure out how to meet them.
"Tailoring provides range users with great flexibility, but it also
reveals a serious shortcoming in the usability of EWR 127-1: range safety
requirements are defined on an ad hoc basis by the safety offices (during
the tailoring process) rather than in published regulations." So even
twenty years ago, 127-1 wasn't really the rules -- it was a preliminary
sketch of the rules, which in fact were different for each launcher.
The NRC review had some other uncomplimentary things to say about 127-1 as
well. :-)
The modern successor to 127-1 is AFSPCMAN 91-710, whose 7 volumes (!) can
be found online under www.e-publishing.af.mil (the main thing you have to
know is that once you're on the publications-and-forms page, go to "Major
Commands"). And if you thought 127-1 was big...
Henry
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