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We talked about and gone through the history
of the Shuttle a little bit.

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We're going to go into it some more today.

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But, to refresh your memory, there really
were three subsystems on the shuttle that

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were pressing the state of the art.

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One was the thermal protection system which
we talked about, Tom Moser talked about.

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The other was the avionic system with the
computers, the computer synchronized.

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The four computers synchronized because, as
we explained, the Orbiter really needs a computer

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to fly because it is a fly-by-wire system,
which is statically unstable.

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And the other system that was pressing the
state of the art was the Space Shuttle main

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engine.

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It had a high pressure, high temperature and
high performance.

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And so, you're going to hear about that today.

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Now, the person that's going to talk to you
--

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Many of you, I'm sure, heard the term rocket
scientist but you probably don't really know

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what that means.

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Well, today you're going to meet one.

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You're going to meet a true rocket scientist.

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J.R. Thompson was responsible for the design,
development, test and operation of the space

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shuttle main engine.

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During Apollo J.R. had a very similar function
in the design and working on the launch vehicle

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for the Apollo vehicle.

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He became director of the Marshall Space Flight
Center.

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Then he was deputy administrator at NASA in
Washington.

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And now he's president of Orbital Sciences.

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You're in for a real treat.

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Thanks, Aaron.

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Aaron asked me to consider this talk, I don't
know, several months ago.

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And I was a little hesitant at first, but
then the more I thought about it, it's given

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me a good opportunity to go back and kind
of recount some of the highlights and the

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low points in the program.

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It was some 30 years ago for me.

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So, there is some of this that's going to
be still a little fuzzy.

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But there is a lot of it that it's just like
it was yesterday.

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Actually, the Shuttle main engine has its
roots back in the technology programs that

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were funded and came out of Apollo.

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As early as the mid-1960s, people at the Marshall
Space Flight Center in the same propulsion

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group that I was in, although my attention
was focused on Apollo at that time, were heavily

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involved with Pratt & Whitney, Rocketdyne
and Aerojet in developing the high-pressure

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turbomachinery that would one day be envisioned
to use in the Shuttle, if there ever were

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a Shuttle.

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So, that's back when it started.

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And there was a good bit of effort put in
at that time.

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I think, as you probably know, Rocketdyne
of North America won the contract in July.

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Actually, July 13th of 1971.

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So, shortly after Apollo.

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Apollo was still winding down when the Shuttle
Program got its legs.

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And the Shuttle main engine was one of the
very early awards because, as Aaron indicated,

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it was early on envisioned that that would
be what we called back then the long tent

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pole in the program.

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It came on the heels of a one-year Phase B
competition between Pratt, Rocketdyne and

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Aerojet.

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During this Phase B, NASA funded some technology
demonstrations, requirements definition and

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that kind of thing.

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Actually, Rocketdyne, at that time, did a
very bold demonstration of what they call

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power head.

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And I will show you what that encompassed
in just a minute.

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But it was a demonstration of the heart of
the engine.

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It only operated for a short period of time
but very high pressure.

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It was risky.

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They pulled it off.

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It was actually driven by a fellow called
Paul Castenholz who was a guy coming out of

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Apollo that basically solved or lead the team
that solved the combustion instability on

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the F1 engine.

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Paul was a very ambitious fellow, very aggressive
and very bold in trying to capture this award

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for Rocketdyne.

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At that time, though, NASA envisioned what
they called a fly back booster.

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The Shuttle main engine was envisioned to
be a common engine for the fly back booster,

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as well as the Orbiter.

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In that early concept, there would be 12 SSMEs
on the backend of the fly back booster operating

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at 550,000 pounds of vacuum thrust.

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And on the Orbiter configuration it was three
engines operating at 632,000 pounds of thrust

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in vacuum.

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Because of the money that was forecasted at
that time and that had been appropriated to

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date, NASA was always behind the power curve
in the early phases of the program.

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And they never got everything they wanted.

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And I'm sure that Dale Myers and others that
have preceded me have told you the ins and

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outs of why then NASA scaled back from the
fly back booster to the solid rocket motors.

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And so, at that point, the Shuttle main engine
was refocused at 470,000 pounds of thrust.

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And that was what's called the rated power
level.

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At that time, I think there was a full power
level and an emergency power level of 109%

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of the rated thrust that was in the program,
but I'll show you a view graph in a minute

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that has the specific parameters of the engine
as it finally settled out.

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After the award, Pratt & Whitney protested.

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It was a hard fought competition.

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NASA had specified that they wanted an engine
bell configuration, a nozzle bell as opposed

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to Rocketdyne's aerodynamic spike that they
had promoted in the late `60s.

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I'm not sure if everybody here knows what
an aerospike is.

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You may say one or two things about it.

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Well, it's a truncated nozzle.

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Actually, it's packaged and derives the nozzle
from the expansion of the gases here where

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the nozzle wall is formed by additional gases
that come out in the cooling system.

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And it's a very high performing engine.

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Its
packaging is certainly an advantage where
you don't need a big boat tail, say like you

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would with the engine.

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You're saving about 10 or 12 feet there and
the weight that goes along with it.

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Pratt & Whitney had been focusing on a bell
nozzle all the time.

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And frankly those of us that were kind of
on the periphery of this program and still

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involved in the Apollo kind of figured that
Pratt had the advantage in this because Rocketdyne

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was, of course, awarded the propulsion systems
for the Apollo Saturn Program.

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And it was kind of viewed as Pratt & Whitney's
turn.

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It didn't turn out that way.

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I attribute a lot of that to the good proposal,
the boldness and the demonstration program

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that Rocketdyne accomplished during the competitive
period.

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Anyway, Pratt & Whitney protested.

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It took about nine months for the protest
to be settled.

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It was settled in favor of Rocketdyne.

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In the meantime, Rocketdyne was allowed to
continue to work with the contractors on the

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vehicle side because they hadn't made the
selection at that time there.

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So they could continue to support their work.

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Anyway, in 1972, it was all settled.

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The contract was awarded cost plus.

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And, as I recall, it was $200 million for
the development which was called Phase A,

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and $200 million for the production which
was called Phase B.

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And the Phase B program included, I believe,
26 production engines.

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I won't comment as to what the costs eventually
grew to, but very substantially beyond that.

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Let me kind of highlight for you the characteristics
of the
engine.

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I think I mentioned the thrust levels.

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The rated power level was 470,000 pounds.

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It had the capability, if an engine was out
early and you wanted to abort the orbit to

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throttle the engine up to 109% of the rated
thrust that was called full power level.

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Early on in the program, I think it was termed
emergency power level.

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But, at the rated conditions, it accommodated
or required a little over 3,000 pounds per

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square inch chamber pressure in the combustion
chamber.

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The area ratio of the nozzle was 77:1.

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It had a very good specific impulse.

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About 453, 454.

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That compares to J2 in Apollo of about 442,
as I recall, somewhere in that range.

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Weight was about 7,000 pounds.

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Life 7.5 hours and 55 missions.

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That's quite misleading, though, let me tell
you.

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And I'll comment more on this as we go through.

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But it was a very tough development program.

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It took from '72, as I mentioned, through
first flight in 1981.

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I joined the program after Apollo and after
Skylab in May of 1974.

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And it was torture from there until the first
flight in April of '81.

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Early on it was envisioned that, as I mentioned,
the SSME would be used for both the fly back

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booster and the Orbiter configuration.

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It would use basically the same power head.

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You would just change out the nozzles to give
you the two engine thrust levels.

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And so it was rather simple in that concept.

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Of course, that's not the way it worked out.

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It went to one configuration to service the
Orbiter.

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And so everything was optimized and focused
on that.

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Now let me say a few words about the schematic
itself and what the engine looked like.

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In conceptual terms, it had two low pressure
pumps which were required to give the proper

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inlet pressures to both high pressure pumps
to avoid cavitation.

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It had the two high pressure pumps.

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It was all fed through a common power head
to a thrust chamber assembly and then into

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the nozzle.

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Starting on the fuel side, the fuel pump increased
the pressure to about 300 pounds per square

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inch.

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And then that went into the high pressure
pump on the fuel side where the pressure was

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boosted to a little over 6,000 pounds per
square inch.

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About 80% of the fuel all went to the two
pre-burners, the fuel and the oxidizer pre-burner

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contrasted to about 12% of the oxidizer.

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That was to provide a very fuel rich power
system to drive the two turbines, the high

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pressure fuel pump turbine and the LOX pump
turbine.

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The turbine temperatures were in the range
of 1750 degrees air ranking.

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Almost all of the housing structure on probably
80% of the engine was Inconel, very tough

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steel.

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Able to take very high pressures.

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As I mentioned, the combustion pressure in
the chamber was about 3,000 pounds per square

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inch.

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At the entry to the pre-burners, the pressure
could get up to 8,000 pounds per square inch.

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It was a very high pressure system up and
down.

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It was all in series.

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In other words, this was the way they achieved
the high efficiency.

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All of the propellant came through the low
pressure system, the high pressure system

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into the pre-burners, in through the cooling
circuits, all in the hot gas manifold, all

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in the main chamber, all of it exited the
nozzle.

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None was dumped overboard to simplify the
flow pad.

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A good bit of the fuel at the exit of the
high pressure pump went directly to feed the

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two pre-burners.

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A good bit of it, about 20% of it went to
cool the nozzle, then up through and cool

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the --

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Rather drove the turbine because, having cooled
the nozzle, it was converted to a warm gas

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which then drove the low pressure turbine,
came back in and was captured and served to

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cool the shell of the hot gas manifold.

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The same similar thing on the oxidizer side.

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By the way, I'll mention the speed of the
low pressure fuel pump was about 15,000 rpm

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and high pressure fuel pump about 35,000 rpm.

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The speed of the low pressure LOX pump was
5,000 rpm and of the high pressure oxidizer

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pump about 30,000 rpm.

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The discharge of the low pressure LOX pump
was about 250 pounds per square inch entered

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into the main LOX pump where the pressure
was elevated to 4500 pounds per square inch.

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00:19:09,580 --> 00:19:16,580
Then it went some to the pre-burners and the
rest directly into the main combustion chamber.

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00:19:19,289 --> 00:19:26,289
Some part of the lock flow then was further
boosted to about a little over 8,000 pounds

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per square inch, which fed the oxidizer into
the two pre-burners.

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It was a very efficient cycle, very high pressured
cycle.

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A couple other features that you don't see
on this chart, there was a heat exchanger

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wrapped around the high pressure oxidizer
turbo pump turbine which served to preheat

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gas to pressurize the oxidizer tank.

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00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:11,160
I think those are the major points that I
would make on the cycle itself.

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Most of the problems, I'll just point out
here, had very few problems with the two low

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pressure pumps.

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00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:28,330
A lot of technology in the high pressure pumps,
both fuel and oxidizer.

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00:20:28,330 --> 00:20:35,330
The main problem with the high pressure fuel
pump was sub-synchronous whirl, and I'll say

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a little bit more about this in a moment.

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It was a very traumatic time in the early
period of developing the Shuttle main engine.

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It caused a lot of delays.

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A tough problem to solve.

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00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,990
And I'll mention what caused it and how we
solved it.

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Then the high pressure oxidizer turbopump
bearing overloads, LOX fires, explosions.

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That was probably the single toughest component
to developing the program as I recall it.

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I think those are the major points that I'll
make there.

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Early on it was planned, because they had
such a head start
in planning for the development of this program,

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to be done in a very methodical way.

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00:21:56,409 --> 00:22:03,070
And they had, when I say they I'm talking
about the people at Marshall with the people

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at Rocketdyne, a very elaborate system of
design verification systems where you couldn't

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00:22:12,850 --> 00:22:19,850
progress to the next stage until you had passed
certain testing on a valve or on a low pressure

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00:22:20,750 --> 00:22:21,390
pump.

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00:22:21,390 --> 00:22:28,390
And all this was envisioned to be done at
Santa Suzanna which is right out a short distance

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00:22:30,929 --> 00:22:37,929
from Canova Park up in the mountain on some
test facilities that both NASA and Rocketdyne

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00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:45,900
owned up at that time and that they were carried
over and upgraded from the Apollo program

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00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:52,669
to be done on the component facilities up
there.

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00:22:52,669 --> 00:22:59,669
But because of the high pressures involved
it became a very expensive undertaking, a

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00:23:03,409 --> 00:23:10,409
lot of money, too much time, huge facilities,
valves that were probably as big as that side

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00:23:17,100 --> 00:23:24,100
wall over here, to be able to handle these
high pressures to assist in the development

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00:23:24,549 --> 00:23:28,549
of this high pressure turbomachinery.

