Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V15_5/V15NO508.TXT

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Date: Sat,  5 Dec 92 18:07:08
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V15 #508
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat,  5 Dec 92       Volume 15 : Issue 508

Today's Topics:
                        Autorotation (2 msgs)
             Crystal growth in space - Bad NASA economics
                             DC-X status?
                         Galileo through SAA
    HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
                     Rumors about Hubble (2 msgs)
    Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax! (3 msgs)
 Shuttle Costs from Space News Article (Was Re: Shuttle replacement)
                           shuttle downtime
                     Shuttle replacement (2 msgs)
                      Space Shuttle Ozone Report
                STS-48 and "SDI": Oberg vs. Hoagland
                           total power loss

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 23:30:47 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Autorotation

-From: [e-mail] (Mary Shafer)
-Subject: Re: Autorotation
-Date: 3 Dec 92 04:23:35 GMT
-Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal.

-I must also mention that I know a number of helicopter pilots who have
-autorotated under a variety of emergency conditions, including enemy
-fire.  (Of course, enemy fire is not common in Canada, so you may
-never have read about such an event, but trust me, it has occurred.)

I believe there are a considerable number of Canadians among the UN
forces in Yugoslavia. (I don't know whether they have any helicopters,
however.)

To what extent does autorotation depend on the tail remaining functional?
(I seem to recall reading that powered helicopters that lose the tail
almost always crash.)

John Roberts
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 04:23:35 GMT
From: Mary Shafer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Autorotation
Newsgroups: sci.space

On 3 Dec 92 03:15:56 GMT, [e-mail] (Donald Lindsay) said:

DL> [e-mail] (Ian Ameline) writes:
>   Don, I take it you're a pilot? Or an aeronautical engineer? You're
>speaking with such certainty that it might help if we knew what
>experience you have with aeronautical activities that would justify
>that certainty. As a pilot, I'm always interested in learning from the
>experiences of others.

DL> For years, I regularly read the Canadian Government's summary of
DL> aviation accidents. I believe that I have a grasp of the relative
DL> incidence rate of the commoner forms of accident. The statement which
DL> you found so positive comes from my noticing that crashed helicopters
DL> were usually *doing* something, rather than just travelling from A to
DL> B.

Well, after 21-1/2 years of full-time permanent employment in flight
test, working in dynamics of the airframe, stability and control,
handling qualities, and project engineering and management, with
various safety duties, including participation in and chairing of
various safety reviews, and with study of aircraft accidents included
in my duties, I must say that I don't really feel that a few years
of reading accident reports is much of a qualification.

(Actually, my first reaction to your claim was "Well, lah-di-dah" but
I think that's probably a little too harsh.)

I must also mention that I know a number of helicopter pilots who have
autorotated under a variety of emergency conditions, including enemy
fire.  (Of course, enemy fire is not common in Canada, so you may
never have read about such an event, but trust me, it has occurred.)

Were emergency autorotations as deadly as you claim, we'd have a
number of empty desks at NASA and elsewhere.  My uncle got his first
Purple Heart (and a Silver Star) when his medevac helicopter was shot
down in the Korean War--but he got the Purple Heart for being shot,
not for any injury from the autorotation.

--
Mary Shafer  DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
[e-mail]                    Of course I don't speak for NASA
 "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."  Unknown US fighter pilot

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 18:59:29 GMT
From: Gregory Aharonian <[e-mail]>
Subject: Crystal growth in space - Bad NASA economics
Newsgroups: sci.space

    The November 20, 1992 issue of NATURE magazine, page 293, carries an
article titled "MIR for the crystallographers' money" in which the authors
discuss the economics of protein crystal growth in space.  What follows are
some excerpts that match the overall authors' feelings that protein crystal
growth in space has little economic advantage over Earth-bound growth.

    More and more the DoD, DoE and NASA are getting into the position of
acting as venture capitalists for new technologies such as commercial space,
CRADAs and DARPA funding, and even running businesses such as technology
transfer centers that compete with the private sector. Even if these agencies
were able to do this better than the private sector (which articles like
these shows it hasn't), do we want the government do such stuff, and can
we trust their rosy economic projections (for example, the DoE is making
alot of noise about superconducting power transmission, but no one has

shown it is more economical)?


Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization

==============================================================================

"MIR" for the crystallographers money

Barry Stoddard(WA), Roland Strong(CA), Anthony Arratt(MA) and
Gregory Farber(PA)

"The evidence from such experiments unambiguously shows that growth in
microgravity does have the possibility to alter crystal size, quality and
morphology.  However, experiments to date have not yet demonstrated that
microgravity protein-crystal growth is a wise way to spend ever more scarce
government research dollars".


