At 04:32 PM 06/15/2002, Ian Woollard wrote: >In theory you can make the rocket thinner, but that probably leads to >structural >issues- can a 20cm wide 6m long pole survive takeoff stresses- will it buckle, >resonate? etc. etc.
That's a 30:1 aspect ratio. That's marginal - bending moments do bad things when you're that skinny. >Still, IRC losing your engines on a 767 jet aircraft just after takeoff- >you're screwed. Doesn't matter >if you can make it back to the airport; the mass is too high to land >without dumping the fuel- >but you don't have time to do that. You're gonna have a bad day one way or >another. All the heavies have dead zones like that, but I don't think they analogy holds up well. With the airplane, it usually isn't engine failure that gives you the headache. >I'd like to think that regulations are ultimately based on commonsense. ;-) For some value of ultimately, yes... They tend to be based more on precedent. But precedent is another way of saying, "This worked before." -R -- No electrons were harmed in the creation of this message PETE - People for the Ethical Treatment of Electrons Randall Clague [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
