"Bob Haller" wrote in message
ups.com...

I thought the whole idea with boosting the CEV with derived Shuttle
components was the fact that the Shuttle components are already
man-rated?
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Maybe its just me but I DON'T like solids on a manned vehicle, because
they have no off switch....

Like a "Roman candle" ? Makes the phrase "light this candle" ... very
realistic.

About 1500 AD, around the middle of the Ming Dynasty -- legend talks about a
Chinese stargazer named Wan Hu.
Wan dreamed of going "where no man had gone before" and set out to turn that
dream into space age reality. Picking up on China's recently developed
expertise in rocketry, he took up the task of building himself a space ship.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/spa...0/china.wanhu/

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And making the CEV or any vessel robust enough to withstand a booster
failure would also make it quite a bit heavier. Easier and safer to use
a Mercury or Apollo style escape tower at the top of the capsule --
which is exactly what the plan is for CEV.
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Certainly use a escape tower on the non man rated booster. then add
some additional robustness, so a delta failure couldn't kill the crew.
Accept a occasional booster failure as a cost of doing business, with
the crew surviving the event.

It is cheaper to lose a occasional Delta 4, than man rate every one, with
tons of
design changes, triple inspections on everything. besides failures will
occur anyway. cant achieve 100% of anything.

Wonder what a capsule would need to better survive a booster malfunction?


Russians have that data (and live crews) - thanks to Max Faget.