"We conclude from these experiments that microgravity acts in much the same
manner as any of the standard chemical additives in crystallization
experiments.  That is to say that it often has no effect, but when it does
have an effect, it can be either an improvement or a lessening in the quality
of the obtained crystals. Microgravity is not a universal panacea for crystals
for diffraction experiments.  But considering the limited number of
experiments performed so far and the difficulties inherent in performing them,
the observed improvement rate of 20% probably underestimates the number of
crystallization problems that would benefit."


"Microgravity has not yet accomplished any significant breakthrough in
protein-crystal growth.  So far, no protein has been reported to crystallize
in microgravity that does not crystallize on Earth.  In addition, although
several protein crystals have been reported to show dramatic improvements
in a microgravity environment, none of these crystal structures have been
solved."


"Measured by the yardstick of routine crystal production, microgravity is not
yet a success.  Given the difficulty and cost of such experiments, we doubt
that it will be appropriate for many protein-crystallization problems.  The
final basis by which to assess its importance and usefulness will be the
ability to solve protein structures using crystals which could only be grown
in microgravity."


"Based on our 24% success rate, the experiments reported here show that for
protein-crystal growth, MIR is as good a microgravity platform as the Shuttle.
Because the Russian launch vehicle which delivers our experiments to MIR is
unmanned, we have found that sending experiments to MIR is more reliable than
trying to do similar experiments on the Shuttle.  Finally, because MIR is a
permanently orbiting space station, we can do long-duration experiments that
are not possible on any other microgravity platform.  It is clear that
researchers in the West should consider using MIR for their microgravity
experiments.  Given the uncertainties over continued funding for the MIR
program in Russia, such collaboration would clearly be of mutual benefit
for crystallographers".
--
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1992 00:22:06 GMT
From: Rich Kolker <[e-mail]>
Subject: DC-X status?
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <#[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Michael V. Kent) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rich Kolker) writes:
>
>>TJ told me flight
>>test should begin in late March/early April.
>
>According to Bill Gaubatz, program manager for SSTO, DC-X is on schedule for
>an 8:00 am launch on 23 April 1993.
>

That's a good source so far as I'm concerned.  Is that the date for beginning
hover / taxi testing.  It has been my understanding that DC-X will undergo
a very typical new aircraft checkout (given it's an SSTO).

++rich

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 23:19:36 EST
From: John Roberts <[e-mail]>
Subject: Galileo through SAA

-From: [e-mail] (Steve Derry)
-Subject: Galileo through SAA (was Re: Space probe to pass Earth)
-Date: 3 Dec 92 17:19:51 GMT
-Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA

-So Galileo will pass over the South Atlantic at 190 nm next Tuesday morning.
-Does anybody know whether it will fly through the SAA (South Atlantic
-Anomaly)?  Will it matter if it does?

The SAA is just a spot where the inner Van Allen radiation belt dips slightly
lower than elsewhere. Galileo has to fly through both Van Allen belts, so
whether or not it briefly emerges from the inner belt at perigee doesn't
really matter.

-Since it is designed to fly near
-Jupiter, I guess it is designed to handle harsh radiation environments...

Very much so. It's far more radiation-hardened than the satellites designed
to operate in geosynchronous orbit (which is within the outer belt).

-Steve Derry
-<[e-mail]>

I'd be interested in knowing where the Shuttle and Mir will be during the
flyby. If it's within a few hundred miles, they might conceivably be able
to track it visually.

John Roberts
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 05:14:27 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: HST black hole pix *or* Hubble Hype? (Was: HST black hole pix)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Gerald Cecil) writes:

[Refering to my previous posting in this string.]

> I'm sorry, my reference to ``Hubble Hype'' was not directed at your comments
> on the data processing, but to the more breathless excesses of the NASA
> press release that accompanied the pretty picture.  This generated several
> statements (in these news groups among other places) that ``the Hubble image
> shows an accretion disk around a black hole.''  Nope.  I wished only to
> reinforce the more cautious sentence in the release that you quote.  Accretion
> disks per se are too compact for Hubble to resolve in external galaxies.  In
> any case, it's a nice image and one more small step to understanding active
> galaxies.
> --
> Gerald Cecil [e-mail]  919-962-7169
> Physics & Astronomy, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 USA

Gerald was kind enough to send me an explanatory note earlier.  But since he
has been gracious enough to apologise publicaly I feel I should accept
publicaly.  Thanks for clearing it up Gerald.

