On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 22:26:41 -0700, "Tony Fredericks"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>But it still teaches bad engineering practices, in that, they didn't run
>more than one successful 4 second burn. They should be taught to test until
>they achieve the same result reliably.
It isn't an aerospace testing course. It's an aerospace engineering
course; it has to cover the entire spectrum of engineering. College
students are not patient - were you at that age? - and doing one good
static test followed by one flight test (which crashes) is much more
suited to them than a dozen or a hundred static tests. How many
groups can say they've static tested a spike nozzle liquid fuel
engine? Several, going back 40 years. How many groups can say
they've flown one? One. CSULB. It flew, man. Give 'em a break.
David Anderman once said on the CATS Prize Board that static tests
don't count. HPR doesn't count, static tests don't count, viewgraphs
don't count, even bench proven hardware doesn't. To really be
somebody in the CATS world, you have to fly something you made
yourself. I got all bent out of shape - then asked myself why. It
was because he was right, and that meant ERPS, which had only ever
done static tests and a lot of facilities maintenance, didn't count.
That was not acceptable, and thus was born KISS.
CSULB and their advisory team know this too. So, they fly, even when
they're not sure they'll have a nominal flight. This makes them crash
a lot. They seem to be OK with that, given their time crunch.
Bottom line: the better is the enemy of the good enough.
-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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