Buran Website Finds So Far

Jeff Findley wrote:


This was in addition to things like pulling all three SSME's from the
orbiter, which was "routine" after the early flights.


You would want to study in detail how the SSMEs had tolerated the
flight, so that would be expected.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

Jeff Findley wrote:
This was in addition to things like pulling all three SSME's from the
orbiter, which was "routine" after the early flights.


You would want to study in detail how the SSMEs had tolerated the
flight, so that would be expected.

You might want to read a bit more about the SSME history. SSME's were being
pulled and torn down after every flight for quite a long time. Early on, I
think there were issues that made this practice justified. There was a
point that it looked like this was being done "just to be safe", even when
there didn't seem to be any real justification for it.

Of course, the SSME of today isn't the SSME that flew on STS-1. There have
been many major modifications to the design (e.g. new turbopumps, different
throat, and etc). By now, I don't believe tearing them down after every
flight is routine practice.

The SSME remains an extremely "high strung" engine, running a staged
combustion cycle at extremely high chamber pressures. Note that the engines
being proposed for the upper stage of the SRB derived launch vehicle aren't
this "high strung", which is a *good thing*.

Jeff
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Jeff Findley wrote:

You would want to study in detail how the SSMEs had tolerated the
flight, so that would be expected.



You might want to read a bit more about the SSME history. SSME's were being
pulled and torn down after every flight for quite a long time. Early on, I
think there were issues that made this practice justified. There was a
point that it looked like this was being done "just to be safe", even when
there didn't seem to be any real justification for it.



I think that would be perfectly normal; being a new engine designed for
reuse, unlike our normal run of large rocket engines, you would want to
see how each engine was handling the multiple flights, and note changes
as its total operating time increased...plus this would be about the
only case where you'd get the motor back intact after the flight, unlike
the ones that ended up rusting on the bottom of the sea. In this case
the opportunity to do it would be an invitation to do it.

Of course, the SSME of today isn't the SSME that flew on STS-1. There have
been many major modifications to the design (e.g. new turbopumps, different
throat, and etc). By now, I don't believe tearing them down after every
flight is routine practice.



I imagine a lot of those changes came about as a result of what they
found from the tear downs of the ones from the earlier flights.

The SSME remains an extremely "high strung" engine, running a staged
combustion cycle at extremely high chamber pressures. Note that the engines
being proposed for the upper stage of the SRB derived launch vehicle aren't
this "high strung", which is a *good thing*.



Yeah, they got a very good ISP with the SSME, but it is a very complex
piece of machinery- I still remember the first time I saw a cutaway of
it in the National Geographic Magazine, and was bowled over by its
internal complexity.

Pat

Rusty,

I think you forgot to mention the monetary income and economic
situation of both countries on your analysis. Maybe that with
combination of the political status in Russia could explain those
drastic comparisons. Still - we're waiting for a NASA to launch their
"we didn't change anything but added security cameras as a temporary
decision" mission while Russia with its Soyuz is the only way to send
people into space right now (for the ISS). The facts are there,
interesting - a country with more economic resources, still no flights
- and a country using an outdated space flight method, the only way to
get people into space - what's wrong in THAT picture?

wrote:

The facts are there,
interesting - a country with more economic resources, still no flights
- and a country using an outdated space flight method, the only way to
get people into space - what's wrong in THAT picture?

What's wrong? That drug addled fools believe that the 'outdated'
method to be superior - just because it hasn't killed anyone
'recently'.

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

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