-Bill Gawne,  Space Telescope Science Institute

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 92 22:42:07 GMT
From: Josh 'K' Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rumors about Hubble
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Tom) writes:

>I heard the strangest rumor recently.  The doubt factor is pretty high,
>but I'm curious if anyone has anything to add about the reality or origin
>of the rumor.

>It goes something like this:  HST is actually in perfect working condition,
>but the military shanghied it, with the bad-mirror cover story, for the
>purpose of inspecting a recently discovered radio signal coming from
>space, presumably from IET's.

>You're buyin' it, right? :-)  Does this sound familiar to anyone, or
>is it a total crock?  One way or the other, how do you know?

Tom, you're an astronomy undergrad and you even consider the possibility of
this?  First of all, Hubble is an optical telescope.  If there were an alien
signal I'd be much more worried about the military hijacking all the radio
telescopes.  Second, given the number of people who have worked on the problem
and the number of astronomers (some of whom are on the net) who are involved
with HST, this kind of thing would be completely impossible to keep a secret.
--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]
                        Ho^3     !=L

------------------------------

Date: 5 Dec 92 00:21:20 GMT
From: "Richard A. Schumacher" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rumors about Hubble
Newsgroups: sci.space

Further, why would they bother to hijack a civilian orbital telescope
when they already have those nice KH-11s and KH-12s at their disposal?
The rumor is Rush Limbaugh stupidity.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 92 14:11:41 -0600
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Nick Haines) writes:
> To summarize the dozens of future postings I expect on this subject:
[rational facts deleted]

> (c) Could the DoD successfully keep the lid on a `signals from ET'
> story?

No.  It would inevitably leak to Rush Limbaugh. Obviously.

Look at the rotten security the USAF has had on the case of those
frozen Saucer People in the basement. (-: (-:

> This rumour was clearly made up by somebody who knows almost nothing
> about HST or astronomy, who is confusing the `HST mirror' story with
> the `NASA SETI' story, and mixing in a bit of the `DoD aliens
> cover-up' story.

Could someone who actually pays some attention to Mr. Limbaugh
tell us whether he has previously displayed any serious interest in
stories of Saucer People?

--
     O~~*           /_) ' / /   /_/ '  ,   ,  ' ,_  _           \|/
   - ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / /   / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
 /       \                          (_) (_)                    / | \
 |       |     Bill Higgins   Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 \       /     Bitnet:     [e-mail]
   -   -       Internet:  [e-mail]
     ~         SPAN/Hepnet:      43011::HIGGINS

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 92 20:34:49 GMT
From: Jim Mann <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax!
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Ryan Korniloff) writes:
> The popular American radio personality Rush Limbaugh stated today
that the
> problems with HSTs mirror are a Department of Defense hoax. He says
that
> the DoD took over control of the HST program so they could study a
strange
> radio source that could possibly be another civilization's radio
> emmisions. And that the DoD cooked up the story of the faulted
mirror to
> cover up there actions.
> Rush has over 13 million listeners and has may connections into the
goings
> ons of many behind-the-scenes happenings. I don't think that he
would make
> such a statment without a reason to believe it is true.

And perhaps next Rush (unless the Enquirer breaks the story
first) will report the other big part of the story: that
the chief DoD scientist working on this project is none other
than Elvis Presley.  Elvis "died" just at the time that the DoD
first picked up those signals. He's been in hiding (except for
a few trips to the local shopping malls) studying the problem
himself. It was Elvis himself who came up with the Hubble scam.


--
Jim Mann
Stratus Computer   [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 21:46:02 GMT
From: Richard Ottolini <[e-mail]>
Subject: Rush Limbaugh says problems with HST are a DoD hoax!
Newsgroups: sci.space

Rush sometimes choses positions to be anti-liberal than on their own merit.
Some liberals have been attacking government support of the space program
as taking away from social spending.  Therefore Rush defends so-called
mistakes of the space program.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Dec 92 02:45:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Shuttle Costs from Space News Article (Was Re: Shuttle replacement)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Pat) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Brian Stuart Thorn) writes:
>>

>>Okay, you've crewed the fire truck... now who's going to fuel the DC? :-)
>>
>>-Brian
>
>
>
>Brian,  i think you miss the point.  the Mindset of the DC-1 is to build
>an operational spacecraft capable of cohabitating with Long Haul Airliners
>or Military aircraft.  The ground crew for an F-15 does not normally
>include the fire truck.  Sure,  there is a fire truck at an air base or
>air port, but it sits in a hangar waiting for a call.

