Falcon Sir Lauch-A-Lot?

Well, if nothing else, it's showing the on-time launch reliability
demonstrated by the Shuttle in a privately funded booster.
I still don't think that pre-launch test firing of a engine with an
ablative combustion chamber lining is a good idea.

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:

Well, if nothing else, it's showing the on-time launch reliability
demonstrated by the Shuttle in a privately funded booster.

To be fair, they said right up front that multiple aborts were likely,
given the extremely numerous (and probably erring on the side of
paranoid) safety checks added since last year. It's not surprising if
it takes a few tries to shake out all the unintended consequences.

I still don't think that pre-launch test firing of a engine with an
ablative combustion chamber lining is a good idea.

I can see your point. But presumably you know how much it's going to
ablate in the test, and how much you safely need for the real launch,
right?

Best,
- Joe

On Mar 20, 8:38 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:
Well, if nothing else, it's showing the on-time launch reliability
demonstrated by the Shuttle in a privately funded booster.

To be fair, they said right up front that multiple aborts were likely,
given the extremely numerous (and probably erring on the side of
paranoid) safety checks added since last year.

To be fair, "numerous safety checks" and "probably erring on the side
of paranoid" are precisely the reason that the shuttle launches get
pushed back.

If you are going to be cautious, sometimes you will stop a launch.

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

Did anyone else get creeped out by the sight of the second stage nozzle
glowing orange hot? Yeesh! I hope they remembered that it gets less
cooling in vacuum (that is, in use) than in air (during tests).

richard schumacher wrote in news:no-spam-
:


Did anyone else get creeped out by the sight of the second stage nozzle
glowing orange hot? Yeesh! I hope they remembered that it gets less
cooling in vacuum (that is, in use) than in air (during tests).

It's radiation cooled; looked perfectly normal to me.

--Damon

On Mar 20, 8:38 pm, richard schumacher wrote:
Did anyone else get creeped out by the sight of the second stage nozzle
glowing orange hot? Yeesh! I hope they remembered that it gets less
cooling in vacuum (that is, in use) than in air (during tests).


If the Krell technology had made it white hot, Dr. Morbius was going
to blame the Id.

;-)

Rusty

In article ,
richard schumacher wrote:
Did anyone else get creeped out by the sight of the second stage nozzle
glowing orange hot? Yeesh! I hope they remembered that it gets less
cooling in vacuum (that is, in use) than in air (during tests).

Radiation-cooled nozzles often glow quite impressively. The first-stage
nozzles on the old Arianes glowed from takeoff on.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article ,
(Henry Spencer) wrote:

Radiation-cooled nozzles often glow quite impressively. The first-stage
nozzles on the old Arianes glowed from takeoff on.

Ah, thanks.

Is it troubling that the heating on the Falcon nozzle appeared uneven?

Henry Spencer wrote:
Radiation-cooled nozzles often glow quite impressively. The first-stage
nozzles on the old Arianes glowed from takeoff on.

They had a beautiful in-flight photo of that taken from one of the
boosters in AW&ST back when Ariane was new.

Pat

Joe Strout wrote:

To be fair, they said right up front that multiple aborts were likely,
given the extremely numerous (and probably erring on the side of
paranoid) safety checks added since last year. It's not surprising if
it takes a few tries to shake out all the unintended consequences.


Well, whether the satellite went into orbit or not, they did get the
thing into space... and had a successful first-stage burn, which is more
than the Soviet N1 ever did, and I applaud them for that.

Pat