[AR] Re: shuttle SRBs (was Re: Re: Phenolic regression rate)
- From: John Schilling <john.schilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2018 18:41:38 -0800
On 2/7/2018 9:47 AM, William Claybaugh wrote:
Henry:
You do seem very fond of this “...but failures can be catastrophic”
line. However, what happens to the rockets after the escape system
activates is *irrelevant* to crew safety.
Except for the cases where the escape system itself is what endangers
the crew. And then there's the cases where the escape system doesn't
activate and you've got no other option.
Escape systems that can escape all or all-minus-epsilon of the failure
modes of large solid rocket motors, are not going to be low-risk items
from a reliability or safety standpoint. And the ability to quietly
turn off the propulsion system of a launch vehicle, rather than having
range safety blow it up, may facilitate abort modes other than sudden
bursts of 15-g rocket thrust (from rockets that might themselves fail
catastrophically). Save the LES, or at least the hard-mode LES, for
the times when you absolutely can't live without it.
John Schilling
john.schilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(661) 718-0955
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