Why didn't the Robin seperate with Fuel Tank?

[colin002]

I think this would be an interesting post to talk about. Why didn't the Robin seperate with the Fuel Tank during the journey? My first thought is that it didn't reach 3000 feet so that it didn't seperate, what are your thoughts for the mission?

[VR6]

Like they said in the episode, they were failed by one bolt. I guess the explosives didnt go off on the bolt so the robin stayed attached to the fuel tank, but what an epic explosion.

[Zuhaib]

I think they said in the end on of the bolts failed to cut, that did not allow for a clear separation. tho it did look very, very, attached i can believe it as objects in motions for the most part want to stay in there same path and seeing as one bolt still was connect they would be like one object. Its the reason why the faux SRBs (and the real ones also) needed small motors to blow it to the side so they would fall to the side faster then just going up and risk hitting the rest of the rocket.
Also from the fire you can see under the Robin, something might have just caught on fire and killed the firing unit for those bolts. I am not shocked it failed (even if maybe it was staged for TV), because even real rocket companies have had issues like these. I worked on a project where a cable did not cut and ruined a whole rocket in test.

[Capacious Boot]

Or they just didn't want to bother with the whole remote controlled part and thought it would be funnier if it crashed and burned.

Not to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Still really funny and impressive.

[evo4life]

Yeah, seemed to me that there was more than 1 bolt still connected, it didn't seem to dangle or twitch from the tank one bit. Plus, the lift from the shuttle wings would have caused some kind of movement or separation. Still an amazing feat nonetheless.

[Blind_Io]

Originally Posted by Capacious Boot

Or they just didn't want to bother with the whole remote controlled part and thought it would be funnier if it crashed and burned.

Not to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Still really funny and impressive.

I was wondering about that as well since the alerons were put on with door hinges and I I saw no control mechanisms. If you watch the time lapse you can actually see the wind blowing them around.

I kind of doubt they were ever hooked up to servos to begin with. Control surfaces that size would put incredible force on the servos, probably more than an off-the-shelf servo can handle.

The other thing I was wondering about was the compressed gas tanks at the launch pad. Liquid fuel is very volatile and from what I saw of the construction the rocket was designed for solid fuel rockets. They were also talking about the rockets as being the largest they could get - something you would not say about a home-built liquid fueled rocket. Even if it was liquid fueled there was not enough in those few tanks to produce that kind of lift. The only thing I can think of is that the tanks were part of a welding cart (damn big cart), but if the orbiter and boosters were designed to separate then why the welding gear?

I don't know what I'm saying, but something does not add up.

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by Capacious Boot

Or they just didn't want to bother with the whole remote controlled part and thought it would be funnier if it crashed and burned.

Not to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Still really funny and impressive.

Nah, it's a remote possibility (no pun intended), but as they pointed out it was very complex and a huge number of things could have gone wrong, and one did.

Plus, I think TG would have loved it if it really did work, and so would I

[otispunkmeyer]

did the SRB's actually work on this thing? they put extra rockets in the fuel tank and they worked fine, but i couldnt see whether or not the SRB's were actually doing anything other than looking pretty, the video and camera angles really dont make it clear enough

and i thought there were men stood next to it on launch! but then on closer inspection it was the cylinders full of oxygen or nitrogen or whatever. seemed abit crazy but then again they are pretty sturdy those tanks so probably werent at risk from erupting or anything.

still it was a great stunt and im suprised it didnt just fall over the moment it left the pad. the fact that it went straight up and the SRB's jettisoned correctly and then altered its pitch like the real shuttle does shows how good a job the rocket men from manchester did.

[Mercury]

Originally Posted by Zuhaib

Also from the fire you can see under the Robin, something might have just caught on fire and killed the firing unit for those bolts.

hmmm I just thought the fire coming off the back were the rockets that were meant to be used to land it firing up while the fuel tank was still attched. I mean if it would detach on time those rockets would have fired off and the dude on the ground could have landed the thing.

