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Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-tis!oodis01!uplherc!esunix!bpendlet
From: bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: space news from Sept 12 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1110@esunix.UUCP>
Date: 28 Nov 88 17:16:21 GMT
References: <23618@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Organization: Evans & Sutherland, Salt Lake City, Utah
Lines: 47

From article <23618@amdcad.AMD.COM>, by phil@diablo.amd.com (Phil Ngai):
> In article <1091@esunix.UUCP> bpendlet@esunix.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes:
> |Remember the name of the comany that won the SRM contract was THIOKOL.
> 
> Seems to me that the Thiokol proposal was a design which had the joint
> rotation problem. 

Yes, but we were discussing management problems. 

> In other words, the technical problem was there from
> the beginning. Didn't Thiokol have enough experience to know this
> wouldn't work? Or were they just trying to make something cheap enough
> to win the bid? 


My understanding is that the Thiokol joint design allowed them to come
up with the lowest bid, which won them the contract. The new joint
design is, in fact, the joint design proposed by Hercules in their
bid. NASA rated the Hercules joint to be technically superior, but too
expensive. I don't know much about other bidders designs because I
don't know people who work for the other bidders. What can I say? You
get what you pay for. Thiokol bid it, but NASA bought it. Didn't NASA
have enough experience to know this wouldn't work? After all, no one
had ever built anything like it before.

As for Thiokols' level of experience. They have built MANY large (and
small) solid rocket motors. First stage on all the Minutemen, first
stage Peacekeeper (that name still makes me cringe), and first stage
on most of the submarine launched missiles. The Thiokol/Hercules joint
venture has been so good on the sub launched missiles that the Navy
has trouble getting other companies to even bother to bid. Though, I
think Hercules got D5 (Trident II) all to it self.

They claim that the sub scale (1/4 scale is what I remember)
prototypes for the SRMs were the largest solid rocket motors built,
until they built the first set of full scale SRBs. So I guess they
have most of the experience there is to be had in the area of very
large solid rocket motors. Of course whoever (CSD?) builds the Titan-3
families solid rocket motors has about 10 times the experience with
large segmented rocket motors. And Hercules grabbed about half the
Titan-4 solid propulsion contract away from them!

			Bob P.
-- 
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
UUCP Address:  decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet

		Reality is what you make of it.