Terry Blanton wrote: > On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote: >> IIRC this was blamed on the motion of the Shuttle across >> the Earth's magnetic field. > > Was it? I thought it was due to the difference in potential of the > earth gradient and the failure was due to insulation breakdown.
The failure was due to insulation breakdown, it's true -- they had actually planned on the voltage difference and if all equipment had functioned properly it would (probably) have been fine. None the less the voltage they were insulating against is the thing we're interested in here. I also recall seeing claims that it was the earth gradient at fault but I didn't think that was considered conclusive -- and, in fact, I thought the expected value of the earth gradient was swamped by computed values for the dynamo effect. But I could be all wet. > > Terry >