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00:23:28,549 --> 00:23:35,549
I think it became pretty clear, pretty early
in the program, that that very methodical

221
00:23:35,950 --> 00:23:42,780
way of developing the engine, and that is,
before we go to an engine system test, let's

222
00:23:42,780 --> 00:23:47,990
develop it at the component level so we eliminate
those problems.

223
00:23:47,990 --> 00:23:50,100
Although, theoretically it sounded very good.

224
00:23:50,100 --> 00:23:52,409
It just didn't work.

225
00:23:52,409 --> 00:23:59,409
The facilities were not available in time
to do that.

226
00:23:59,559 --> 00:24:06,559
And the money was going to be exorbitant Kind
of a side story.

227
00:24:08,380 --> 00:24:15,380
There was a contractor Bovey Crail as I recall
was the name of the contractor out in Los

228
00:24:16,929 --> 00:24:17,720
Angeles.

229
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:24,720
And early in the program when they were having
contract discussions and Bovey Crail was late

230
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:35,380
and Rocketdyne, at the instance of NASA, was
withholding money until they made certain

231
00:24:35,380 --> 00:24:37,419
progress.

232
00:24:37,419 --> 00:24:44,419
And so this fellow who was the president of
Rocketdyne, Bill Brennan, I was spending a

233
00:24:44,700 --> 00:24:51,659
lot of time out there, and he invited me to
sit in this meeting that he was going to have

234
00:24:51,659 --> 00:24:54,020
with the head of Bovey Crail.

235
00:24:54,020 --> 00:24:58,760
I guess he thought maybe it would impress
him that somebody from NASA was watching this

236
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,870
thing.

237
00:25:00,870 --> 00:25:01,799
Anyway, so I joined him.

238
00:25:01,799 --> 00:25:04,400
I think it was a Saturday morning.

239
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:09,730
And both Bill and I had on suits, coats and
ties.

240
00:25:09,730 --> 00:25:16,730
And this contractor or head guy from Bovey
Crail came in with some white bucks.

241
00:25:18,360 --> 00:25:22,140
He had on some yellow pants and a pink shirt.

242
00:25:22,140 --> 00:25:26,500
And he plopped down on Bill's sofa there.

243
00:25:26,500 --> 00:25:33,500
And, before Bill could open his mouth, he
said all I want is my blankety blank money.

244
00:25:35,039 --> 00:25:37,539
And so it was a short discussion.

245
00:25:37,539 --> 00:25:44,539
[LAUGHTER] He was there to collect his money
and Brennan couldn't pay him because of some

246
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,279
of the restrictions that NASA had.

247
00:25:50,279 --> 00:25:55,110
So, it was a messy deal trying to get those
facilities built.

248
00:25:55,110 --> 00:26:02,110
And it became clear that we were going to
have to develop the components in parallel

249
00:26:03,049 --> 00:26:04,710
with the engine test.

250
00:26:04,710 --> 00:26:11,710
It was the biggest systems engineering challenge
that I think we had in the shuttle program.

251
00:26:14,010 --> 00:26:21,010
Certainly, there were a lot of challenges
in major systems integrating the shuttle engine

252
00:26:21,450 --> 00:26:23,610
into the Orbiter, for example.

253
00:26:23,610 --> 00:26:29,919
But down at the engine level, the systems
engineering, to develop those components,

254
00:26:29,919 --> 00:26:36,279
the two low pressure pumps, the two high pressure
pumps, the pre-burners, the hot gas manifold,

255
00:26:36,279 --> 00:26:41,270
the main injector, all the control valves.

256
00:26:41,270 --> 00:26:47,380
And then we also had on the engine, which
I didn't show on the schematic, a computer,

257
00:26:47,380 --> 00:26:53,470
redundant computers that were cross-strapped
so that the input or the output could be cross-strapped

258
00:26:53,470 --> 00:26:59,230
and be very tolerant to failure.

259
00:26:59,230 --> 00:27:06,049
We went to what we call an integrated subsystem
test bed, ISTB.

260
00:27:06,049 --> 00:27:10,630
That became the bobtail engine of the program.

261
00:27:10,630 --> 00:27:17,630
Bobtail was a 35:1 area ratio nozzle which
allows us to not only start the engine but

262
00:27:21,710 --> 00:27:28,710
to operate it at the throttle condition 50%
of the rated thrust and the nozzle would still

263
00:27:29,429 --> 00:27:30,840
flow full.

264
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,320
It would not separate.

265
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:38,919
And so then we could proceed with the development
of the testing or the development of the engine

266
00:27:38,919 --> 00:27:39,690
program.

267
00:27:39,690 --> 00:27:46,690
It was an efficient way to go about the program
so we didn't stall.

268
00:27:52,260 --> 00:27:59,260
It was tough because we had to solve the engine
problems in parallel with the component problems

269
00:28:00,090 --> 00:28:01,470
all at the same time.

270
00:28:01,470 --> 00:28:07,270
And sometimes it was hard to tell which was
the problem.

271
00:28:07,270 --> 00:28:13,000
We started our first test in May of 1975.

272
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:20,000
That is me there on the left, and Norm Reuel
who replaced Paul Castenholz they're in the

273
00:28:25,299 --> 00:28:32,299
center, and Dom Sanchini who I view to this
day as the strength of the Shuttle Program,

274
00:28:32,710 --> 00:28:39,260
or rather the main engine who eventually replaced
Norm.

275
00:28:39,260 --> 00:28:46,260
A few comments on the evolution of some of
the people on the contractor side.

276
00:28:46,409 --> 00:28:53,409
I mentioned Paul Castenholz who to me was
the key to Rocketdyne winning the program.

277
00:28:55,870 --> 00:29:02,870
At that time, and this is a personal view,
I think Rocketdyne took a big sigh of relief

278
00:29:04,580 --> 00:29:11,580
after they won the contract, probably relaxed
a little too long, got in trouble up at Santa

279
00:29:13,419 --> 00:29:20,419
Susanna in not developing that component facility.

280
00:29:21,270 --> 00:29:28,270
The test control centers up there, Coke bottles
were laying around, so it was not a well-disciplined

281
00:29:33,870 --> 00:29:34,120
operation.

282
00:29:33,870 --> 00:29:39,399
They had gotten lax, I guess, was the best
way to say it.

283
00:29:39,399 --> 00:29:46,399
Norm Reuel came in to run the program at the
request of NASA.

284
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:53,520
He had done the same job on a J2 and other
programs within Rocketdyne for the Saturn

285
00:29:57,700 --> 00:30:04,700
Program and worked with me and the other fellows
at Marshall.

286
00:30:06,270 --> 00:30:13,270
And we appointed Dom to drive this ISTB to
help us learn how to start the engine to how

287
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:21,630
we could properly integrate a number of the
components into the engine and proved in the

288
00:30:21,630 --> 00:30:28,630
long-run to be a very valuable tool.

289
00:30:29,350 --> 00:30:36,350
This chart depicts the buildup of run time
on the engine.

290
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:44,240
Test seconds are plotted on the right in thousands,
and the number of tests plotted on the left

291
00:30:45,919 --> 00:30:48,640
and the year is shown down here.

292
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,000
We started, as I mentioned, in 1975.

293
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:59,000
We finally flew in April of 1981 on STS-1.

294
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:10,880
The title, someone asked me a little earlier,
that's first manned orbital flight.

295
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:17,059
That's what we referred to our goal back at
that time.

296
00:31:17,059 --> 00:31:24,059
I've highlighted along the way, I believe,
14 major engine explosions all of which were

297
00:31:26,159 --> 00:31:28,190
very traumatic in themselves.

298
00:31:28,190 --> 00:31:35,190
I'll show you some pictures shortly of what
an engine looks like after it goes through

299
00:31:35,830 --> 00:31:36,269
that.

300
00:31:36,269 --> 00:31:42,159
And then you can extrapolate that to envision
what was in the boat tail of the Orbiter had

301
00:31:42,159 --> 00:31:49,159
it occurred in flight and what it would have
done to the flight itself.

302
00:31:49,730 --> 00:31:53,409
The test seconds curve is down here.

303
00:31:53,409 --> 00:32:00,409
You can see the long plateau of about nine
months where a combination of learning to

304
00:32:02,769 --> 00:32:09,769
properly ignite the engine without over-temping
the turbine blades or other parts of the turbine

305
00:32:12,590 --> 00:32:19,590
combined with what I'll call this sub-synchronous
whirl on the high pressure fuel pump.

306
00:32:20,490 --> 00:32:27,490
Sub-synchronous whirl, there is a very exotic
definition of it, but it's an orbiting of

307
00:32:29,820 --> 00:32:36,820
the shaft within the bearings themselves caused
by a softening of that system.

308
00:32:38,279 --> 00:32:43,529
And you can imagine the softening is attributed
to overheating of the bearings.

309
00:32:43,529 --> 00:32:45,110
You don't have the stiffness.

310
00:32:45,110 --> 00:32:52,110
And so this allows the rotor to orbit there,
vibrations get very high and we have to shut

311
00:32:56,679 --> 00:32:58,880
the engine down.

312
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:05,880
We couldn't get into the test, but about 2.35
seconds was the nominal time before we would

313
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:15,000
encounter this very high vibration and then
have to shut the engine down.

314
00:33:17,169 --> 00:33:24,000
And then after that the engine and the turbomachinery
were located down in Mississippi where we

315
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:31,000
were doing the testing.

316
00:33:31,779 --> 00:33:33,980
It wasn't like you could just try it again.

317
00:33:33,980 --> 00:33:39,190
You had to bring it all back, replace the
bearings, try to figure out what the problem

318
00:33:39,190 --> 00:33:41,690
was and put in some kind of a fix.

319
00:33:41,690 --> 00:33:48,659
We went through a number of fixes trying to
stiffen the system so we could be able to

320
00:33:48,659 --> 00:33:52,370
tolerate and drive through.

321
00:33:52,370 --> 00:33:58,549
I thought at that time that if we could ever
get through this period then we would be all

322
00:33:58,549 --> 00:33:59,899
right.

323
00:33:59,899 --> 00:34:06,899
But, as it turned out [NOISE OBSCURES].

324
00:34:09,990 --> 00:34:16,990
Well, it manifested itself in overheating
of the bearings, spalling of the bearings

325
00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:25,060
in their raceways.

326
00:34:26,740 --> 00:34:33,740
I think turbine speeds at that time, or the
speed of the rotor was probably in the 15,000

327
00:34:35,659 --> 00:34:42,659
rpm before you could catch the engine and
shut it down operating for a second or a half

328
00:34:43,429 --> 00:34:50,020
a second with those high side loads, inadequate
cooling, overheating of the bearings.

329
00:34:50,020 --> 00:34:56,159
You'd get the bearings back and you'd put
them in your hand and they were very much

330
00:34:56,159 --> 00:34:56,839
damaged.

331
00:34:56,839 --> 00:35:03,839
I mean that was the manifestation of the problem.

332
00:35:04,780 --> 00:35:11,780
We went into this for quite a period of time.

333
00:35:21,050 --> 00:35:24,859
I think what I wanted to capture was the picture
over here.

334
00:35:24,859 --> 00:35:25,800
Ignore this.

335
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,400
This is more dramatic.

336
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:29,770
I will come back to that later.

337
00:35:29,770 --> 00:35:35,790
But this is a high pressure fuel turbopump.

338
00:35:35,790 --> 00:35:42,790
The sub-synchronous whirl and the overheating
of the bearings occurred on the turbine side.

339
00:35:45,750 --> 00:35:49,849
The coolant path is probably going to be hard
for you to see, but you come through some

340
00:35:49,849 --> 00:35:51,240
labyrinth seals here.

341
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:58,240
You go down this passage, up through the center
of the shaft and in through some provisions

342
00:35:59,940 --> 00:36:05,099
that were made to cool the bearings on a turbine
end.

343
00:36:05,099 --> 00:36:12,099
We brought in a lot of external consultants,
had a lot of cooperation from people across

344
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:19,280
the country, but after nine months it was
one of the internal guys at Rocketdyne, Joe

345
00:36:21,329 --> 00:36:27,390
Stangeland, and some of the people in his
turbomachinery group that came up with the

346
00:36:27,390 --> 00:36:34,390
idea that there was a vortex that was occurring
in this cavity on a turbine end.

347
00:36:36,900 --> 00:36:41,650
And what we had to do was to kill that vortex
and then allow the coolant to go through.

348
00:36:41,650 --> 00:36:48,570
And so he put a little what he called a paddle,
which is this part you see right here, which

349
00:36:48,570 --> 00:36:55,570
is about the size of dime that was screwed
into here to the rotor at that point.

350
00:36:58,250 --> 00:37:05,119
And the first task, after we included the
paddle right off the block where the engine

351
00:37:05,119 --> 00:37:12,119
had been stalled and couldn't get beyond about
2.35 seconds, went right up to the minimum

352
00:37:13,950 --> 00:37:20,950
power level, which is the power level we had
set and planned all of the tests to accelerate

353
00:37:22,470 --> 00:37:26,550
to that level if we could make it.

