And to add to the many elements of bad design:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/railroad.html
“Getting the 12-foot-wide, 150-ton segments to the launch site is only possible by rail.”
Now why is that? Couldn’t they have taken them on a barge? (And if they did, would they have needed to make the rocket in a whole series of segments each as long as a railcar? Has there ever been another rocket that travelled on rail cars in segments?)
Nope, because instead of giving the contract to a company anywhere on the coast or a navigable river, they gave it to Morton Thiokol in one of the 16 US states that are entirely landlocked Utah. Now what else is in Utah? Orrin Hatch, the powerful senator who spent a good bit of his career shilling for that company.
I read an article years ago saying that the space shuttle was the most skillfully designed project in American history. It managed to require contracts and jobs in every state that hosted a key deciding congressman or senator.
Now why is that? Couldn’t they have taken them on a barge? (And if they did, would they have needed to make the rocket in a whole series of segments each as long as a railcar? Has there ever been another rocket that travelled on rail cars in segments?)
Nope, because instead of giving the contract to a company anywhere on the coast or a navigable river, they gave it to Morton Thiokol in one of the 16 US states that are entirely landlocked Utah. Now what else is in Utah? Orrin Hatch, the powerful senator who spent a good bit of his career shilling for that company.
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Always wondered why the rocket was segmented. Now I know! It was political.