STS51L Accident Questions

On 8 Mar 2005 09:58:21 -0800, wrote:

You say that like it's a good thing. She's like 65 now, isn't she?

,,,Just because she's that old doesn't mean she can't hold herself up
well enough. Barbara Eden's about 70 now, and she's held up well
enough that there's not ejecta and rilles around her famous jeweled
navel.

Then again, it's probably the fact that I'm getting old myself that
older women don't look old because they're still younger than I am...

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
Slag is a constant issue. 12.5 sps is enough to pick it up...

What's the origin of the slag? The igniters?

No, the fuel itself. There's a fair bit of aluminum in it, because
aluminum burns very hot and makes the fuel more energetic. But the
product -- aluminum oxide, aka alumina -- is a liquid, not a gas, at SRB
flame temperatures. There may be other minor components in the slag, but
that's the big one.

A lot of it just goes out the exhaust as small droplets, cooling and
solidifying as it goes. (That's why the exhaust is so smoky -- the smoke
is slag particles.) But the SRB nozzle is recessed a bit into the motor,
so the very bottom of the motor casing is actually below the nozzle inlet,
and liquid slag can (and does) accumulate there. The result, once the
motor has been burning a while, is a pool of liquid which slops over into
the nozzle frequently. Whenever it slops, you get a small pressure spike,
because the liquid momentarily narrows the gas flow path a bit.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On 8 Mar 2005 09:56:15 -0800, wrote:

Whether it "works" or not is somewhat irrelevant to me. The topic under
discussion is of particular professional interest to me, and I'm kinda
using this as practice, since I'll be in charge of reconstructing motor
performance for STS-114 in May. It's interesting to see how data can be
presented, and how it can be mis-interpretted.

....I have to admit, this is a very *valid* arguement. It would be far
preferable if you were working with data from a reliable - not to
mention *sane* - source. If I were you, I'd look at grabbing data from
other launches to cover your ass regarding any "irregularities" in the
data provided by this particular M*****.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:05:34 -0800, lexcorp wrote:

Aluminum powder is the actual fuel. Three basic components... aluminum
fuel, ammonium perchlorate oxidizer (Stewart! You fool!)

OK... so I accidentally blew up Utah... sorry! But
they weren't using it for much anyways, right?

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

On 8 Mar 2005 09:56:15 -0800, wrote:

Maybe I'll finally get inducted into the Illuminatti and get to see the
Ark of the Covenenat, the Spear of Destiny and Mjollnir.

....Haven't you heard? The Ark is now a BBQ pit, the Spear is the
roasting spit mounted on the two Angels of the Arc, and Mjolnir is
being used as the meat tenderizer.

The meat? What did you think the Gummint did with Paul Bunyan's big
blue ox, Babe? A century later, and he's still feeding the troops
overseas...

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

wrote:

3: I was declared part of the Zionist conspiracy after writing about
how some of the Luftwaffe '46 designs are BS.



Those would have worked! There's nothing inherently wrong with a Mach 7
asymmetrical forward swept flying wing driven by a coal dust powered
ejector ramjet, and built of compressed sawdust in an asphalt matrix for
stealth characteristics. Genius! The design is pure Aryan genius!

Pat

wrote:


You say that like it's a good thing. She's like 65 now, isn't she?




She's 58; how dare you say something like that about Jennie-poo Marlow?
You're not going along with the admiral and the orphans to the Holy Land
come Christmas, Mister!
You had better be careful come Thanksgiving, lest a turkey falls out of
the sky onto you or something.... ;-)

Pat

Chuck Stewart wrote:

The motor... aluminum perchlorate.



It thought it would have vaporized as it burned...if it's forming into
slag and then getting ejected, it doesn't sound like the fuel is burning
optimally- although that does explain the bits of burning stuff that can
be seen exiting the SRB's nozzle just before jettison.

Pat

Derek Lyons wrote:

For a broad interpretation of the word 'survived', yes. There's a
pretty big hole in the RH SRB, and a massive performance shortfall in
the same.



And they were self-destructed by range safety after the vehicle broke
up. But they did survive the break-up.

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:23:39 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote:

Chuck Stewart brainfarted:

The motor... aluminum perchlorate.

When he should have said.

'Aluminum (burning with ammonium perchlorate)'

It thought it would have vaporized as it burned...if it's forming into
slag and then getting ejected, it doesn't sound like the fuel is burning
optimally-

.... yet...

As Scott pointed out the slag is primarily
a startup problem.

Pat

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