354
00:37:26,550 --> 00:37:33,550
And so it was a very dramatic solution, fix,
and allowed the program to move on and see

355
00:37:36,510 --> 00:37:43,240
what was behind the next hurtle we were going
to run into.

356
00:37:43,240 --> 00:37:50,240
So this problem number one was just being
able to understand and accommodate the start

357
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:52,500
sequence.

358
00:37:52,500 --> 00:37:57,839
You had to start the engine fuel rich.

359
00:37:57,839 --> 00:38:04,839
Any excessive oxidizer would give you a cutoff
because of all the sensors that we had.

360
00:38:06,250 --> 00:38:13,250
The second problem and the one that causes
the most time that I've mentioned is the high

361
00:38:13,730 --> 00:38:17,619
pressure fuel turbopump sub-synchronous whirl.

362
00:38:17,619 --> 00:38:24,619
And then problem number three, which are duplicated
here several times, are the LOX pump explosions.

363
00:38:29,790 --> 00:38:36,790
They could be triggered by loss of a turbine
blade on a turbine end which would unbalance

364
00:38:40,390 --> 00:38:47,390
the rotor, overload the bearings and then
cause a LOX rich fire which very quickly consumed

365
00:38:52,210 --> 00:38:54,450
the whole engine.

366
00:38:54,450 --> 00:39:01,450
There were numerous, well, I think three,
rather four highlighted there.

367
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,369
We had some other problems.

368
00:39:06,369 --> 00:39:13,369
I've noted a fuel pre-burner burn through,
just a structural burn through of the [OVERLAPPING

369
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:14,210
VOICES].

370
00:39:14,210 --> 00:39:21,210
How did you eventually solve that, because
the last failure you had was also the liquid

371
00:39:21,490 --> 00:39:28,010
oxygen explosion?

372
00:39:28,010 --> 00:39:35,010
Well, I'm not sure I can differentiate between
the LOX pump explosions.

373
00:39:37,349 --> 00:39:44,349
But late in the program, probably at that
time, we had been having for a long time problems

374
00:39:51,510 --> 00:39:55,190
with the turbine blades, very limited life.

375
00:39:55,190 --> 00:39:57,079
Cracks would grow.

376
00:39:57,079 --> 00:40:03,730
At that time, we didn't really understand
how long we could run them before we had to

377
00:40:03,730 --> 00:40:10,730
replace them so we went to dampers on the
turbine blades.

378
00:40:11,230 --> 00:40:18,230
And this occurred fairly late in the program
that eventually solved the vibration of the

379
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:28,400
blades within the turbine wheel stack and
allowed us to proceed.

380
00:40:29,170 --> 00:40:35,180
Whether that was that one that caused the
imbalance of the rotor or some earlier when

381
00:40:35,180 --> 00:40:42,000
they were primarily driven by bearing problems
considered for some time.

382
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:47,880
We used ball bearings in the Rocketdyne turbomachinery.

383
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:52,280
Later in the program they had gone to roller
bearings.

384
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,010
Pratt & Whitney has been contracted to develop
that.

385
00:40:56,010 --> 00:41:03,010
But the bearing problems and turbine blades
were the major problem, as I recall, that

386
00:41:06,780 --> 00:41:10,589
caused the LOX pump problem.

387
00:41:10,589 --> 00:41:17,589
As a matter of fact,
yes.

388
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:26,960
Do you think you would have had similar problems
if you had developed an aerospike instead?

389
00:41:30,550 --> 00:41:34,780
The turbo machinery was going to have to be
basically the same.

390
00:41:34,780 --> 00:41:41,380
And so, no, I think you'd have the same problems.

391
00:41:41,380 --> 00:41:48,380
The only problems that we had on the engine,
we had a nozzle steer horn failure.

392
00:41:53,230 --> 00:42:00,030
That was just a structural feed line that
was in the shape of a steer horn at the aft

393
00:42:00,030 --> 00:42:03,200
end of the bell nozzle.

394
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:09,730
We had two of those structural failures that
were very traumatic for the program.

395
00:42:09,730 --> 00:42:16,730
No, they were both right here.

396
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:24,000
And, of course, as soon as you lose the coolant
to the nozzle, you start shutting down a lot

397
00:42:26,290 --> 00:42:32,140
of the engine system LOX rich which causes
a fire.

398
00:42:32,140 --> 00:42:34,000
Certainly, you would have eliminated those.

399
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:41,000
You would have eliminated a number of I'll
call them nuisance problems in terms of we

400
00:42:45,599 --> 00:42:52,599
had 1,080 tubes that made up the nozzle that
we flowed the hydrogen through to keep the

401
00:42:53,690 --> 00:42:54,380
nozzle cool.

402
00:42:54,380 --> 00:42:57,430
1,080 of them.

403
00:42:57,430 --> 00:43:04,430
And we had a number of, again, I would call
them nuisance cracks or splits in those tubes

404
00:43:04,790 --> 00:43:06,990
that we learned to live with.

405
00:43:06,990 --> 00:43:13,990
We learned to go out and put a cap on them
post-flight, braise over and just cap off

406
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,780
the leak.

407
00:43:17,780 --> 00:43:19,130
Certainly, you wouldn't have had those.

408
00:43:19,130 --> 00:43:23,619
But all of the other problems I would have
seen come in between the aerospike as well

409
00:43:23,619 --> 00:43:24,790
as the bell nozzle.

410
00:43:24,790 --> 00:43:31,790
J.R., the shuttle main engine had the pressures
that you mentioned, the 3,000 pounds per square

411
00:43:44,359 --> 00:43:46,760
inch up to 8,000.

412
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:47,829
Give us some feeling for just how much higher
that was than the previous operational engine

413
00:43:47,829 --> 00:43:50,420
and whether the pressure itself was causing
a lot of those problems.

414
00:43:50,420 --> 00:43:57,420
Oh, yes, the J2, chamber pressure was about
700 pounds per square inch, as I recall it.

415
00:44:02,740 --> 00:44:09,740
RL10, which was the first LOX/hydrogen engine
in the country developed by Pratt & Whitney,

416
00:44:11,390 --> 00:44:17,740
chamber pressure was a couple hundred pounds
per square inch.

417
00:44:17,740 --> 00:44:24,060
This was a real push.

418
00:44:24,060 --> 00:44:26,109
Was it worth it?

419
00:44:26,109 --> 00:44:33,109
As you look back on the engine, you've now
taken into orbit over 300 of these engines

420
00:44:34,660 --> 00:44:38,359
and 100 flights three at a time.

421
00:44:38,359 --> 00:44:45,359
You have had one shut down because of a safety
sensor that failed and shut one engine down

422
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:50,030
in flight.

423
00:44:50,030 --> 00:44:55,099
And we were far enough along in the flight
so we aborted to orbit and the other two burned

424
00:44:55,099 --> 00:45:00,210
a little longer and went to orbit.

425
00:45:00,210 --> 00:45:05,130
But it was a very costly program.

426
00:45:05,130 --> 00:45:12,130
On some reflection, it was almost viewed in
the late `60s as that's the challenge.

427
00:45:17,530 --> 00:45:20,450
Not the shuttle engine but the technology.

428
00:45:20,450 --> 00:45:26,270
I mean let's really drive the technology and
make it very efficient, very high pressure.

429
00:45:26,270 --> 00:45:33,270
Aaron and I were talking a little earlier.

430
00:45:34,540 --> 00:45:41,540
The engine people, had the Orbiter flown a
100 times and had several major failures,

431
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,869
people would have expected the Shuttle engine,
I think, to have been the cause.

432
00:45:45,869 --> 00:45:47,310
That's not the way it turned out.

433
00:45:47,310 --> 00:45:52,400
And I'll comment on at least a contributor
in just a minute.

434
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:59,400
But this is the aftermath.

435
00:46:07,930 --> 00:46:14,930
When you're in the middle of a development
program, you've got a lot of budget pressures,

436
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:23,280
you've got the Shuttle's first flight date
changed several times, you've got all that

437
00:46:24,490 --> 00:46:31,490
hanging over your head and then you're called
down on Mississippi on a test and you look

438
00:46:33,260 --> 00:46:40,160
down on the engine and that's what it looks
like, it's like a kick in the stomach.

439
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:41,470
You've got to start all over.

440
00:46:41,470 --> 00:46:48,470
Well, that mental picture was in our minds
14 times in this program where you had to

441
00:46:50,420 --> 00:46:51,270
start over.

442
00:46:51,270 --> 00:46:58,270
The recovery was typically it took about a
month.

443
00:46:59,460 --> 00:47:06,460
We formed a team, usually within Rocketdyne
and one within NASA, to go solve the problem.

444
00:47:11,390 --> 00:47:18,390
Probably half of the time it was fairly evident
what the problem was quickly after the test.

445
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:26,490
Sometimes it took a couple of weeks to narrow
it down it could have been this or that.

446
00:47:26,490 --> 00:47:33,490
And then you fix both this or that not knowing
exactly what it was.

447
00:47:34,349 --> 00:47:41,349
And so it was a very tedious and time-consuming.

448
00:47:41,589 --> 00:47:43,020
We were testing around the clock.

449
00:47:43,020 --> 00:47:49,760
If it occurred during the holidays you just
cancelled your holidays and jumped in, and

450
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:50,740
we did what we had to do.

451
00:47:50,740 --> 00:47:57,740
I will mention, as I look back, kind of one
of the dumbest things that I did on this program

452
00:47:58,940 --> 00:48:02,660
was somewhat associated with the testing.

453
00:48:02,660 --> 00:48:09,660
This happened to be, I think back early on
in the sub-synchronous whirl days, we were

454
00:48:11,849 --> 00:48:18,559
changing out the turbo machinery after almost
every test because we were doing the damage

455
00:48:18,559 --> 00:48:21,650
to the bearings that I described a little
earlier.

456
00:48:21,650 --> 00:48:28,650
And it took about three shifts to change out
a turbopump down in Mississippi.

457
00:48:29,099 --> 00:48:36,099
And then it took flight time to get the turbopump
back to LA and then tear it down.

458
00:48:38,599 --> 00:48:44,780
We had others in the meantime that we were
bringing along, but it was very time-consuming.

459
00:48:44,780 --> 00:48:51,780
And it was in the middle of the summer back
in whenever it was, '75 or whenever, and a

460
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,410
lot of rain showers.

461
00:48:56,410 --> 00:49:00,210
And that was holding us up because when it
was raining or it looked like it was going

462
00:49:00,210 --> 00:49:05,230
to rain, you couldn't open up the engine,
drop the pump and take it back.

463
00:49:05,230 --> 00:49:07,130
So, that slowed us down.

464
00:49:07,130 --> 00:49:14,130
And so I had a brilliant idea of first of
all, the engine, if any of you have ever been

465
00:49:14,700 --> 00:49:18,300
down to Mississippi on those test stands,
it's on about the fifth level is the engine

466
00:49:18,300 --> 00:49:21,390
position, about the fifth level.

467
00:49:21,390 --> 00:49:28,390
And so on about the seventh level I wanted
to put here, what I want to call, a rain shield.

468
00:49:28,750 --> 00:49:35,750
Put a tin roof a couple of levels higher than
the engine so the workers wouldn't have to

469
00:49:39,559 --> 00:49:41,510
stop when it was raining.

470
00:49:41,510 --> 00:49:44,809
Well, you can probably imagine what happened.

471
00:49:44,809 --> 00:49:46,559
That was OK for a while.

472
00:49:46,559 --> 00:49:52,609
And then we were back into a test and we had
a hydrogen leak.

473
00:49:52,609 --> 00:49:59,609
And we weren't using the igniters at that
time at the end of the bell to burn off the

474
00:50:02,670 --> 00:50:03,470
leak.

475
00:50:03,470 --> 00:50:10,470
So that leak just accumulated on those two
stories up to that rain shield.

476
00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:15,640
And then, when we went into the test and lit
the engine off, the whole Mississippi sky,

477
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,569
you know, there wasn't any fuel.

478
00:50:19,569 --> 00:50:22,970
It burned all the wires.

479
00:50:22,970 --> 00:50:26,470
It didn't damage the end canal on the engine
structure.

480
00:50:26,470 --> 00:50:31,710
I certainly got a lot of ribbing after that.

481
00:50:31,710 --> 00:50:38,710
And, as I recall, the test was toward the
evening.

482
00:50:41,730 --> 00:50:48,730
I wasn't down there at the time to see it,
but was listening to the test over the phone.

483
00:50:50,750 --> 00:50:53,260
And the guys almost couldn't speak.

484
00:50:53,260 --> 00:50:58,559
I mean the whole place went up.

485
00:50:58,559 --> 00:50:59,829
These kinds of failures --

486
00:50:59,829 --> 00:51:05,900
This was not evidence of a little fuel fire.

487
00:51:05,900 --> 00:51:11,150
This was oxidizer and the fuel was the metal.

488
00:51:11,150 --> 00:51:18,150
And so it was quite a problem for us.

489
00:51:21,990 --> 00:51:28,990
I might mention at this time that just this
last summer I attended a little event there

490
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,960
in Huntsville where the Rocketdyne team came
down.

491
00:51:33,960 --> 00:51:40,960
And now the engine program had just passed
its millionth test second mark.

492
00:51:41,230 --> 00:51:48,230
And so you can see, for STS-1, the total test
seconds were about 110,000.

493
00:51:49,240 --> 00:51:56,240
A little over half of that, 65,000, almost
70,000 at the rated conditions, the conditions

494
00:52:00,660 --> 00:52:02,200
you flew it at.

495
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:09,200
And so it's gone up by about a factor of ten
in the meantime.

496
00:52:15,420 --> 00:52:22,420
Another key to the Shuttle engine program
was the philosophy imparted by John Yardley.

497
00:52:31,950 --> 00:52:38,950
I think he recognized early on that we had
bitten off probably a little bit more than

498
00:52:38,970 --> 00:52:45,970
we could chew to have an engine that you could
solve the problems of where you put the bearings

499
00:52:49,410 --> 00:52:52,630
in there.

500
00:52:52,630 --> 00:52:55,500
The earlier view graph I had said 55 starts.

501
00:52:55,500 --> 00:53:00,450
You ran them for five starts and they came
out in pristine condition.

502
00:53:00,450 --> 00:53:02,829
That wasn't going to happen.

503
00:53:02,829 --> 00:53:09,829
And the turbine blades, one blade failure,
I actually forget how many are in those two

504
00:53:12,099 --> 00:53:19,099
stages on that wheel, probably well over a
hundred, but one would offset or offload the

505
00:53:22,050 --> 00:53:23,050
balance on that rotor.

506
00:53:23,050 --> 00:53:30,050
Then you would overload the bearing going
at the high speed of the 35,000 rpm's and

507
00:53:31,710 --> 00:53:33,640
would fail it.

508
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:40,640
The turbine blades, you just could not tolerate
a failure.

509
00:53:41,030 --> 00:53:47,599
But in evidence after testing, where you can
tear the blades down and de-stack them and

510
00:53:47,599 --> 00:53:52,040
look at them under a microscope, you could
see fatigue cracks.

511
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:59,040
And so all of us, I think, but John provided
the leadership, recognized this fact.

512
00:54:01,980 --> 00:54:08,040
And if the requirement were going to be that
you wouldn't fly with turbine blade cracks,

513
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:11,390
we weren't going to fly.

514
00:54:11,390 --> 00:54:18,390
And so he encouraged us, in that instance,
in bearings and probably other areas to test

515
00:54:21,470 --> 00:54:28,470
to failure, drive it to failure, know where
the cliff was and then back off a sufficient

516
00:54:30,839 --> 00:54:32,530
amount.

517
00:54:32,530 --> 00:54:39,530
And then conduct your certification with cracked
blades, with spalled bearings so that it was

518
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:48,640
clear to everybody, it was clear to the people
that were running the program and others that

519
00:54:51,549 --> 00:54:58,549
had to fly that the problem was understood,
we thought reasonably well understood, and

520
00:54:59,799 --> 00:55:05,369
it was tested to accommodate that condition.

521
00:55:05,369 --> 00:55:12,369
And so that was the philosophy that was engrained
in the Shuttle.

522
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:18,190
And probably not enough in some of the other
areas.

523
00:55:18,190 --> 00:55:25,190
The Shuttle Engine Program was a little bit
blessed with this fear of failure.

524
00:55:29,420 --> 00:55:32,130
It's the toughest technical problem so we
got the most money.

525
00:55:32,130 --> 00:55:36,430
I mean it's not all a downside.

526
00:55:36,430 --> 00:55:43,430
So, we got the money to provide the test depth
that provided the insight to the Shuttle managers

527
00:55:46,559 --> 00:55:51,829
that could make the call as to when we were
ready to go.

528
00:55:51,829 --> 00:55:55,690
The squeaky wheel gets oiled.

529
00:55:55,690 --> 00:56:02,690
I contrast that with maybe the famous O rings
on the booster.

530
00:56:04,059 --> 00:56:11,059
That was a problem that was kind of observed,
a few tests were run, but not enough, you

531
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,349
know, not to failure.

532
00:56:17,349 --> 00:56:22,040
It wasn't ever tested to failure on the ground.

533
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:29,040
It was tested so you could see that the O
rings were split maybe but not to be staring

534
00:56:31,710 --> 00:56:38,710
at a picture like that as to what is going
to happen when that O ring gives and very

535
00:56:39,700 --> 00:56:42,270
quickly can burn through.

536
00:56:42,270 --> 00:56:48,309
And the other example I would make is a tank.

537
00:56:48,309 --> 00:56:55,309
And this is the most frustrating to me because
early on we all saw some of that foam come

538
00:56:55,990 --> 00:57:02,990
off, but not in the sized pieces that the
Shuttle Program saw three flights before Columbia.

539
00:57:06,089 --> 00:57:10,349
I mean that was a piece of foam about this
size.

540
00:57:10,349 --> 00:57:13,500
It came straight down the vehicle.

541
00:57:13,500 --> 00:57:20,220
It made a small dent in the aft skirt of the
solid rocket boosters that were subsequently

542
00:57:20,220 --> 00:57:21,250
recovered.

543
00:57:21,250 --> 00:57:28,119
But that should have been an eye-opener that
that piece of foam doesn't always have to

544
00:57:28,119 --> 00:57:32,000
go straight down the side of that vehicle.

545
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:39,000
It could get out in the slip stream and hit
a wing or something.

546
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:46,400
That type of testing was
never done.

547
00:57:47,210 --> 00:57:54,210
Whereas, on the engine program, there were
a number of flaws that were accommodated and

548
00:57:58,670 --> 00:58:00,579
we felt comfortable with.

549
00:58:00,579 --> 00:58:07,579
Now, you go and read the Challenger report,
you read the Columbia report, and they will

550
00:58:08,170 --> 00:58:15,170
almost tell you that NASA became comfortable
with flaws.

551
00:58:17,970 --> 00:58:20,609
And that lead to the problem.

552
00:58:20,609 --> 00:58:26,180
But I take issue with that.

553
00:58:26,180 --> 00:58:32,579
I viewed it different because that was almost
the foundation of the Shuttle Engine Program.

554
00:58:32,579 --> 00:58:34,589
It was built on flaws.

555
00:58:34,589 --> 00:58:41,589
It was tested so wherever the soft spots were
you knew it and you attacked it and tested

556
00:58:52,470 --> 00:58:57,109
it in the appropriate way.

557
00:58:57,109 --> 00:59:04,109
John Yardley, I keep coming back to him, as
a part of the certification program of which

558
00:59:04,410 --> 00:59:11,410
I think prior to the first Orbiter flight
there were eight certifications completed.

559
00:59:13,130 --> 00:59:16,420
One of those certifications was to be conducted.

560
00:59:16,420 --> 00:59:22,010
And a certification, as I recall, was about
13 tests.

561
00:59:22,010 --> 00:59:26,069
One was abort to orbit which was 623 seconds.

562
00:59:26,069 --> 00:59:33,069
And a nominal shuttle test or mission is 520
seconds, I think.

563
00:59:35,059 --> 00:59:42,059
And then an RTLS, return to launch site is
820 something seconds.

564
00:59:42,329 --> 00:59:44,130
It had a mix of those in there.

565
00:59:44,130 --> 00:59:48,980
The engine had some FPL, full power level.

566
00:59:48,980 --> 00:59:55,980
It was tested at all of the limits, but in
some of those certifications we had to go

567
00:59:56,540 --> 00:59:59,589
into the test with cracked turbine blades.

568
00:59:59,589 --> 01:00:04,450
We started the test with a known crack.

569
01:00:04,450 --> 01:00:11,450
And we knew, by analysis, what its growth
rate was that we had judged from other tests.

570
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,380
And so we planted blades that did that.

571
01:00:18,380 --> 01:00:23,030
We did the same thing with bearings.

572
01:00:23,030 --> 01:00:30,030
One time both Dom Sanchini and I were trying
to get the most on every test.

573
01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:38,240
We put cracked blades and spalled balls and
combined them all in a test.

574
01:00:39,230 --> 01:00:40,670
Now, Yardley didn't mean that.

575
01:00:40,670 --> 01:00:44,150
He didn't want to go that far.

576
01:00:44,150 --> 01:00:51,150
But there was a lot of NASA leadership that
bucked up the back of the program manager's,

577
01:00:57,430 --> 01:00:59,089
both myself and Sanchini.

578
01:00:59,089 --> 01:01:05,950
I mean they knew the way to develop the confidence
in this engine was to test it.

579
01:01:05,950 --> 01:01:08,799
And that became the theme.

580
01:01:08,799 --> 01:01:12,720
That isn't true today.

581
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:14,150
And that's what I worry about.

582
01:01:14,150 --> 01:01:21,150
And I can come back and comment a little bit
more on that in a minute.

583
01:01:22,700 --> 01:01:28,940
I will say a few more words about Dom Sanchini.

584
01:01:28,940 --> 01:01:35,940
He passed away about 15 years ago, probably
in his early sixties, was the deputy program

585
01:01:39,990 --> 01:01:46,990
manager on the F1 engine to Paul Castenholz,
a good engineer.

586
01:01:50,559 --> 01:01:57,559
He was a lawyer by trade but had also accumulated
a good background well steeped in engineering.

587
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:04,549
He was a hard driver.

588
01:02:04,549 --> 01:02:11,549
He thrived on failures because he saw a failure
as that's when you're on the steepest part

589
01:02:11,680 --> 01:02:12,650
of the learning curve.

590
01:02:12,650 --> 01:02:19,609
You never learn more than in the aftermath
of a failure where you're forced to go through

591
01:02:19,609 --> 01:02:26,579
and look at all of the data and postulate
a lot of other different failure modes.

592
01:02:26,579 --> 01:02:32,450
He thrived on it.

593
01:02:32,450 --> 01:02:39,450
And he made sure that the whole Rocketdyne
team viewed it in that light so he was a real

594
01:02:43,470 --> 01:02:44,490
strength to the program.

595
01:02:44,490 --> 01:02:51,490
I want to allow a little bit of time for some
discussion.

596
01:02:55,400 --> 01:03:00,730
A few minutes ago I alluded to the fact, but
that's not the case now.

597
01:03:00,730 --> 01:03:07,730
The Shuttle engine,
back in the hay-day or the time period when
we were in the development program, we were

598
01:03:13,119 --> 01:03:20,119
building them around the clock out of Canova
Park three shifts out on a manufacturing floor

599
01:03:25,770 --> 01:03:32,770
probably at a rate of about one a month, ten
a year, that's about right.

600
01:03:36,809 --> 01:03:41,589
So, a pretty high production right there.

601
01:03:41,589 --> 01:03:48,280
I could probably ask for a show of hands,
do you know how much a shuttle engine costs,

602
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,190
you know, just to make one?

603
01:03:51,190 --> 01:03:53,730
Do you have the foggiest idea?

604
01:03:53,730 --> 01:03:59,190
My last count was about $40 million.

605
01:03:59,190 --> 01:04:06,190
I imagine in today's money it's probably closer
to $60 million a copy.

606
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:16,280
But today they build about three-quarters
of an engine a year so the production rate

607
01:04:17,809 --> 01:04:19,900
is way down.

608
01:04:19,900 --> 01:04:26,900
They test, aside from a lot of the terrible
consequence of the two hurricanes down at

609
01:04:30,309 --> 01:04:33,559
Slidell, you know, they're not testing anything
right now.

610
01:04:33,559 --> 01:04:40,559
But, even prior to this time, the testing
was very infrequent.

611
01:04:41,589 --> 01:04:46,270
That's to save money.

612
01:04:46,270 --> 01:04:48,230
You don't get that much out of it.

613
01:04:48,230 --> 01:04:55,230
And that's the Achilles' heel, I view, of
the Shuttle Program.

614
01:04:58,260 --> 01:05:03,349
If you're not going to do it right, whether
you cannot afford to do it right or you have

615
01:05:03,349 --> 01:05:09,619
other ambitions, you want to do something
else in the Space Program or within NASA,

616
01:05:09,619 --> 01:05:10,940
you probably ought to stop it.

617
01:05:10,940 --> 01:05:17,940
Because it's going to be the next failure
if you don't treat it right.

618
01:05:20,770 --> 01:05:26,440
Today you've got the Shuttle Program, back
when the engine started.

619
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:32,819
It is a little over almost 3.5 decades old.

620
01:05:32,819 --> 01:05:39,819
That's at a minimum two generational changes
and a lot of small businesses that support

621
01:05:42,780 --> 01:05:44,839
the Shuttle Program.

622
01:05:44,839 --> 01:05:51,839
And so you're going to lose a lot of the knowledge
when you have the turnover of these generational

623
01:05:54,329 --> 01:05:55,780
changes.

624
01:05:55,780 --> 01:06:01,109
And little things, I'll tell you, when you
look back.

625
01:06:01,109 --> 01:06:08,109
One of the major disappointments to me or
traumatic times in the program was back in

626
01:06:12,730 --> 01:06:19,730
the late `70s when we were building the first
three engines that would power Columbia on

627
01:06:21,839 --> 01:06:28,839
STS-1, when we were building those engines
we had a mix-up of well wire in the Canoga

628
01:06:30,819 --> 01:06:32,140
plan.

629
01:06:32,140 --> 01:06:36,950
And the mix-up was the well wire was, you
know, one could take a heat treat and the

630
01:06:36,950 --> 01:06:39,380
other one couldn't take a heat treat.

631
01:06:39,380 --> 01:06:46,380
I forget the application where you wanted
the non-heat treatable well wire, but that

632
01:06:47,010 --> 01:06:53,789
was a mom and pop operation that came in,
got the well wire, took it home and cleaned

633
01:06:53,789 --> 01:06:58,859
it and then delivered it back in baskets to
Rocketdyne.

634
01:06:58,859 --> 01:07:00,720
Well, they got it mixed up.

635
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:07,450
And so we built the first three flight engines
with well wire that would not take a heat

636
01:07:07,450 --> 01:07:10,059
treat that we depended on.

637
01:07:10,059 --> 01:07:17,000
You go out and look at those engines with
inches and inches and rows and rows of wells

638
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:20,109
that are not to the proper heat treat.

639
01:07:20,109 --> 01:07:27,109
We had to go through and analyze every section
and over test those engines at a little higher

640
01:07:30,329 --> 01:07:37,329
pressure than we normally would have to be
able to show that having been built with the

641
01:07:38,789 --> 01:07:45,789
wrong well wire it was still good enough because
the design was up to FPL and a little beyond.

642
01:07:46,829 --> 01:07:50,789
That it could still take it and operate at
the rated thrust condition.

643
01:07:50,789 --> 01:07:57,789
It is mistakes like that, that without frequent
manufacturing exposure, without frequent test

644
01:08:02,369 --> 01:08:09,180
use you're going to lose in a program and
will become the next --

645
01:08:09,180 --> 01:08:13,770
You know, the program has not been surprised
by a problem yet.

646
01:08:13,770 --> 01:08:16,290
I'm talking about all the shuttles.

647
01:08:16,290 --> 01:08:23,290
The O ring failures, they winked early on,
To Thiokol and then to Marshall before Challenger.

648
01:08:28,339 --> 01:08:34,020
And the foam problem has been winking all
the time.

649
01:08:34,020 --> 01:08:35,980
And it got worse later.

650
01:08:35,980 --> 01:08:42,980
I suppose it has something to do with the
change they made in the insulation later on.

651
01:08:47,069 --> 01:08:54,069
But, as you know and you read, the agency
is at a very critical time today.

652
01:08:56,100 --> 01:09:01,850
They've got to make some decisions in terms
of where their priorities are and what they

653
01:09:01,850 --> 01:09:05,500
want to try to do.

654
01:09:05,500 --> 01:09:10,489
And they don't want to spend money on the
shuttle because they seem to be committed

655
01:09:10,489 --> 01:09:12,759
to replacing it.

656
01:09:12,759 --> 01:09:18,589
And if that's what you're going to do, that's
what you're going to do.

657
01:09:18,589 --> 01:09:24,140
But between now and 2010, if that's the year
they choose to retire the Shuttle, they are

658
01:09:24,140 --> 01:09:30,150
not going to be motivated to test.

659
01:09:30,150 --> 01:09:35,710
The program is going to be at more risk over
the next four years than it was in the first

660
01:09:35,710 --> 01:09:42,210
four years because of that reason.

661
01:09:42,210 --> 01:09:46,049
You don't know where the ledges are, where
the cliffs are.

662
01:09:46,049 --> 01:09:53,049
And testing once a month or once every two
months is just not going to do it.

663
01:10:00,370 --> 01:10:05,710
You said something that I really never recognized.

664
01:10:05,710 --> 01:10:10,060
You said there could have been a point of
time in the program where you could have gone

665
01:10:10,060 --> 01:10:12,050
back and reduced the pressure levels and that
type of thing to make the engine a little

666
01:10:12,050 --> 01:10:12,489
simpler to certify.

667
01:10:12,489 --> 01:10:13,380
What effect would that have had?

668
01:10:13,380 --> 01:10:20,380
Well, an easy way to do it, we looked at probably
several years before the first flight.

669
01:10:22,670 --> 01:10:29,440
We had seen enough, at that time, to know
that even with the philosophy that we had

670
01:10:29,440 --> 01:10:36,080
adopted, we were on fairly shaky ground.

671
01:10:36,080 --> 01:10:41,530
I would never have guessed that the Shuttle
would have flown over a hundred times and

672
01:10:41,530 --> 01:10:45,750
never had a failure of the Shuttle main engine
or some problem.

673
01:10:45,750 --> 01:10:52,750
I would have never guessed that having looked
at what I looked at.

674
01:10:52,830 --> 01:10:53,790
We were starting to think.

675
01:10:53,790 --> 01:10:58,610
And an easy way to do it is open up the throat
on a main combustion chamber.

676
01:10:58,610 --> 01:11:05,610
If you open up the throat you relax the pressures
up and down the turbine system, the pre-burners,

677
01:11:06,670 --> 01:11:10,420
the pump requirements.

678
01:11:10,420 --> 01:11:12,070
You wouldn't have to open it up much.

679
01:11:12,070 --> 01:11:14,690
You'd lose a little specific impulse.

680
01:11:14,690 --> 01:11:18,820
You'd gain a little in thrust.

681
01:11:18,820 --> 01:11:20,610
And so you would get some offset there.

682
01:11:20,610 --> 01:11:25,610
You may want to adjust the mixture ratio overall
you operate at.

683
01:11:25,610 --> 01:11:31,090
Instead of 6.0 maybe 6.2.

684
01:11:31,090 --> 01:11:35,230
You could have done it with a modest performance
here.

685
01:11:35,230 --> 01:11:40,650
You're not going to get it for free, but you
could have relaxed the pressures throughout

686
01:11:40,650 --> 01:11:45,909
that whole system by a change in one component.

687
01:11:45,909 --> 01:11:52,230
And we were contemplating that and the monies
never came.

688
01:11:52,230 --> 01:11:56,120
It was a configuration change.

689
01:11:56,120 --> 01:12:00,020
There is a lot of the --

690
01:12:00,020 --> 01:12:05,370
What don't you know about that change is what
would bother some people.

691
01:12:05,370 --> 01:12:11,600
I don't want to oversell it as simple, but
conceptually it was a simple change.

692
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:17,250
That would be one.

693
01:12:17,250 --> 01:12:24,250
I think looking back and knowing the capability
of the shuttle and, to be honest, being somewhat

694
01:12:31,800 --> 01:12:37,510
troubled, quite a bit troubled by what I hear
and read about NASA wanting to retire it.

695
01:12:37,510 --> 01:12:43,540
Although, I understand their reasoning.

696
01:12:43,540 --> 01:12:46,510
Some view it as a flawed design.

697
01:12:46,510 --> 01:12:49,380
I don't view it as a flawed design.

698
01:12:49,380 --> 01:12:52,699
I think you need to relook at how you operate
it.

699
01:12:52,699 --> 01:12:59,699
I hadn't been particularly pleased with the
operation of the Shuttle.

700
01:13:01,730 --> 01:13:07,920
Watching all this foam fall off and not even
raising your hand.

701
01:13:07,920 --> 01:13:14,920
But then, after all that occurred, nobody
stopped and stripped all that foam off and

702
01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:23,280
maybe replaced it with cork that's heavier,
that's got some tensile strength that you

703
01:13:27,570 --> 01:13:31,170
can anchor it on there with glue or whatever
you want to do.

704
01:13:31,170 --> 01:13:33,780
And it's going to cost you some performance.

705
01:13:33,780 --> 01:13:35,150
NASA has been biased too much.

706
01:13:35,150 --> 01:13:41,800
And they certainly started this in the Shuttle
main engine in the direction of performance

707
01:13:41,800 --> 01:13:48,320
where if you back off a little bit the system
will be a lot more robust, serve you a lot

708
01:13:48,320 --> 01:13:55,320
better over the long haul, and maybe you don't
push too much in some of these directions

709
01:13:58,150 --> 01:13:58,929
that have got us in trouble.

710
01:13:58,929 --> 01:14:05,929
Do you think that we had a fictitious requirement
with the performance we were trying to achieve

711
01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:08,460
with the Shuttle?

712
01:14:08,460 --> 01:14:10,030
I don't think we needed it all.

713
01:14:10,030 --> 01:14:15,630
Tell me the missions that we needed all that
performance on.

714
01:14:15,630 --> 01:14:22,630
It's not there.

715
01:14:23,400 --> 01:14:30,400
You'd have to reset the manifest in some cases.

716
01:14:34,909 --> 01:14:39,810
Well, speaking for the one element that I
know the most about, the Shuttle engine.

717
01:14:39,810 --> 01:14:46,810
If you folks were to undertake the job, OK,
what would I do different?

718
01:14:47,980 --> 01:14:54,980
They're talking about using a Shuttle engine
on this heavy lift launch vehicle for a cryogenic

719
01:14:55,360 --> 01:14:56,280
upper stage engine.

720
01:14:56,280 --> 01:15:02,340
I would open that throat up and look hard
at that.

721
01:15:02,340 --> 01:15:04,000
Rocketdyne knows how to do that.

722
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:06,179
They've done it.

723
01:15:06,179 --> 01:15:09,860
We just haven't incorporated it.

724
01:15:09,860 --> 01:15:13,409
Although, men aren't envisioned to be on that.

725
01:15:13,409 --> 01:15:15,750
You're still going to be a lot better off.

726
01:15:15,750 --> 01:15:22,750
I'll tell you a problem you're going to have
with the vacuum start or at upper stage start

727
01:15:27,530 --> 01:15:29,909
is that start sequence.

728
01:15:29,909 --> 01:15:36,159
This start sequence is very, very sensitive,
and you're probably going to have to go to

729
01:15:36,159 --> 01:15:41,280
Tullahoma to get in some kind of a vacuum
system to demonstrate that.

730
01:15:41,280 --> 01:15:43,840
That's going to be expensive in itself.

731
01:15:43,840 --> 01:15:50,840
But, yes, Aaron, I think probably across the
board, we set the bar higher than we really

732
01:15:55,280 --> 01:15:57,820
needed to.

733
01:15:57,820 --> 01:16:02,860
And it cost us in money.

734
01:16:02,860 --> 01:16:09,850
And it has also cost us in margin that we
don't have that we wish we had.

735
01:16:09,850 --> 01:16:10,690
J.R., usually around this time we take about
a two-minute break.

736
01:16:10,690 --> 01:16:10,940
OK.

737
01:16:10,900 --> 01:16:11,840
Give your voice a rest.

738
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:16,190
Everybody stand up, turn around and just stretch
a bit.

739
01:16:16,190 --> 01:16:23,190
Two hours is a long time to go without a stretch.

740
01:16:36,420 --> 01:16:43,420
I'll just give one statistic that I remember
really impressed me during our initial astronaut

741
01:16:47,420 --> 01:16:49,760
training when they were talking about the
main engine.

742
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:55,260
And you talked a lot about the high pressure
turbopump.

743
01:16:55,260 --> 01:17:00,550
This is a device that is about the size of
a typical automobile engine, right?

744
01:17:00,550 --> 01:17:01,949
That's right.

745
01:17:01,949 --> 01:17:08,949
It produces 50,000 horsepower just to pump
the liquid oxygen at high pressure.

746
01:17:09,020 --> 01:17:11,620
I mean that really gets your attention.

747
01:17:11,620 --> 01:17:17,440
When you talk about pushing the state of the
art and trying to get a lot of power out of

748
01:17:17,440 --> 01:17:24,440
a small volume that just really amazed me.

749
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:31,800
As was indicated, I think I would like to
just make a couple more remarks and then maybe

750
01:17:34,670 --> 01:17:40,400
open it up for some discussion in terms of
points that I haven't covered that are on

751
01:17:40,400 --> 01:17:44,900
your mind or other questions that you'd like
to ask.

752
01:17:44,900 --> 01:17:51,900
Just kind of in summary, if I look back on
the program, I think there were two main keys

753
01:17:53,989 --> 01:18:00,989
that were paramount to the success that the
Shuttle engine enjoyed, and is enjoying through

754
01:18:04,440 --> 01:18:06,190
its track record today.

755
01:18:06,190 --> 01:18:13,190
One was a decision to use this ISTB, to get
away from the serial component test and then

756
01:18:17,130 --> 01:18:23,960
the systems test to try to combine it and
do a systems engineering job on a thing from

757
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:24,810
day one.

758
01:18:24,810 --> 01:18:27,920
In other words, that was key to me.

759
01:18:27,920 --> 01:18:34,920
It might have been a little extra pain but
saved a lot of time and a lot of money.

760
01:18:35,190 --> 01:18:39,850
And I'm not sure we could have done it the
other way anyway.

761
01:18:39,850 --> 01:18:46,850
And the other one which may be a little bit
more important, but just as important, was

762
01:18:49,420 --> 01:18:54,760
the philosophy in the program of test to failure.

763
01:18:54,760 --> 01:18:56,830
Know where the failures are.

764
01:18:56,830 --> 01:19:01,190
And certainly, if you look at that earlier
chart, we had plenty of data points.

765
01:19:01,190 --> 01:19:08,190
I mean we had encountered a number of them,
some of them three or four times.

766
01:19:10,020 --> 01:19:17,020
Maybe in some cases we were slow learners,
but there
wasn't just one problem with that high pressure

767
01:19:20,620 --> 01:19:22,060
LOX turbopump.

768
01:19:22,060 --> 01:19:29,060
I think I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge
some of the people as viewed from the engine

769
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:37,440
that made major contributions to the Shuttle.

770
01:19:37,440 --> 01:19:38,380
Not just the engine now but to Shuttle.

771
01:19:38,380 --> 01:19:44,070
And in Rocketdyne, I mentioned Dom Sanchini
a couple of time.

772
01:19:44,070 --> 01:19:51,070
Bob Biggs, who has been there since day one
and has done all of the test planning and

773
01:19:52,300 --> 01:19:53,030
is key.

774
01:19:53,030 --> 01:19:59,630
He is the systems engineer on the SSME.

775
01:19:59,630 --> 01:20:03,630
Byron Wood, who is now the president at Rocketdyne.

776
01:20:03,630 --> 01:20:10,630
Joe Stangeland who was in charge of turbomachinery
who designed this little paddle and solved

777
01:20:11,280 --> 01:20:18,280
this vortex problem that uncoupled us from
this terrible time that we were at a standstill.

778
01:20:24,840 --> 01:20:31,840
Matt Eck who was in charge of turbomachinery
at Rocketdyne before he passed on several

779
01:20:31,989 --> 01:20:33,489
years ago.

780
01:20:33,489 --> 01:20:38,800
And then, within NASA, I had mentioned John
Yardley.

781
01:20:38,800 --> 01:20:45,130
He has now passed on as well.

782
01:20:45,130 --> 01:20:50,880
I don't think there would be a Shuttle without
John's leadership.

783
01:20:50,880 --> 01:20:57,460
Bob Thompson who you might get an opportunity
to hear a little bit later, I think he was

784
01:20:57,460 --> 01:20:59,750
a driving force in the Shuttle.

785
01:20:59,750 --> 01:21:03,980
Bob Lindstrom, who was my boss for some time.

786
01:21:03,980 --> 01:21:10,980
Chris Kraft, who I understand you will hear
or have heard.

787
01:21:11,280 --> 01:21:18,280
Certainly Aaron, we had to interface with
the Orbiter and he had an equal challenge.

788
01:21:25,320 --> 01:21:30,320
Arnie Aldridge who I've always thought a lot
of, as well as Dick Coors.

789
01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:37,320
And then I'll mention Bill Lucas who was the
director at Marshall and George Hardy, both

790
01:21:40,590 --> 01:21:47,150
of whom got caught up in a later controversy
on Challenger.

791
01:21:47,150 --> 01:21:49,840
Not necessarily fair, but that's life.

792
01:21:49,840 --> 01:21:56,840
I mean they were both superb engineers and
meant a lot.

793
01:21:58,380 --> 01:22:05,380
And then also Gene Covert from MIT who, how
shall I say this, came in periodically and

794
01:22:13,520 --> 01:22:20,520
chastised us appropriately and I think made
a major contribution to the program.

795
01:22:23,159 --> 01:22:30,159
At the time Gene was also head of the aero-astro
department here at MIT.

796
01:22:33,460 --> 01:22:40,460
I'm not sure who triggered bringing Gene in,
but I know John Yardley was a key driver in

797
01:22:44,090 --> 01:22:44,449
that.

798
01:22:44,449 --> 01:22:49,690
And so I'm not sure I've touched on the kind
of things you'd be interested in, but I'll

799
01:22:49,690 --> 01:22:56,690
certainly be glad now to try to answer areas
that perhaps I haven't hit or maybe make a

800
01:22:57,679 --> 01:23:02,230
few broader comments.

801
01:23:02,230 --> 01:23:09,219
I understand the only element, other than
the Orbiter and maybe the overall system,

802
01:23:09,219 --> 01:23:16,219
but this is the only propulsion element that
is talked about, I think the tank, I've already

803
01:23:18,179 --> 01:23:20,989
mentioned there the insulation was their tough
nut.

804
01:23:20,989 --> 01:23:27,560
And I think having had some data there are
certainly some things that we could have done

805
01:23:27,560 --> 01:23:28,880
differently.

806
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:35,880
The solid rocket boosters,
there's quite a history there.

807
01:23:37,230 --> 01:23:44,230
Thiokol has now been acquired by ATK in consolidation
of the solid rocket motor industry, but they've

808
01:23:51,760 --> 01:23:57,440
also made major improvements in the way they
manufacture that.

809
01:23:57,440 --> 01:24:01,340
Those solid rocket motors are also made with
glue.

810
01:24:01,340 --> 01:24:05,320
That's put on by hand.

811
01:24:05,320 --> 01:24:12,320
I remember, in visiting up there, after the
Challenger accident back when I was a director

812
01:24:14,870 --> 01:24:20,460
at Marshall, a number of changes were made
to automate a lot of that.

813
01:24:20,460 --> 01:24:27,460
I think probably the solid rocket boosters,
when properly used and appropriately tested

814
01:24:35,380 --> 01:24:42,380
and backed up by the right analysis, is an
excellent propulsion system.

815
01:24:43,670 --> 01:24:50,670
ISP is down some but they are more than adequate
to do the job.

816
01:24:54,130 --> 01:24:57,409
J.R., something that really strikes me as
complicated and didn't really seem, or at

817
01:24:57,409 --> 01:25:04,409
least I don't think we seemed to have that
much problem was integrating the engine to

818
01:25:08,409 --> 01:25:10,610
the aft end of the Orbiter.

819
01:25:10,610 --> 01:25:13,400
That was a complicated system, but it did
go pretty well.

820
01:25:13,400 --> 01:25:16,730
Was it the main propulsion test article that
did that?

821
01:25:16,730 --> 01:25:17,469
Well, yes.

822
01:25:17,469 --> 01:25:24,469
It was earlier when we went to school a lot
on the integration of the J2 into the S4B

823
01:25:25,260 --> 01:25:32,260
stage and the S2 where the conditioning of
the engine, prior to engine start, was important

824
01:25:35,920 --> 01:25:38,570
and was a big interface with the stage itself.

825
01:25:38,570 --> 01:25:44,110
And certainly that was true with the boat
tail of the Orbiter.

826
01:25:44,110 --> 01:25:51,110
And the main propulsion test article, which
Aaron mentioned, I guess we had a dozen tests

827
01:25:52,590 --> 01:25:55,690
done there, somewhere between a half dozen
and a dozen.

828
01:25:55,690 --> 01:26:02,690
As a matter of fact, we had a structural failure
of a main fuel valve crack down in Mississippi

829
01:26:06,330 --> 01:26:07,409
in that test article.

830
01:26:07,409 --> 01:26:13,820
And it caused some consternation along the
way.

831
01:26:13,820 --> 01:26:17,489
But the integration, as Aaron mentioned, went
quite well.

832
01:26:17,489 --> 01:26:24,489
I don't think in flight we have ever had any
problems with over-pressurizing that boat

833
01:26:28,570 --> 01:26:34,130
tail or any problems with it.

834
01:26:34,130 --> 01:26:40,239
There are a number of tests that we didn't
conduct, or a few that we didn't conduct on

835
01:26:40,239 --> 01:26:47,239
the engine that I would have liked to, A,
for curiosity and then, B, to fill a square

836
01:26:49,690 --> 01:26:55,030
so we knew exactly what would happen if we
ever got in that condition.

837
01:26:55,030 --> 01:27:00,760
And that was with a LOX depletion.

838
01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:07,760
There is some thought that a LOX depletion
is going to allow you to imbalance the rotor

839
01:27:08,050 --> 01:27:14,179
of the LOX pumps and they're going to rub,
cause a fire and all that.

840
01:27:14,179 --> 01:27:21,179
On the other hand, it is, by definition, going
to be a fuel rich shutdown, I would tend to

841
01:27:23,690 --> 01:27:24,280
think.

842
01:27:24,280 --> 01:27:31,280
But it was one test that we debated quite
a bit about in the Shuttle Program and decided

843
01:27:34,070 --> 01:27:40,909
that the probability of getting in that situation
probably didn't merit the test.

844
01:27:40,909 --> 01:27:47,909
I will add that there was a lot of good tension
within the Shuttle Program up and down at

845
01:27:51,500 --> 01:27:53,000
all levels.

846
01:27:53,000 --> 01:28:00,000
I thought the whole management team was relatively
cohesive, but there was good tension.

847
01:28:02,139 --> 01:28:09,139
I mean we got the best out of everybody and
arrived at the best answer by the balance

848
01:28:12,780 --> 01:28:16,449
that we had between the institutional managers.

849
01:28:16,449 --> 01:28:22,139
I mentioned the contribution I think that
Chris Kraft made and Bill Lucas.

850
01:28:22,139 --> 01:28:29,060
I'd also add early on Rocco Petrone.

851
01:28:29,060 --> 01:28:31,489
And then the program managers.

852
01:28:31,489 --> 01:28:38,489
The John Yardleys and Bob Thompsons and Arnie
Aldridges.

853
01:28:38,580 --> 01:28:44,480
And then the so-called level three, which
Aaron and I were.

854
01:28:44,480 --> 01:28:45,230
I guess you were two.

855
01:28:45,230 --> 01:28:52,230
I think it was a well-balanced management
structure.

856
01:28:57,480 --> 01:29:00,300
And I'm not sure you have that today.

857
01:29:00,300 --> 01:29:07,300
Today, for whatever reason, the program has
gotten into an operational mindset.

858
01:29:07,600 --> 01:29:13,719
Center directors are more viewed to keep the
grass cut at the centers and that kind of

859
01:29:13,719 --> 01:29:15,389
thing.

860
01:29:15,389 --> 01:29:16,570
You don't have that tension.

861
01:29:16,570 --> 01:29:23,570
Who is holding the program people in check?

862
01:29:24,639 --> 01:29:25,600
I see that missing.

863
01:29:25,600 --> 01:29:32,600
I always felt that there was another institutional
side that had my hands cuffed at the right

864
01:29:37,650 --> 01:29:40,000
time.

865
01:29:40,000 --> 01:29:46,810
And so I think, as NASA goes forward, and
maybe some of you folks that are going to

866
01:29:46,810 --> 01:29:53,810
have careers in the industry, you ought to
make sure that, A, you're surrounded by good

867
01:29:55,760 --> 01:30:02,760
people and that you're surrounded by a good
system, I mean a good system that pulls you

868
01:30:03,739 --> 01:30:10,350
up at the right time or calls you in-check
at the right time whatever you do.

869
01:30:10,350 --> 01:30:17,010
Whether it's going back to the moon or mars
or, maybe in retrospect, flying a shuttle

870
01:30:17,010 --> 01:30:19,889
a little bit more.

871
01:30:19,889 --> 01:30:24,510
Here, let me slow down and stop a minute now
and see if there are any other areas that

872
01:30:24,510 --> 01:30:26,120
you all would like to cover.

873
01:30:26,120 --> 01:30:26,370
Yes.

874
01:30:26,300 --> 01:30:31,010
We've talked in the past a lot about the slow
kind of turnaround on the Shuttle, and part

875
01:30:31,010 --> 01:30:36,440
of that has been attributed to having to remove
the engines and I'm not sure if it's overhauling

876
01:30:36,440 --> 01:30:39,260
them but basically taking them partly apart
and looking at them and examining them.

877
01:30:39,260 --> 01:30:43,370
And I was wondering if that was part of the
original plan or what kind of changed the

878
01:30:43,370 --> 01:30:50,370
efficiency of that turnaround time, what caused
it to change and slow down in the original

879
01:30:51,800 --> 01:30:52,850
plan.

880
01:30:52,850 --> 01:30:57,690
Well, the original plan was for 55 missions
on an engine.

881
01:30:57,690 --> 01:31:04,690
But that just didn't materialize at all once
we saw what we had.

882
01:31:07,030 --> 01:31:13,909
I don't know what today's life on a set of
bearings are, but it's a handful of missions.

883
01:31:13,909 --> 01:31:19,210
You've got to tear down both of the high pressure
pumps and replace a bearing.

884
01:31:19,210 --> 01:31:21,989
The same on turbine blades.

885
01:31:21,989 --> 01:31:28,850
You want to replace that stack after a few
missions that are defined in a current certification

886
01:31:28,850 --> 01:31:31,510
program.

887
01:31:31,510 --> 01:31:33,940
It's certainly less than a half a dozen.

888
01:31:33,940 --> 01:31:36,550
And, yes, that has built in the time.

889
01:31:36,550 --> 01:31:42,139
But you could overcome that by just dropping
the whole engine and replacing it with another

890
01:31:42,139 --> 01:31:49,139
one and doing it all in parallel.

891
01:31:49,820 --> 01:31:56,820
There were a lot of people on this program
that I never envisioned you needed.

892
01:32:01,870 --> 01:32:08,380
I think NASA did the right thing by turning
it over to a contractor or a team of contractors,

893
01:32:08,380 --> 01:32:15,330
but they stayed too much involved so it was
all done by a committee.

894
01:32:15,330 --> 01:32:22,330
I mean
I don't want to pick on anybody, but who was
in charge?

895
01:32:27,570 --> 01:32:33,570
Who felt they were really responsible for
that accident?

896
01:32:33,570 --> 01:32:40,570
I couldn't see it and I followed it and could
offer my opinion, but I didn't sense that

897
01:32:44,070 --> 01:32:46,760
the program had somebody in charge.

898
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:48,770
There was another one.

899
01:32:48,770 --> 01:32:49,280
Yes.

900
01:32:49,280 --> 01:32:56,280
I was wondering if you could talk about any
examples that you know where specific technologies

901
01:33:00,110 --> 01:33:05,090
that came out of the Shuttle main engines
have either been used or avoided in newer

902
01:33:05,090 --> 01:33:07,409
launch vehicles today.

903
01:33:07,409 --> 01:33:14,409
No, I think a lot of the materials
will certainly be carried forward.

904
01:33:17,639 --> 01:33:24,639
Coatings, seal technology, that's probably
one of the areas in the turbomachinery that

905
01:33:26,500 --> 01:33:29,159
I didn't talk about enough.

906
01:33:29,159 --> 01:33:36,159
There are a number of seals on those shafts
that are very critical to the operation.

907
01:33:41,449 --> 01:33:48,449
And there was a lot of technology advancement
made in the development of the SSME on seals.

908
01:33:50,810 --> 01:33:56,400
Those would be several examples.

909
01:33:56,400 --> 01:33:56,650
Yes.

910
01:33:56,400 --> 01:33:58,860
I was wondering if there was much discussion
before the project started on the risks in

911
01:33:58,860 --> 01:34:05,860
going from 700 psi operating [NOISE OBSCURES]
whether there was some option to go to an

912
01:34:07,449 --> 01:34:10,270
intermediate pressure.

913
01:34:10,270 --> 01:34:15,770
I am sure there probably was.

914
01:34:15,770 --> 01:34:22,770
Again, I came in the program about a year
after it started so I was on a periphery of

915
01:34:23,850 --> 01:34:27,389
some of the early stuff.

916
01:34:27,389 --> 01:34:34,389
But I think the risk at that time more focused
on NASA, particularly at Marshall.

917
01:34:35,110 --> 01:34:37,510
I think they wanted a liquid booster.

918
01:34:37,510 --> 01:34:44,510
Eberhard Greff, the German felt very comfortable
with liquid boosters because you could shut

919
01:34:49,230 --> 01:34:54,219
them off, as opposed to the solids.

920
01:34:54,219 --> 01:35:01,219
But cost and other things, I think they eventually
became comfortable that the solids were fine.

921
01:35:03,320 --> 01:35:06,650
I think the risk tradeoff was more on the
booster.

922
01:35:06,650 --> 01:35:10,300
You shut a liquid off.

923
01:35:10,300 --> 01:35:16,159
When you light those solids you're going somewhere.

924
01:35:16,159 --> 01:35:23,159
On the engine, I know they knew it was going
to be harder.

925
01:35:23,239 --> 01:35:30,239
I'm not sure they appreciated how hard it
actually got to end up with those 8,000 psi

926
01:35:34,290 --> 01:35:41,290
pressures at the head of the pre-burners and
what that did to the rest of the system.

927
01:35:42,300 --> 01:35:49,300
And what it did to materials and what it did
to crack growth rates and everything from

928
01:35:50,110 --> 01:35:57,110
then on.

929
01:35:58,710 --> 01:36:03,100
You wouldn't fly today without it.

930
01:36:03,100 --> 01:36:07,630
You understood the mechanism, you applied
fraction mechanics, and then you applied several

931
01:36:07,630 --> 01:36:11,639
factors, and then you certified that and that's
where you went.

932
01:36:11,639 --> 01:36:15,900
Does the aircraft industry do the same thing
because they have turbine blades, too, that

933
01:36:15,900 --> 01:36:17,880
crack, don't they?

934
01:36:17,880 --> 01:36:19,090
I'm really not sure.

935
01:36:19,090 --> 01:36:26,090
I don't want to fly on an airplane that has
got a cracked blade.

936
01:36:26,100 --> 01:36:33,100
J.R., you talked about the lack of testing
nowadays compared to at the beginning of the

937
01:36:39,100 --> 01:36:40,150
program.

938
01:36:40,150 --> 01:36:44,949
To what extent does the fact that, I mean
after every flight they take the engines out

939
01:36:44,949 --> 01:36:46,960
and they borescope them and look at that.

940
01:36:46,960 --> 01:36:52,050
I mean does that, to some extent, constitute
continual testing?

941
01:36:52,050 --> 01:36:52,330
No.

942
01:36:52,330 --> 01:36:56,920
What's the difference between that and what
you get out of the tests?

943
01:36:56,920 --> 01:37:00,230
Well, I think probably --

944
01:37:00,230 --> 01:37:06,290
Today's teams, they go to the log book and
they read what was written down by the last

945
01:37:06,290 --> 01:37:08,219
generation and that's what they inspect.

946
01:37:08,219 --> 01:37:11,969
That's fine and that's very thorough.

947
01:37:11,969 --> 01:37:18,969
But the testing, the introduction of some
kind of a small change by a mom and pop operation,

948
01:37:22,290 --> 01:37:28,730
that I alluded to earlier, that's what a test
program will catch.

949
01:37:28,730 --> 01:37:35,730
Some new problem that creeps in or will get
caught that's not done there.

950
01:37:36,159 --> 01:37:36,449
No.

951
01:37:36,449 --> 01:37:41,780
Let me say it another way.

952
01:37:41,780 --> 01:37:48,389
I believe it is very dangerous to execute
this program in the way that I understand

953
01:37:48,389 --> 01:37:53,010
is planned to be executed between now and
when they retire the Shuttle.

954
01:37:53,010 --> 01:37:59,530
I think that's the most dangerous period in
the life of the Shuttle because of that.

955
01:37:59,530 --> 01:38:06,530
I mean the people that are in the program
now have not been part of developing it.

956
01:38:08,840 --> 01:38:15,840
I don't know how many pictures they've seen
of a LOX pump that has burnt up.

957
01:38:18,429 --> 01:38:22,300
You just think about things differently once
you've been exposed to that first-hand, that's

958
01:38:22,300 --> 01:38:25,060
my view of it.

959
01:38:25,060 --> 01:38:32,060
Now, how you transition out of a shuttle program
onto something new, I don't have that answer.

960
01:38:35,590 --> 01:38:41,199
I mean I think you've got to do both.

961
01:38:41,199 --> 01:38:47,110
Like the wing-walker, I wouldn't let loose
of a shuttle before I had something else in

962
01:38:47,110 --> 01:38:48,909
hand.

963
01:38:48,909 --> 01:38:53,980
And today they're going to let loose this
and hope this other thing comes along.

964
01:38:53,980 --> 01:38:55,619
And I think there's some risk to that.

965
01:38:55,619 --> 01:38:57,409
Along that line with the O ring issue and
the foam issue, do you think that those were

966
01:38:57,409 --> 01:38:59,000
never solved, were never looked at because
of lack of money or just confidence in the

967
01:38:59,000 --> 01:38:59,409
technology at the time?

968
01:38:59,409 --> 01:39:03,010
I mean the O ring was kind of carried over
a little bit.

969
01:39:03,010 --> 01:39:10,010
The foam, I don't know how much of that was
brand-new.

970
01:39:14,469 --> 01:39:21,469
And nowadays are we just relying on the confidence
that these things have worked for a hundred

971
01:39:24,530 --> 01:39:24,780
mission or so or is it just lack of money?

972
01:39:24,659 --> 01:39:30,550
No, I cannot say there was a lack of money
back at the time of the O ring.

973
01:39:30,550 --> 01:39:37,550
Had
the culture been and if they were inquisitive
enough to pursue it, I think they could have

974
01:39:43,480 --> 01:39:46,000
gotten the money to do it.

975
01:39:46,000 --> 01:39:53,000
On the Shuttle engine, out of necessity the
culture was there.

976
01:39:54,429 --> 01:39:56,619
I mean it was driven by people like Yardley.

977
01:39:56,619 --> 01:40:03,619
I think another thing at NASA and aerospace,
you know, you can do wonderful things with

978
01:40:05,550 --> 01:40:12,550
computers today, but too little of all this
analysis is anchored by a good failure.

979
01:40:13,290 --> 01:40:20,290
You've got the analysis, you've got a lot
of programs, you can do a heck of a job on

980
01:40:23,889 --> 01:40:30,889
analysis today, but it's not necessarily anchored
in the remnants of a good failure, one that

981
01:40:31,840 --> 01:40:34,610
has adequate data.

982
01:40:34,610 --> 01:40:41,610
If I'm building a test bed now, how do I kind
of intelligently justify it to my sponsors

983
01:40:58,210 --> 01:41:04,389
that I want to have a budget [NOISE OBSCURES]?

984
01:41:04,389 --> 01:41:07,040
Well, I don't think you're going to sell it
that way.

985
01:41:07,040 --> 01:41:07,290
[LAUGHTER] Right.

986
01:41:07,040 --> 01:41:13,280
Well, I think your sponsor or whoever has
got to have a good appreciation of how far

987
01:41:13,280 --> 01:41:17,520
you're going to be pushing the technology.

988
01:41:17,520 --> 01:41:24,520
If you oversell it then you're not going to
get the money to be able to stand those.

989
01:41:26,040 --> 01:41:31,280
If you push too hard in that direction your
sponsor is probably going to get disinterested.

990
01:41:31,280 --> 01:41:37,760
That's going to be a fine line.

991
01:41:37,760 --> 01:41:41,610
Pick a current example.

992
01:41:41,610 --> 01:41:48,610
Pick at least, as I understand it, what NASA
is trying to do with the Lunar project or

993
01:41:53,710 --> 01:41:55,150
the moon project.

994
01:41:55,150 --> 01:42:02,150
I, for one, think that their yardstick is
going to be tough.

995
01:42:09,429 --> 01:42:16,429
Apollo didn't have any failures, why are you
going to have any failure?

996
01:42:17,260 --> 01:42:21,690
I think they are going to have to be very
careful how they sell that program.

997
01:42:21,690 --> 01:42:28,690
Just because they're using or will use shuttle-derived
elements, an external tank, maybe a five or

998
01:42:33,119 --> 01:42:40,119
an additional segment to the solid motors,
the SSME, that's not going to be a freebee.

999
01:42:41,760 --> 01:42:48,760
I mean, I've already told you, I would do
some things to the shuttle main engine in

1000
01:42:51,260 --> 01:42:54,300
building a different program.

1001
01:42:54,300 --> 01:43:01,300
The tank,
you know, they're not going to keep the foam
from coming off on the configuration that

1002
01:43:06,550 --> 01:43:07,830
they have.

1003
01:43:07,830 --> 01:43:13,219
And I also wouldn't assume that I don't have
a problem now because I don't have an orbiter

1004
01:43:13,219 --> 01:43:14,500
on the side of it.

1005
01:43:14,500 --> 01:43:17,760
The foam is not supposed to come off.

1006
01:43:17,760 --> 01:43:24,760
I would degrade the insulation and put on
something that would stay, as an example.

1007
01:43:29,780 --> 01:43:30,030
Yes.

1008
01:43:29,780 --> 01:43:36,780
How much of the original engine, the current
engine right now, is it exactly the same as

1009
01:43:55,119 --> 01:43:55,369
the original one or what has changed.

1010
01:43:55,119 --> 01:43:55,369
Materials?

1011
01:43:55,119 --> 01:43:55,590
Is the computer the same?

1012
01:43:55,590 --> 01:43:55,880
Is everything exactly the same?

1013
01:43:55,880 --> 01:43:57,400
I think it is the same.

1014
01:43:57,400 --> 01:44:04,400
I'm sure there are, through engineering change
proposals or fairly low-level change traffic,

1015
01:44:07,739 --> 01:44:10,989
some things that have been upgraded.

1016
01:44:10,989 --> 01:44:17,989
But Inconel is still the basic material of
the housing.

1017
01:44:19,840 --> 01:44:26,840
The turbine blades are still Mar-M 246 which
is a high strength copper, I think.

1018
01:44:29,600 --> 01:44:33,159
That's the same thing.

1019
01:44:33,159 --> 01:44:37,250
They still use ball bearings when they fly.

1020
01:44:37,250 --> 01:44:42,730
And I don't know the change point on this,
but Pratt & Whitney makes the high pressure

1021
01:44:42,730 --> 01:44:46,409
turbo pumps now and they used roller bearings.

1022
01:44:46,409 --> 01:44:53,409
And that would be a big change, the two high
pressure pumps that have now been incorporated

1023
01:44:55,130 --> 01:44:57,230
in the Shuttle engine.

1024
01:44:57,230 --> 01:44:58,179
But other areas --

1025
01:44:58,179 --> 01:45:03,040
[OVERLAPPING VOICES] the high pressure turbo
pumps?

1026
01:45:03,040 --> 01:45:03,719
Yeah.

1027
01:45:03,719 --> 01:45:08,860
At some point a couple of years ago, I think,
they were incorporated and brought in.

1028
01:45:08,860 --> 01:45:10,440
Those would be big part number changes.

1029
01:45:10,440 --> 01:45:17,210
But a lot of other areas of the engine, I
think it's the same.

1030
01:45:17,210 --> 01:45:23,440
And I think that's one of the reasons that
they feel they don't need to test much.

1031
01:45:23,440 --> 01:45:25,389
They've got all that.

1032
01:45:25,389 --> 01:45:32,389
So, we will have to see how the next four
or five years play out.

1033
01:45:34,290 --> 01:45:34,550
Anything else?

1034
01:45:34,550 --> 01:45:41,550
Well, since they're talking about using a
lot of these with the next generation vehicle

1035
01:45:43,619 --> 01:45:48,650
and they won't be reusable, what can be done?

1036
01:45:48,650 --> 01:45:53,290
I mean what's the way to go about kind of
de-rating the Shuttle?

1037
01:45:53,290 --> 01:45:59,929
You talked about opening the throat, but all
the other things that make the engine reusable

1038
01:45:59,929 --> 01:46:02,489
and presumably make it more expensive.

1039
01:46:02,489 --> 01:46:07,469
Will it really be the same engine when they
get finished?

1040
01:46:07,469 --> 01:46:11,989
I mean what has to be done?

1041
01:46:11,989 --> 01:46:12,360
I don't know.

1042
01:46:12,360 --> 01:46:19,360
I mean some may argue and suppose because
the requirement for reusable engine isn't

1043
01:46:24,469 --> 01:46:28,489
there will eliminate some of the things.

1044
01:46:28,489 --> 01:46:29,560
I don't know what they'd be.

1045
01:46:29,560 --> 01:46:36,560
But, having paid all that development, I would
be more inclined to really minimize the change

1046
01:46:41,909 --> 01:46:47,250
for change sake and do some things like open
up the throat.

1047
01:46:47,250 --> 01:46:52,380
I mentioned that as an example that would
reduce the operating pressures and, I think,

1048
01:46:52,380 --> 01:46:57,159
give them more margin across the board.

1049
01:46:57,159 --> 01:47:04,159
On a tank, I would go to an installation system
that is going to be a little less efficient.

1050
01:47:05,540 --> 01:47:12,540
You're going to have more boil off, weigh
a lot more, but something that doesn't give

1051
01:47:14,969 --> 01:47:15,790
you other problems.

1052
01:47:15,790 --> 01:47:21,139
J.R., let me ask a question that was asked
of me and I couldn't answer earlier.

1053
01:47:21,139 --> 01:47:27,040
Did we ever look at putting the insulation
internal to the external tank rather than

1054
01:47:27,040 --> 01:47:28,540
the outside?

1055
01:47:28,540 --> 01:47:32,389
I'm not aware that it was looked at.

1056
01:47:32,389 --> 01:47:37,719
Somebody along the way, I suspect, could have.

1057
01:47:37,719 --> 01:47:44,719
No, I'm not aware of what it was or what it
would have been.

1058
01:47:53,820 --> 01:47:57,679
Anything else?

1059
01:47:57,679 --> 01:47:58,440
Well, I've enjoyed it.

1060
01:47:58,440 --> 01:48:05,440
I hope you don't repeat the same mistakes
that we made this time around.

1061
01:48:11,610 --> 01:48:12,670
And good luck in your projects.

1062
01:48:12,670 --> 01:48:19,670
Thanks, J.R. [APPLAUSE] I'm just going to
take the last three minutes.

1063
01:48:21,440 --> 01:48:28,179
J.R. referred to the fact that we only had
one engine shut down in the whole history

1064
01:48:28,179 --> 01:48:30,080
of the program.

1065
01:48:30,080 --> 01:48:31,150
And that was due to a sensor.

1066
01:48:31,150 --> 01:48:38,150
Just to give you a sense of what goes into
the operation of this system.

1067
01:48:42,070 --> 01:48:49,030
It was always recognized that you have sensors
looking at the temperatures.

1068
01:48:49,030 --> 01:48:54,300
And the idea is that if anything starts to
go wrong with the engine, you want to shut

1069
01:48:54,300 --> 01:48:58,550
it down now before the thing blows up.

1070
01:48:58,550 --> 01:49:05,550
Because we can lose one engine and have an
intact abort, but if the engine blows up and

1071
01:49:06,170 --> 01:49:09,909
takes the whole boat tail with it you're not
going to get back.

1072
01:49:09,909 --> 01:49:16,909
Generally, there's a little switch in the
cockpit which enables the ability of the sensors

1073
01:49:17,570 --> 01:49:21,260
to shut down the engines and you fly with
that on.

1074
01:49:21,260 --> 01:49:28,260
But the problem is if you lose one engine
and you get into an abort mode now, at least

1075
01:49:29,310 --> 01:49:36,099
for the first part of that abort mode, if
you lose a second engine now, with only one

1076
01:49:36,099 --> 01:49:40,469
engine remaining, you cannot complete an intact
abort.

1077
01:49:40,469 --> 01:49:46,840
What the crew does, if you lose an engine,
you take that switch and you disable the automatic

1078
01:49:46,840 --> 01:49:47,630
shutdown.

1079
01:49:47,630 --> 01:49:54,630
Well, what happened was a few minutes into
the launch
the sensor started to go off scale.

1080
01:50:08,469 --> 01:50:09,679
The engine was shutdown.

1081
01:50:09,679 --> 01:50:13,909
But they were far enough into the launch that
they can actually do an abort to orbit.

1082
01:50:13,909 --> 01:50:20,909
They took the engine switch to disable, normal
procedure.

1083
01:50:21,730 --> 01:50:28,730
When they got a little further along so that
they were in what they would be able to, a

1084
01:50:29,560 --> 01:50:36,560
little further on, I forget the exact details,
but they took the switch back to enable.

1085
01:50:36,719 --> 01:50:42,719
But the main engine flight controller on the
ground noticed that the sensor in one of the

1086
01:50:42,719 --> 01:50:47,099
other engines was also starting to go off
scale.

1087
01:50:47,099 --> 01:50:54,099
And, if that was allowed, it would basically
take down a second engine.

1088
01:50:54,849 --> 01:50:59,719
That would have put them in a single engine,
what we would have called an intact transatlantic

1089
01:50:59,719 --> 01:51:00,340
abort.

1090
01:51:00,340 --> 01:51:06,239
But, by that time, they were too far to land
in the normal abort site, and they would have

1091
01:51:06,239 --> 01:51:09,369
ended up landing somewhere in Africa, I think,
in the dark.

1092
01:51:09,369 --> 01:51:13,280
I mean it would have been a really bad situation.

1093
01:51:13,280 --> 01:51:20,280
And so the flight controller was sharp enough
to tell the flight director we've got another

1094
01:51:21,409 --> 01:51:24,580
bad sensor, tell the crew to take the switch
to inhibit.

1095
01:51:24,580 --> 01:51:31,580
Luckily, the flight director's background
was in propulsion systems.

1096
01:51:33,080 --> 01:51:37,090
He knew exactly what the flight controller
was talking about.

1097
01:51:37,090 --> 01:51:42,199
They called it up to the crew, they took it,
and so the second engine did not shut down.

1098
01:51:42,199 --> 01:51:47,300
And, in fact, they made it into orbit and
they managed to complete the mission.

1099
01:51:47,300 --> 01:51:50,500
But these are decisions which have to be made
in split seconds.

1100
01:51:50,500 --> 01:51:57,500
In fact, the flight controller who made that
call was given a special award from NASA.

1101
01:51:59,409 --> 01:52:02,420
You really have to know these systems inside
and out.

1102
01:52:02,420 --> 01:52:06,900
And that is, of course, why we have so many
simulations where they run those sorts of

1103
01:52:06,900 --> 01:52:13,179
failure cases so that people are able to make
these decisions very quickly in real-time.

1104
01:52:13,179 --> 01:52:20,179
And that basically saved the Shuttle and the
crew from potentially a really bad situation.

1105
01:52:22,130 --> 01:52:26,810
Is the orbit burn done by the main engines?

1106
01:52:26,810 --> 01:52:29,520
No, they're done by the OMS.

1107
01:52:29,520 --> 01:52:36,520
Once the main engines shut down, you've dropped
the tank so you don't have any more propellant.

1108
01:52:40,540 --> 01:52:47,540
And there have been a few, I think four, engine
shutdowns on the pad.

1109
01:52:48,230 --> 01:52:53,360
You start the engines about six seconds before
T zero.

1110
01:52:53,360 --> 01:52:57,199
That gives them enough time to come up to
full operating performance so that you can

1111
01:52:57,199 --> 01:52:58,449
check out that they are OK.

1112
01:52:58,449 --> 01:53:04,980
Remember we talked about the twang because
of the asymmetric thrust that gives you enough

1113
01:53:04,980 --> 01:53:08,020
time for the Orbiter to tilt forward and then
come back?

1114
01:53:08,020 --> 01:53:11,840
And then when you're vertical that is when
you fire the engines.

1115
01:53:11,840 --> 01:53:13,460
I've got some pictures of this.

1116
01:53:13,460 --> 01:53:17,670
At one class I will show you some slow motion
pictures of the launch.

1117
01:53:17,670 --> 01:53:18,800
You can see all that.

1118
01:53:18,800 --> 01:53:20,619
We've had four pad shutdowns.

1119
01:53:20,619 --> 01:53:26,400
Of those two were due to real problems with
the engine and two were due to instrumentation

1120
01:53:26,400 --> 01:53:27,880
problems.

1121
01:53:27,880 --> 01:53:34,750
It's always a problem of how much instrumentation
do you put in and how much do you trust it?

1122
01:53:34,750 --> 01:53:40,210
And I know Aaron has made the point, on several
occasions, of if you put an abort system in

1123
01:53:40,210 --> 01:53:46,270
for the crew, is that going to be triggered
automatically or does it have to be manual?

1124
01:53:46,270 --> 01:53:50,540
You certainly don't want to get shot off the
end of a good working rocket just because

1125
01:53:50,540 --> 01:53:53,929
your sensors have told you that something
wrong is happening.

1126
01:53:53,929 --> 01:53:59,949
There are a lot of interesting engineering
decisions to be made with that.

1127
01:53:59,949 --> 01:54:00,340
End of class.

1128
01:54:00,340 --> 01:54:02,230
We'll see you on Thursday.

1129
01:54:02,230 --> 01:54:03,210
And thanks again to J.R.