heiby@falkor.UUCP (Ron Heiby) (03/04/88)
In the March 1988 issue of LIFE magazine, there is in interview of Roger Boisjoly, of Morton Thiokol O-ring fame. It starts on page 17. On page 22, Boisjoly makes the following statement (about the nozzle joint): Incredibly, NASA is now reinstalling the model that worked in August. If you make the technical decision to redesign a piece of hardware, it is not on a whim --- it is because something is wrong. And if the redesign fails, then you cannot ethically revert to the previous version and call it acceptable for flight. Does anyone know more about this? -- Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix "I believe in the Tooth Fairy." "I believe in Santa Claus." "I believe in the future of the Space Program."
belmonte@svax.cs.cornell.edu (Matthew Belmonte) (03/07/88)
In article <148@falkor.UUCP> heiby@falkor.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes: >In the March 1988 issue of LIFE magazine, there is in interview of Roger >Boisjoly, of Morton Thiokol O-ring fame. It starts on page 17. On page >22, Boisjoly makes the following statement (about the nozzle joint): [QUOTATION DELETED] In a talk he gave here at Cornell recently, Boisjoly was asked about the nozzle joint and in response put up a viewgraph of something that had been designated as an alternative design and said (words may not be exact) "This is the joint they should be using." I can't recall the particulars, but his point was that the current design (correct me if I'm wrong) has the joint penetrated by many steel screws which connect the nozzle section to the bottom section of the SRB, and as a result there is a nontrivial probability of its being corrupted by pressure. I wish I could picture exactly what that joint he had up on the screen looked like. -- Matthew Belmonte Internet: belmonte@sleepy.cs.cornell.edu BITNET: belmonte@CRNLCS *** The Knights of Batman *** (Computer science 1, College 5, Johns Hopkins CTY Lancaster '87 session 1)