On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 10:48:50 -0700 (PDT), "David J. McCue"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I find the mean-spirited nature of this comment diffficult to understand.
Dave, I'm sorry I sounded mean-spirited to you. I had and have no ill
intentions toward you, RRS, or CSULB. Come on, you know me better
than that.
My comment was meant to express my surprise and dismay that someone
would fly an expensive rocket on an engine that had only been
successfully tested once. One success shouldn't give you enough
confidence in a new design that you are willing to risk very much on
its repeated success under new and more stringent conditions.
I see two alternative histories: 1) do more static tests before
committing to flight; 2) fly the student payload on a conventional HPR
with a conventional recovery system, fly the experimental recovery
system on an HPR with nothing else aboard, and fly the aerospike
engine on as plain vanilla vehicle as you can build, using a
conventional recovery system. AIUI, the student payload was destroyed
because the engine malfed (to be expected on a first flight, and no
big by itself) _and_ the recovery system failed.
My advice going forward is simply to put your eggs in separate
baskets, at least until you're 95% confident that your baskets are 50%
reliable or better. Once all three systems are working, integrate
them into a single vehicle. It's more work, and it costs more and
takes longer. But IMHO it's your only realistic shot at success.
-R
--
"SEAL training is just like Ranger training, except
it's three weeks longer. It takes that long to teach
them how to balance the balls on their noses."
-- Doug Jones
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