Posted on 04/18/2025 5:21:44 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Funy thing that. Israeli opposition leaders who, like Israeli intelligence, hate and stonewall Netanyahu, have gone public excoriating Bibi for NOT attacking Iran now when it is vulnerable.
See Yair Lapide, Yoav Gallant, Avigdor Liberman and Naftali Bennet.
Funny you should ask. I was on two teams investigating the explosion of the first stage during assembly handling during winter in Germany.
I was the only person on the investigation of radar coupling to ordnance that initiated shaped charge detonation on three thrust reversal ports on the forward dome of the engines. I I was one of about five on the Electro Static Discharge (ESD) team. There were other teams too, and they were investigating areas that I can't discuss.
There were motors in shipping containers in various stages of transport to Germany and within the USA that were halted in place immediately. There were aircraft holding rocket motors sitting at airports and semi-trucks pulled off on the side of the highway that could not move and had to be guarded. There was intense pressure to find the problem and we were working 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. with only Sunday off.
The PII motors were wound Kevlar and carbon fiber with paint (except for the forward and aft rings) and the shipping containers had cushioning on the cradles that were at opposite ends of the Tribo-electric chart from the paint/Kevlar, meaning that friction generates maximum electrical charge. And we found that the solid propellent had temperature dependent sensitivity so it would only ignite at very cold temperatures. We were just measuring the resistance of the propellent and at cold temperature the propellent ignited causing the rather spectacular destruction of our test shed which was set up for remote controlled experiments. Our propellent samples were stored in the shed so it all burned. It was like a volcano.
We then had to figure out how to move the motors from where they were stranded and finally how to fix them. For the handling the motors were moved during the warmest available weather after being sprayed down with soapy water in their shipping container and having the aft metal ring grounded. Then to implement the fix the motors had to have the soap scurbbed off and have conductive paint applied so that a ground cable could be put on the aft ring and lifting crane to bleed off the static charge.
Then Russia agreed to destroy their SS20 missiles (I think it was 1,000 with 3 warheads each) for our destruction of (I think it was 109 with 1 warhead each) Pershing II missiles.
I wonder about that too. There are many Anti-Zionists, including on FR, so you have to be careful about who to believe.
Whoa! I knew there was a problem, but I wasn’t aware how sensitive they were. That was a big problem.
I can imagine the high-level attention and focus on fixing that issue and everyone up the chain, including the president, was briefed and aware on what you guys were doing.
I was involved when a stored full-up SRAM was found torn up when a 3600 psi helium bottle, in the control unit, had ruptured. In the investigation, they found that the hydraulic fluid used to certify the bottles was contaminated with acid that was deteriorating the bottles and all the SRAM’s in the field had affected bottles that were passed time to explode.
When all the SRAMs went inoperable, everyone was interested and focused. I was on the first phase of fixing the problem and hit thirteen bases in five days with little sleep.
I can kind of remember what all we did but it is just as a blurry vision.
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