That's what I recall reading at the time - could have been made in one piece,
but would have had to be made somewhat nearer the launch site. That argument
would have meant much of the money for the Shuttle program would be spent close
to Florida. The use of sections for the booster was mandated by the desire to
spread the work around. (I don't have a source for this. Maybe there were other
reasons for building it a long way from the Cape.)
Regards,
Glyn Garside
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [PSES] Emissions (now the STS O-ring debate)
From: "Price, Edward" <ed.pr...@cubic.com>
Date: Sat, December 19, 2009 11:29 am
To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
While it was fascinating to learn of the compromises and bad
assumptions that led to this disaster, I think you can say that the players
were locked into their positions by some nasty political horse-trading.
We talk about the seals, saying that rubber O-rings sealing a rocket
motor case doesn’t sound too bright. But they had to seal the seams somehow,
because there were seams. OK, now why were the booster rockets built out of
multiple linked cylindrical sections? Was this decision based on good
rocket-building guidelines, or maybe because they needed to ship the rockets a
long way from where they were built to where they were used?
I don’t think I have heard any discussion about why the boosters were
designed this way. Perhaps it was because the boosters were required to be
re-usable, or perhaps it was just a quick answer to how to ship them easily,
once a vendor had already been selected (based on the time-honored process of
distributing the jobs to the right Congressional districts).
Usual disclaimers; my suspicious private opinions only.
Ed Price
ed.pr...@cubic.com <blocked::mailto:ed.pr...@cubic.com> WB6WSN
NARTE Certified EMC Engineer
Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab
Cubic Defense Applications
San Diego, CA USA
858-505-2780
Military & Avionics EMC Is Our Specialty
> -----Original Message-----
> From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of
> ola...@juno.com
> Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 1:34 PM
> To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [PSES] Emissions from Computer power supplies - update
>
> Wikipedia:
> "Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold
> weather on the O-rings, left his job at Morton Thiokol and became a
> speaker on workplace ethics.[46] He argues that the caucus called by
> Morton Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch,
> "constituted the unethical decision-making forum resulting from
intense
> customer intimidation."[47] For his honesty and integrity leading up
to
> and directly following the shuttle disaster, Roger Boisjoly was
awarded
> the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American
> Association for the Advancement of Science."
>
> MacDonald had an engineering background, but at the time he was a
> Thiokol manager at the launch center and later wrote a book about the
> disaster. To his credit, he followed his technical instincts once
> given the facts, but he is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article.
> Boisjoly was the engineer inside Thiokol who ran the numbers and
raised
> the alarm, then held his position against management pressure even at
> the threat of losing his job.
>
> Orin Laney
-
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