jack@rml.UUCP (jack hagerty) (09/08/90)
A strange sense of forboding came over me when I heard of the Titan SRB accident at Edwards today. When I did my short posting yesterday comparing the relative merits of the Shuttle SRB to a hypothetical LRB I left off, for the sake of brevity, one important point: transport safety. An LRB, from the time it leaves the factory, is transported to the launch site, assembled into a vehicle and transported out to the pad, is essentially a big pile of machinery. It doesn't become dagerous (in an explosive sense) until loaded with propellants just before launch. An SRB, on the other hand, is a loaded bomb (fuel and oxidizer already mixed) for all of those operational stages. I decided not to mention it because, to the best of my knowledge, there had never been a transportation accident with a large solid motor that caused ignition. Oops. - Jack