Apollo Style Escape Tower Question....

"Keith F. Lynch" wrote in
:

Henry Spencer wrote:
(Mercury had a much more comprehensive automatic escape system, and
debugging it had been a nightmare. So for Apollo, automation was
confined to the one case where fractions of a second counted.)

Was it a Mercury or a Gemini mission where the rules called for an
eject, but the astronaut(s) correctly guessed that the rocket hadn't
actually left the pad, as the instruments claimed it had? That
obviously wasn't automated.

Gemini 6 (Schirra/Stafford):

http://www.astronautix.com/flights/gemini6.htm

--
JRF

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Keith F. Lynch wrote:

Was it a Mercury or a Gemini mission where the rules called for an
eject, but the astronaut(s) correctly guessed that the rocket hadn't
actually left the pad, as the instruments claimed it had? That
obviously wasn't automated.

Gemini 6; Gemini used a manual abort system. Mercury was entirely
automatic; Apollo's was a combo manual/automatic system.

Pat

Reed Snellenberger wrote:

Richard Stewart wrote in
news

Fair enough - so if our theoretical rocket stack (stack plus two solid
rocket boosters) had an O ring burn through (a la Challenger) as soon
as the stack broke up and/or veered fractionally off center rapidly
enough, the escape rockets would get the capsule otta there! Hopefully
far enough & fast enough away that debris/explosion doesn't pose a
hazard...


Solids probably won't be a factor in any more manned launchers due to the
possibility of a catastrophic failure in the motor. There are videos of
both Delta II & Titan 34D launches in which the transition from launcher
to fragments occurs within a video frame. It's unlikely that even an
automated system could react quickly enough in that situation. The
advantage of liquid-fueled systems is that most problems in the motors
can be contained, at least briefly, allowing the escape systems time to
activate.

--
Reed

Oddly, the exception to that rule will be the escape system.

"Hallerb" wrote in message
...
One
good rason to retire the shuttle...

"rason"? Is that what particles the Zeta Reticulans shoot out of their ray
guns?