Exeter wrote:
mistake could have resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and its crew
during a landing."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...le-probs_x.htm


Fro what I read, it was some sort of a cogged wheel that could be inserted
either way in the mechanism, which allowed the actuators to switch from being
port or starboard mounted, and they found one unit with that cogged wheel
inserted the wrong way.

While this is definitely a "mistake", I have to wonder: Wouldn't the actuator
have broken/failed the first time the speed btake was tested/used ? If it
lasted 30 flights (and I woudl assume lots of testing during orbiter
maintenance) without anyone noticing any performance problem, wouldn't this
mean that an inverted gear didn't really make such a big difference ?

Secondly, lets say that one side of the speed brake failed and didn't deploy,
but the other did. (isn't that worse case scenario ?)

At the time the speed brakes are deployed, is the nosewheel already on the
ground ? Would an asymetric speed brake veer the shuttle into an aligator
swamp, or could it maintain its course on the runway ?

Would the decreased braking result in the shuttle overshooting the runway, or
would it just have to rely on the parachute and wheel brakes more ?