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Of course if politics hadn't caused parts of the shuttle to be built far away from the launch pad, they wouldn't have needed O-rings in the first place
by mavhc 10y ago
Of course if politics hadn't caused parts of the shuttle to be built far away from the launch pad, they wouldn't have needed O-rings in the first place
- greenshackle2 10y agoYes, it is well known that American engineers do not use O-rings. In fact, Americans could have built the entire shuttle without using any parts at all.
- snrplfth 10y agoThe Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters were mainly built in Utah, and many people assert that this choice of location was due to political patronage. The fact that these boosters were built inland, far from barge-capable waterways and distant from the launch site, meant that, rather than being completed as a single large piece at the factory, it arrived at the Kennedy Space Center as four pieces, which were then joined together with the O-rings in question. This made them vulnerable to a blowout of the kind experienced with Challenger; solid rocket boosters made in a single piece are generally much less vulnerable to this kind of failure.
- greenshackle2 10y agoFair enough, I don't know what I'm talking about. Thanks for explaining. (I thought OP meant no O-rings would've been used in the entire shuttle, not just these particular ones.)
- simonjgreen 10y agoDefinite brinkmanship. This is comparable to performing a root cause analysis and finding the root cause to be a desire to go to space.