Ladies and Gentlemen of the 51-L Jury

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 18:34:56 +0000, Stephen Stocker wrote:

As to the RCS, I'm in a total quagmire. What I'm trying to find out is
whether an RCS firing is *possible* 73 seconds into a flight, or was
possible in 1986.

Hmmm...

The correct phrasing would seem to be "Would it have been possible?
And, if so, under what circumstances would it have been possible?"

Steve

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 20:10:05 +0000, Stephen Stocker wrote:

In article , BenignVanilla wrote:

"John Maxson" wrote in message

For Mission 51-L, the requisite DAP (digital autopilot) was
loaded and running in the orbiter's GPCs (flight computers)
at lift-off, Stephen. That's one of the first things I verified
on my job in the days following the disaster.

I am not a shuttle systems expert...can someone please tell me if that was a
yes or a no?

It's neither... more JTM game playing.

The statement has nothing to do with whether the RCS could have
been fired in the sopecified time frame during Challenger's ascent.

Me either, to put it mildly! But I assumed...

No wonder you're acting like prime JTM bait.

He WANTS you to draw conclusions from indeterminate staements like
the above... that way he can then blame _you_ when it turns out
that the inferences _he_ wanted you to draw are incorrect.

For JTM same **** different day.

Steve

--
Chuck Stewart
"Anime-style catgirls: Threat? Menace? Or just studying algebra?"

My facts have been well *presented* (in my book below),
*read* (by at least three of those presently engaged in strenuous
denial of what my book lays out), and duly *ignored and/or
libeled* (for the most part). *Prior* to reading my book, these
same three *viciously and libelously* attacked it.

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)


Moe Blues wrote in message
...

could you possibly provide some facts or reasoning as to
WHY it's wrong?

Alasdair McKie wrote in message
...

Wasn't there a sworn statement by NASA staff that the RCS
data was nominal?

I'm not aware of any sworn statement from NASA that the 51-L
RCS data was nominal.

(I think I saw that quoted here by you in the last week.)

You'd best be sure! Where's your link, or your quote?

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)

In article , James Oberg wrote:

"Charleston" wrote
Nominal? Try off nominal. Challenger's ascent was not nominal. They
flew
outside of the existing flight envelope, they had the earliest throttle up
ever, including the developmental flights from 55 to **59** seconds.
There
were a number of abnormal flight characteristics on 51-L.


Good points and no arguments from me, considering 51-L was the heaviest
payload ever.

Is that "up to that point", or ever? IOW, has there been a heavier
payload/ascent weight since, or has it not been exceeded? If so, is this
a deliberate move (Challenger was heavy, perhaps too heavy, let's not
push it) or just an artifact (we haven't needed to fly that big a
payload since)?

Just like STS-107 was the heaviest Orbiter landing weight
ever.

Is this definite now? I remember it being discussed, and some debate
about whether it or a previous flight (one of the Spacelab ones, IIRC)
was heaver...

Perhaps these 'straws' were enough to drive marginal systems and
cascading bad luck over the knee of the curve.

Forgive me for sounding flippant, but once you're dealing with something
as inherently complex and badly understood as the Orbiters (or, indeed,
spaceflight in general), it's always seemed a miracle to me we don't
have little straws pushing us out of our acceptable conditions each and
every time...

--
-Andrew Gray

In article k.net,
"Terrence Daniels" wrote:

Just this week I've seen the possible reasons behind an "ascent RCS firing"
change from a software glitch, to a secret computer command, to a plot by
evil flight controllers, to an RTLS, to a "fast sep", to some kind of
mechanical failure in the system, and now quite possibly to a
manually-commanded firing. For something that only the blind can't see, I'm
still very much in the dark.

Excellent summation of "Maxson-speak!" Congratulations. You've just
unlined the strawman/red herring nature the entire family's
argumentation style. Get JTM to call you a name and you're officially
part of the Conpsiracy(TM).

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
"Heisenberg might have been here."
~ Anonymous

John Maxson wrote:
Alasdair McKie wrote in
message

...
In article , "John Maxson"
wrote:

Everyone should now be able to understand why it is
crucial for NASA to make public the 51-L RCS valve
commands.

I'm probably least qualified here, so bear with me. The
points you raised in this post all seemed to relate to
crossfeed issues. Are you saying that something to do
with crossfeeds caused an RCS firing?

Do you have nothing better to do than insult my
intelligence?

Is your pursuit of the valve command info tied
completely to the crossfeed issue you know existed or
does it relate to something else?

Both, obviously.

Given your concerns about Google, you're going to look a lot
better if you take on a world-weary demeanor rather than
immediately going offensive. He was asking a legitimate
question, and there are a lot of newer people who weren't
here for any of the earlier argument.

At this point, no one is buying the book. If you make your
point, that will change. If you do not, you still haven't
lost anything. Your best course for myriad reasons is to
take on an attitude of long-suffering patience and
straightforwardly answer the questions that are put to you.

Besides which, wading through all the bickering to get to
the substance is a royal pain in the ass.

Stephen Stocker wrote in message
...

What I'm trying to find out is whether an RCS firing is
*possible* 73 seconds into a flight, or was possible in
1986.

For Mission 51-L, the requisite DAP (digital autopilot) was
loaded and running in the orbiter's GPCs (flight computers)
at lift-off, Stephen. That's one of the first things I verified
on my job in the days following the disaster.

--
John Thomas Maxson, Retired Engineer (Aerospace)
Author, The Betrayal of Mission 51-L (www.mission51l.com)

"John Maxson" wrote in message
...
Stephen Stocker wrote in message
...

What I'm trying to find out is whether an RCS firing is
*possible* 73 seconds into a flight, or was possible in
1986.

For Mission 51-L, the requisite DAP (digital autopilot) was
loaded and running in the orbiter's GPCs (flight computers)
at lift-off, Stephen. That's one of the first things I verified
on my job in the days following the disaster.

I am not a shuttle systems expert...can someone please tell me if that was a
yes or a no?

BV.

In article , John Maxson wrote:
Stephen Stocker wrote in message
...

What I'm trying to find out is whether an RCS firing is
*possible* 73 seconds into a flight, or was possible in
1986.

For Mission 51-L, the requisite DAP (digital autopilot) was
loaded and running in the orbiter's GPCs (flight computers)
at lift-off, Stephen. That's one of the first things I verified
on my job in the days following the disaster.

Thanks John, I think that answers my question. I know a lot of this stuff
is second nature to you guys, and it probably gets tiring having to
repeat it time and again. But I never accept the "official" version of
anything at face value, so some of this is hard to come by.

Steve