Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!gordo From: gordo@athena.mit.edu (Garet G Nenninger) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: RE: Shuttle Escape Systems Message-ID: <5214@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 9 May 88 20:15:14 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Reply-To: gordo@athena.mit.edu (Garet G Nenninger) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 21 Keywords: cc: kas@hp-pcd.hp.com Ken, you are correct in saying that the shuttle is designed to re-enter at very high mach numbers, but that is going *forward*. The data I've seen says that the shuttle would separate at it's nose fitting but would be pinned against the two aft fittings. The resulting torque would slam the shuttle's nose away from the ET/SRB stack, so that the shuttle would have an angle of attack of about 90 degrees. That's definitely not something it was designed for. If you remember that Delta failure a few years back, when the rocket lost directional control and pitched over 20 degrees or so, the shroud was ripped off and it had begun to tear apart even before the range safety officer destroyed it. I'm not sure about the SRB plume problem, but keep in mind that the shuttle tiles are very brittle ceramic and that there is plenty of particulate matter in an SRB plume. (The brittleness of the tiles is the reason they cannot launch through rain--it would batter the tiles like a sandblaster.) The SRB plume is also very corrosive. While the tiles really aren't needed if the separation were low enough (hence no atmoshpheric heating), the only thing under them is a thin aluminum skin. It wouldn't take long for the plume to eat or burn through that if the tiles were blasted off.