[net.columbia] "one srb fails to ignite"

210506860@excalibur.UUCP (Wyle) (03/08/86)

[..]

I attended an IAP (Independent Activities Period) lecture at MIT
in 1978, where the NASA guy said that IF enough systems failed,
and an STS launched with only 1 SRB, that the shuttle motors
could gimbol enough to one side, for the shuttle to fly (in an
arc trajectory) high enough to release tank and SRB's and land.
Can SRB motors also gimbal?  Was this guy mis-informed?
!ihnp4!psuvax1!vu-vlsi!excalibur!210506860
{Wherever you go, there you are.} Mitch

gray@hound.UUCP (B.GRAY) (03/12/86)

The March 1986 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine contains an
interview with Louis J. Ullian, NASA's chief of the missile
systems safety division at the Eastern Space and Missile Center
(Cape Canaveral). Ullian has worked at the cape since 1959, and
has been involved in launch safety for 30 years. The interview
answers a lot of the questions about SRBs and aborts that have
been asked on the net. For example, he says the shuttle commander
*can* get rid of the boosters while they're still firing, but
that this essentially turns the shuttle into a flying brick.