>Would you insist that everyone at the airport be counted as ground crew?????
>
Well let us just look at this little statment in detail shall we? From the
November 30-December 6 Space News there comes a little article that sheds
considerable light on the subject of how launch cost for our little ol'
Space Shuttle are tallied.

From David Bates, deptuty director of resources managment for NASA states
that the marginal costs for a single Shuttle flight comes to a MAXIMUM of
37 million dollars.  This includes labor, rocket fuel equipment processing and
other factors directly related to a specific mission.


>the DC will only count as ground crew, those people who are needed to
>touch the craft or to drive and operate the support vehicles.
>

If you take that accounting method then you must take the above figure into
account for the shuttle, which is the same as you want to use for DC-1

>Firemen, tower personnel, porters, ticket attendants.  they dont count.
>

No who says they don't count. Allen sure does not, except when it is DC-he is
talking about.


>747's take off with a ground crew of only 3.  if DC-1 can get to an operational
>status,  it should be able to do similiar things.  we will see.

I think you might have to look outside the plane and notice that there is one
heck of a lot of people involved in a 747 flight. For example the people who
prepare the meals for the customers, the Stewards and Stewardesses, and the
baggage handlers and the ticket counter workers and the accountants and the
tax lawyers and the insurance agents and the FAA overseers and the Air traffic
controllers (who are paid from a different budget) and the runway pavers, and
the janitors and the taxi drivers and the etc........

Well this is the accounting method that you want us to use for the Shuttle.
Well let us for a moment do that very thing. Here is how the Space News
article breaks it down.

Now NASA usually uses a formula that includes all of the shuttle operatins
budget. This includes flight operations (Air Traffic Controllers), launch
and landing support, (Airports), flight hardware, (aircraft maintainence)
and research, (Basicially the FAA budget). For the Shuttle this comes to
2.94 billion for eight flights. This brings us to the whopping sum of $368
million per flight. Now Allen where the heck do your sweet little three to
one figures come from?

Well if you include the cost for TDRSS and all the civil service salaries
you come up to $405 million  per flight.

Yes Virgina you must include all these costs for you other systems if
you include it for Titan or DC or anyone else for that matter.

IF you include the cost of the ASRM's AND the new SSME turbo pumps and
any other shuttle upgrades you then push the whole total up to $547 million
per flight. Is this where you number comes from Allan?

Now good ol' John Pike from the Federation of somewhat American Scientists and
whirlygig makers (remember this is our new presidents science advisor) quotes
the figure as .75 billion per flight. This is due to him lumping anything
whatsoever having to do with manned spaceflight into one pile and then
divide by 8. Which is where Allen gets his five billion dollar number for
the manned space program.

This means folks that NASA is being charged for maintaining the entire manned
spaceflight infrastructure. Imagine how much a plane ticket would cost if
we had to pay directly for ALL the costs of Air travel.

Now dear and gentle reader please sit back and relax and wait for the fifteen
messages from Allen that will talk around this subject.

$37 million bucks per flight huh. Well now that means that the taxpayer
made about $50 million on the Intelsat rescue mission.

This message and attendant Pro-NASA propaganda presented to  you courtesy of
Space News and me.

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 22:53:48 GMT
From: Josh 'K' Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: shuttle downtime
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Michael V. Kent) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:

>>If you're willing to accept data from other programs as indicative, the USAF
>>figures that large solid rocket motors generally have a 1-2% failure rate,

>Wouldn't Castor IV-A's count as solid rocket boosters?  Delta II is 31 for 31,
>and it uses 9 Castors a launch.  That's 279 for 279 on the Castors.

The distinction is that Castors are significantly smaller than SRBs or SRMUs.
--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]
                        Ho^3     !=L

------------------------------

Date: 5 Dec 92 01:23:24 GMT
From: Brian Stuart Thorn <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

>I have several times. We can develop low cost HLV's in a few years for
>the cost of a single Shuttle flight should we feel the need. The private
>sector is ready to do it.
>
>  Allen

We can develop an HLV for about $600 million? When, where, how, and by
whom? Would this vehicle be a DC-type SSTO, or a big-dumb booster type,
or what? For $600 million??? Maybe for the $5 Billion we pay for a year
of Shuttle operations, but not for a single flight.

