fisher@star.DEC (Burns Fisher ZKO1-1/D42 DTN 381-1466) (03/31/86)
Rick Schieve asks >I have heard that while the US has more than one shuttle, >in an effort to save money, only one set of some of the more >expensive electronics exists or existed as that one set was >blown up with the Challenger. The one set of electronics was >moved from shuttle to shuttle as needed and replacing this set >is one more complication in getting another shuttle off the >ground. > >Does anyone know if this is true and if so, what components >were moved from shuttle to shuttle. No, this is not true. The truth before garbling is something like this: Most components of the shuttles are common across all the shuttles. Thus if a component fails during a prelaunch check, the easiest solution is often to swap that component with one from another shuttle (since there are frequently more than one shuttle in various stages of preparation at Kennedy Space Center). The fact that this can be done lowers the requirement for keeping spare parts handy at KSC. With one shuttle gone, this pool of parts is smaller, adding the already significant headaches that NASA has. BTW, this sort of thing has been done with engines as well as electronics like the main computers, etc. Burns decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-star!fisher