Pat Flannery wrote:

That would require a catastrophic _rise_ in chamber pressure, not a drop.
If the chamber pressure drops on the SRB, it's not going to cause it to
explode.
(in fact, if it's severe enough it could cause combustion to cease in
the SRB - that was the concept used on the SRBs developed for the Titan
III C variant that was going to be used on Dyna-Soar and MOL, which had
blowout vents mounted at the top of the casing.)

That's actually a safety feature (of sorts), when the pressure drops
the combustion rate also drops. In theory this makes being around a
solid 'safer' and makes emergency response in the vicinity of a
recently violently disassembled solid 'easier'.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL