mistrmann (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

what country was it launched in?

philkarn (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

I read the report and I see what you mean. It doesn't detail the self destruct, but it's clear the launcher broke apart from aerodynamic forces first. Usually that's enough to rupture liquid fuel tanks to go boom.It sounds like the range safety system was failsafe so that if the stack came apart, a wire was cut and the destruct charges were fired. That kind of makes sense in case the command receivers aren't working. SRBs are heavy and aero forces may not break them up.

philkarn (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

Well, the inertial platform in question had been flown many times on Ariane 4 without any problems. The program managers, being hardware people, didn't understand how software fails. So they had redundant hardware running identical code. Ironically, the use of an old, proven, slow CPU was what forced the programmers to not check those conversions; it's not that they didn't know about them. Had they used a modern yet less proven CPU...

ugowar (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

I'm looking at the failure report just now and it states the vehicle actually *did* initiate a self-destruct which was "correctly triggered by rupture of the links between the solid boosters and the core stage". It makes sense, in the video the solid boosters explode and they're typically very sturdy (Challenger SRBs didn't explode after breakup, but due to range safety destruct) and wouldn't simply fall apart.In essence, it fell apart due to air drag and then destroyed itself.

ugowar (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

They haven't ran a simulated trajectory *before* the launch? How ironic (and expensive) is that? Then again, it makes sense they didn't - otherwise this thing wouldn't have happened.

spitfir3ace (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

lol owned

philkarn (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

Shouldn't you add "delusional psychosis"?

panthamster (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

Well that was one of the most bizarre threads I ever followed. I think I'll copy it out and give it out to my students as an example of protoypical narcissistic personality disorder.

buskinon (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

Wow nice fire cracker.

philkarn (December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm)

Why should I give a fuck that you're a rock star? Is that supposed to mean something profound to me? I think you've been playing with your monitors too high, and they've been shaking your brain and turning it into mush.I mean, that's the only viable explanation if you're not on drugs. Which I'm not sure I believe.