-Brian

------------------------------

Date: 5 Dec 92 01:23:58 GMT
From: Brian Stuart Thorn <[e-mail]>
Subject: Shuttle replacement
Newsgroups: sci.space

>Acoustic loading is the mechanical force on the spacecraft caused by
>sonic reflections from the ground during launch. As Robert says, this
>is a serious issue with any large rocket. A spacecraft can be literally
>hammered to pieces by this energy if the pad isn't designed to divert
>or absorb it. The first 100 feet, and the last 100 feet in the case of
>VTOL, are the most critical times for sonic hammering as well as a host
>of other problems. A million pounds of thrust makes a big noise, orders
>of magnitude higher than a little Harrier or other light VTOL. It's also
>very hot. It will fry and spall concrete that isn't water cooled. Chunks
>of flying concrete tend to make landing tricky. It's like landing on
>a demolition charge.
>
>Gary


Exactly. A Harrier landed at the Daytona Beach Regional Airport a few
years ago during an airshow. The runway was so chewed up that airline
flights were suspended for something like two weeks. DC will definitely
need some sort of pedestal and sound suppression system. Harrier uses
one engine diverted through four nozzles. DC uses several RL-10s each
aiming full power directly at the ground.

-Brian

------------------------------

Date: 4 Dec 92 07:19:15 GMT
From: Toqanda Szyleswski <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Shuttle Ozone Report
Newsgroups: sci.space

My roomie remembers hearing that a space shuttle experiement
indicated the ozone problem is not nearly as serious as some
have reported.

Does anyone have any info on this?  If it happened, where
did the story go?  What's the scoop?

Please reply by email.

Thanks,
Miles
[e-mail]   cs.utexas.edu!pensoft!meo

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 21:57:02 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: STS-48 and "SDI": Oberg vs. Hoagland
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.astro,sci.space,alt.alien.visitors

James Oberg will _of course_ have an explanation.  He is a member of
PSICOP and works with Philip Klass, THE well-known skeptic "nothing-
is-real" other famous member of PSICOP.  I've been seeing more and
more things from Oberg lately, and I *never* see this connection
mentioned, only his NASA ties.

Robert Sheaffer may be "Skepticus Maximus", but for the rest of us
with open minds, please consider the source.

Barb

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 23:15:10 GMT
From: Pat <[e-mail]>
Subject: total power loss
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Pat) writes:
>>>The fact that no widebody has ever had to ditch at sea shows just how rare
>>>total power loss is.
>>
>>When they certify Twin Jets for commercial passenger flights over oceans,
>>they use the acronym ETOPS Extended Twin Engine OPerationS.  Wags
>>prefer the acronym Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim...
>
>While I admit to being less than entirely happy with twin-engine operations
>over water, especially with the change to ETOPS rules which permits them to
>be *three* hours' flying time from a runway, it should be noted that the
>old minimum-three-engines rule dated from piston-engine days, when engine
>reliability was awful by modern standards.
>

ETOPS does it require that 1 engine amaintain cruise at 80% power or 100%.
I guess i would prefer the higher reserve myself.  Of course i still
think 3 engine is the way to go for transcontinental flights, but at the
rate airlines are going out of business, it may not be economical
any more....

>>Actually how many instances of total power loss have their been?
>>The brits lost one after an engine fire on a 757 and the pilot
>>then shut down the remaining good engine.  Their was Gimli and
>>and an incident when a US airliner lost all engines when a mechanic
>>forgot an o-ring on all foour engines.   there was also the avianca?
>>(Columbian airline)  that ran out of fuel enroute to JFK.
>>Have their been any other isntances?
>
>The Manchester accident was a 737, actually.  There have been several
>cases of *transient* loss of all engines in which enough power was
>regained to limp to a landing; the Tristar O-ring case was one of them,
>and there were at least two others involving 747s flying through volcanic
>ash clouds.  The Columbian airliner actually had arrived, but ended up
>running out of fuel while waiting to land, mostly because the pilot never
>said the magic word "emergency".  (And in the Gimli incident, the pilots
>were violating the rules by flying passengers on an aircraft with no
>functioning fuel gauges, although this wouldn't have led to a sudden
>unexpected quietness if a metric/imperial conversion hadn't confused
>refuelling.)
>--

Oops on the manchester incident.  i couldn't remember what designation
it was, but it did lead to a huge review of all boeings, where they
discovered a number of instances of bad wiring or plumbing in the
boeing fire protection sytstem.  In gimli, i thought they could fly
without gauges as long as the flight computer was operating.?
but overall, we are still talking of <10 instances of Loss of all engines
and under 5 where it led to loss of the aircraft.

I count miscalculating the fuel load as a loss of engine problem, of course
i include driving into a mountain or swamp while rubbernecking as a
navigation problem.  forgetting to watch the controls can be both
pilot error and bad navigational system design (but this is more
comp.risks).....

------------------------------

End of Space Digest Volume 15 : Issue 508
------------------------------