[AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
- From: Chris Jones <clj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2015 18:28:06 -0500
On 12/24/15 5:35 PM, Henry Vanderbilt wrote:
All due respect, but SRB's are simply not a useful reuse economics
model for soft-landing recovered liquid booster stages. As I recall,
between the effects of double-digit-G's water impact and salt
immersion, the only part of the SRB's NASA was actually willing to
reuse were the stripped steel casings, after they were scoured out
then checked for cracks.
One of the effects of the ocean impact was the fact that the boosters
got somewhat deformed. There was a whole rig built to squeeze casing
segments back into circular. (Interestingly, the rebuilt SRBs were
usually composed of casing segments from different previously flown
SRBs). I seem to remember that one of the two casings making up the
joint on 51L that suffered the burn-through had been the most deformed
(or the one that required the most force to get back in shape?), though
it wasn't cited as the primary cause of the Challenger loss.
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