[net.columbia] Water System on the pad

fisher@dvinci.DEC (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108) (07/16/84)

My recollection of things about water cooling/shock-wave-suppression is as
follows:

1)  The Saturn 5 without question had water cooling at its base.  I remember
    seeing it start up a few seconds before ignition.

2)  Even on mission 1, the shuttle had SOME water.  I believe that ugly water
    tank you can see in almost any picture of the pad supplies water too this
    system.  Note that that tank was there for the first launch.  I don't know
    if the original intent of this water was cooling the pad or shock sup-
    pression or both.

3)  After the first launch, as others have said, the shock-wave-from-the-SRBs
    problem was discovered (or at least quantified), and it was determined that
    more suppression was needed.  At this point, the "water balloons" mentioned
    in other notes were added.  I don't know if the original flowing water was
    modified to help the shock-wave problem or not.

Interesting question:  did the Saturn 1B have any cooling water?  I suspect not
since it sat way up on that "milk-stool" launch platform.

Burns Fisher 


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thoth@tellab2.UUCP (Marcus Hall) (07/18/84)

The first flights of the Saturn IB were launched from Launch Complex 34
and LC37.  These definately had water systems to protect the pad after
launch, but I don't know about the launches from LC39.  It seems that
there must have been something to protect the launcher, though.

marcus
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