[X] My Assistant

[lyford]

If you're gonna go bad, you might as well make it good!

What are your "favorite" launch failures?

(pic snagged from Rocket Explosions)

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[jrdahlman]

For a hilarious story on WHY a rocket could go off in the wrong direction, read "The Missile that Couldn't Fly Straight" by Hal Hardenbergh. It can be found in the September 1983 issue of his "DTACK Grounded" newsletter, writing under the pen name of "Feldercarb N. Eloi." (It was supposed to be about 68000 programming, but he usually wrote about whatever he felt like writing.)

Though it claims to be a "fictional story," it's strongly hinted to be based on real problems with the guidance system for a missle he calls "a Secondperson" (Hmmm, any relation to the Minuteman?) with the names changed.

The short version:

Finally, enough missiles were in place that one could be safely expended for test purposes. It was pulled from its hole, trucked to Vandenberg AFB, and aimed due west. That's north of Hawaii and south of the Great Circle trade routes to Japan. When they launched the Secondperson the engines performed flawlessly as the missile flew on a straight line for Kansas City. The launch officer had to destroy it, of course. Regrettably, Kansas City is east, not west, of Vandenberg AFB. Oh, well, you can't expect missiles to perform perfectly every time.

General Rattlesword decided that the next random test would be with two missiles, and would be performed as soon as practicable....

Two new test-firings of production Secondperson missiles occurred on consecutive days at Vandenberg AFO under the personal supervision of General Rattlesword and a coterie of lesser officers, including Colonel Crudcutter. Although both were aimed west, one flew north and the other north-west. The engines of both missiles were performing flawlessly when the launch officer destroyed them.

A private conversation took place shortly after the second (third in all) test-firing. It was between General Rattlesword, seated, and Colonel Crudcutter, standing at attention. We do not know the details of this conversation but it is possible that Rattlesword called Crudcutter's attention to the fact that he was the resposible officer in charge of the inertial guidance portion of the Secondperson missile program.

It was decided to test additional missiles. In all, twelve production Secondperson missiles were pulled from the ground and test-fired. All twelve engines performed perfectly. The direction the missiles flew was random, one missile heading almost in the direction it was pointed....

[Obviously the problem is with the guidance gyroscopes, built by a company here called "Almalgametics."]

Ten days into the investigation, a young Lieutenant knocked on Crudcutter's ofice. "Colonel," he said, "here are two sets of test data which I took, personally, on the same gyro. The first one here is well within our requirements. But this second set shows that the same gyro is a piece of garbage!"

"This first set," the Lieutenant continued, "were taken using the standard test setup Amalgametics has been using. This second set shows the same gyro and the same power supply except that I changed the wheel supply to operate at a constant frequency."

"What do you mean, changed to operate at a constant frequency?" snapped Crudcutter.

"Well, the standard Amalgametics test setup uses something called a phase-locked loop," the Lieutenant explained patiently to his (very) superior officer. "What that does is keep the gyro spinning at a constant frequency. But it also means that the output frequency of the wheel supply is not constant, but rather changing continuously to accommodate the gyro."

Now, the fact is that Colonel Crudcutter had no education in electronics and did not understand the explanation. He annoyedly snapped back, "So?"

"So the power supply in the missile flight package runs at a constant frequency," replied the Lieutenant."

For the whole hilarious story (including why the Almagametics manager responsible couldn't be punished and was even rewarded), the whole (long) newsletter is in the "DTACK Grounded Archive" at:

http://linux.monroeccc.edu/~paulrsm/dg/dg23.htm

and scroll over halfway down to the "Page 17, Column 1" heading.

John D.