David.Smith@CMU-10A@sri-unix (08/04/82)
From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) Thiokol is working on lightweight SRB casings for the Shuttle, made of filament-wound Kevlar. Supposedly, these casings will be reusable, like the present ones. I recently spoke with a manufacturing engineer who works for Thiokol. He told me that the design engineers all agree that no matter what anyone says, it won't be possible to reuse the lightweight casings -- that the reusability is just a fiction to get the funds appropriated. He agreed with my response that the project sounded like a waste of money. Is this an instance of Nasa paying for the development of something that only the Air Force wants?