Historical Precedent For Upper Stage Failures?

Rand Simberg wrote:
In looking over the list, it's worse than that. There are lots of
Thor-Agena, Atlas-Agena "failures" listed, with no specificity as to
the nature of the failure, or even which stage failed. Is there a
good history somewhere of the Agena program?


Here's a good place to start:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/thelures.htm
The links to the specific launch vehicles will probably have more details.

Pat

OM wrote:
...Interesting to note that Mark hasn't added the Falcon-2 shot to

picking a nit, but wouldn't that be Falcon1-2?

rick jones
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On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:50:46 -0500, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
In looking over the list, it's worse than that. There are lots of
Thor-Agena, Atlas-Agena "failures" listed, with no specificity as to
the nature of the failure, or even which stage failed. Is there a
good history somewhere of the Agena program?


Here's a good place to start:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/thelures.htm

I've already been looking there.

The links to the specific launch vehicles will probably have more details.

Not so far.

What the last paragraph means is that I'm trying to determine if we
need a redundant path for the cabling from the CM to the abort motor.

Having had redundant paths in the past might have prevented any failures
from happening? Telemetry archives might tell us that.

On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:50:44 GMT, in a place far, far away, robert
casey made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



What the last paragraph means is that I'm trying to determine if we
need a redundant path for the cabling from the CM to the abort motor.

Having had redundant paths in the past might have prevented any failures
from happening?

For a crew abort system?

No.

Ok, another missive from the peanut gallery. For some probably
illogical reason, the discussion about removing redundancy from a crew
abort system makes me think of Catch-22 and Yosarian finding an M&M
Enterprises share in place of his parachute.

rick jones
--
a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 21:48:48 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
Rick Jones made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

Ok, another missive from the peanut gallery. For some probably
illogical reason, the discussion about removing redundancy from a crew
abort system makes me think of Catch-22 and Yosarian finding an M&M
Enterprises share in place of his parachute.

The difference is that many, many B-25 flights required parachutes...

I'm still looking for a single instance in the history of the space
program in which a redundant raceway for commands to the LAS would
have saved a crew.

kT wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:

I can't think of any presidency or presidential administration that has
failed more spectacularly than George W. Bush and his band of faith
based political appointees. The mother****er exploded on the launch pad.


Wrong. President Bush is one of the finest presidents. The worst was
Jimmy Carter. It is because of his administration and failed foreign
policies that brought much of the problems we see today in the world.
And economically. Who is the only US President in history that gave
double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest
rates, all within a short period of time? You guessed it. Carter. No
doubt because of his band of liberal-based appointees. That MF exploded
on the launch pad.

On Apr 5, 6:32 pm, PM wrote:
kT wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:

I can't think of any presidency or presidential administration that has
failed more spectacularly than George W. Bush and his band of faith
based political appointees. The mother****er exploded on the launch pad.

Wrong. President Bush is one of the finest presidents. The worst was
Jimmy Carter. It is because of his administration and failed foreign
policies that brought much of the problems we see today in the world.
And economically. Who is the only US President in history that gave
double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest
rates, all within a short period of time? You guessed it. Carter. No
doubt because of his band of liberal-based appointees. That MF exploded
on the launch pad.

The first list here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...tes_Presidents

is (to me) surprisingly generous to both Dubya (#22) and Carter
(#27). It's premature to talk about how Dubya will rank, but it
probably won't change much before the end. I don't think his GPA will
pull above C+ unless he turns Iraq around. Nor is it likely drop
below C- unless it turns out the Homeland Security has some security
hole so big that you can fly several hijacked airliners through it,
and we find that out the wrong way.

Liberals and conservatives seem to agree that Lincoln is #1. They
aren't even very split on FDR (#3 for conservatives, #2 for
liberals). Both conservatives and liberals rank Nixon very low.
However, being hated by large numbers of people does not in itself
disqualify one from greatness of a sort.

Frankly, the only thing I'm getting out of looking into this question
is a newfound curiosity about Grover Cleveland. Hey, why don't we
argue about him? Is Grover Cleveland the most underappreciated almost-
great president in U.S. history? Or did that mother****er explode on
the launch pad?

-michael turner

PM wrote:
kT wrote:
Rand Simberg wrote:

I can't think of any presidency or presidential administration that
has failed more spectacularly than George W. Bush and his band of
faith based political appointees. The mother****er exploded on the
launch pad.


Wrong. President Bush is one of the finest presidents.

Ah yes, that a fine national debt indeed, that he left us, and a fine
justice department, and such a fine day it was on September 11, 2001,
clear blue and not a cloud in the sky, and such a fine unwinnable and
unnecessary war he got us into, and now refuses even to get us out of.

Americans are such fine people, loved the world over because of GWB.

Yes, and George W. Bush is so generous to science! Plus he certainly got
America's priorities straightened out, he straightened those gays right
out, didn't he. Such a fine job evacuating New Orleans in the face of a
well predicted catastrophic hurricane too, and he did such a fine job
rebuilding it and repopulating it, and such a fine job restoring order.

Yes, everything is just fine in America, everybody owns a home now that
they can't afford to heat, let alone pay the mortgage on.

--
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