ccrse@ucdavis.UUCP (Steve Ehrhardt) (02/17/86)
I don't know how wide a distribution this has received, but an official of Aerojet-General (which manufactures the OMS engines near here) said at a local news conference that they had offered a proposal to NASA for an SRB design which used a *seamless* casing, but that it was turned down for economy reasons. Apparently, the Thiokol design was the only one of several designs submitted which used a segmented casing, and it was selected over the others largely on the basis of cost. The official went on to say that they (A-G) would *never* consider building an SRB with a multi-segment casing due to the very problems that have recently been brought out. Another local news story which may not have received widespread distribution was that a local company was commissioned by the USAF to do a risk analysis of the shuttle for them several years ago. While I do not recall many of the details, I dso recall him saying that their analysis indicated that there was a 1-in-30 chance of the shuttle blowing up on any given mission. Apprently, the Air Force accepted their report, then largely ignored it. *DISCLAIMER* Both of the above items were optained from watching local TV newscasts, and since I wasn't taking notes at the time, I cannot swear that I am accurately quoting what was said. I am posting them in hopes that they may be of interest, and in the hope that perhaps others on the net might know more about these things than can be given in the normal 30-second TV news segment.