[pixas]

Originally Posted by otispunkmeyer

did the SRB's actually work on this thing? they put extra rockets in the fuel tank and they worked fine, but i couldnt see whether or not the SRB's were actually doing anything other than looking pretty, the video and camera angles really dont make it clear enough

and i thought there were men stood next to it on launch! but then on closer inspection it was the cylinders full of oxygen or nitrogen or whatever. seemed abit crazy but then again they are pretty sturdy those tanks so probably werent at risk from erupting or anything.

still it was a great stunt and im suprised it didnt just fall over the moment it left the pad. the fact that it went straight up and the SRB's jettisoned correctly and then altered its pitch like the real shuttle does shows how good a job the rocket men from manchester did.

That really impressed me to! It looked and behaved very similar to what the actual shuttle looks like (on television that is). Down to the pitch and roll after the SRB was jettisoned, and the spooky slow acceleration from ground level. Made my eyes water .

[SuperStalin]

I think they just wanted to make it fun,
end the show with an explosion.

I noticed that the explosion came from the ground,
not the rocket/reliant. Besides, the explosion was far too huge and spectacular.

Great show!

[Magnet]

Originally Posted by Capacious Boot

Or they just didn't want to bother with the whole remote controlled part and thought it would be funnier if it crashed and burned.

Not to be overly cynical, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Still really funny and impressive.

I think that's partly true. I think the original aim was for the Robin to separate, but it was clearly going to have a catastrophic landing of some sort (more likely that not, plummeting to the ground like an anvil). As mentioned before, this was shown by the clear lack of design in the wings.

The bolt was unexpected, but the result was the same.

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally Posted by Magnet

I think that's partly true. I think the original aim was for the Robin to separate, but it was clearly going to have a catastrophic landing of some sort (more likely that not, plummeting to the ground like an anvil). As mentioned before, this was shown by the clear lack of design in the wings.

The bolt was unexpected, but the result was the same.

yeah the robin was never gonna fly. it was such a crap shape and you need a very decent wingspan if you just want to glide.

i think they knew it wasnt gonna fly. something was gonna hit the deck with an explosion, they just maybe didnt count on it being the robin and the fuel tank

[Spectre]

They *were* using British technology to build the thing. The bolt that failed, or some component of the detonation system, probably said LUCAS on it. If they'd been using American tech, the explosive bolt would have worked, since *we* figured those out back in the 60s.

This would also be why Britain doesn't have a manned space program and never will - nobody in their right mind is willing to get in a spacecraft that has components that say "Made in UK by LUCAS" in it.

I'd really like to thank the Top Gear team for proving that while the Brits may understand cars, they're complete rubbish for engineering anything else. (/backslam for 9x03]

[Donington]

Well, at least it wasn't a sponge bouncing off the side that made it explode.....

[Spectre]

FYI, the Columbia disaster was caused by econazis.

First of all, the insulation that hit the wing of Columbia isn't a soft sponge. It's a hard coating, and chunks of it came off. I have a sample of the material in a case (from a much happier time, long before Columbia exploded). It's much like a *very* stale biscuit or a chunk of chalk from the Dover cliffs.

Second, this isn't the original coating that was on the fuel tanks when the thing was designed. The original coating was made using various enviro-unfriendly processes, which included the use of a CFC much like Freon (R-12) as a component. Unfortunately, NASA decided to change to an "environmentally friendly" coating, which, as it turns out, has much less structural integrity. And quite often flakes off on launch. Ooops.

May I remind you that the only significant British space effort in the last 10 years did a faceplant on Mars and failed because nobody over there figured that an object shaped like a coin might land wrong side up and need to flip itself over, so they didn't give it enough power to be able to do so?

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by Spectre

May I remind you that the only significant British space effort in the last 10 years did a faceplant on Mars and failed because nobody over there figured that an object shaped like a coin might land wrong side up and need to flip itself over, so they didn't give it enough power to be able to do so?

No, it was because it was half programmed in metric, half programmed in imperial, the actual craft was perfect.

Also we have absolutely no way of knowing who made the explosive bolt. It could just as likely be American as British.

[Spectre]

No, the one with the math problem was a US probe, not yours. That would be a failure of organization - some idiot manager(s) at the contractor who built it didn't bother to check that.

The Beagle 2 fiasco would be a failure of British engineering.

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by Spectre

No, the one with the math problem was a US probe, not yours. That would be a failure of organization - some idiot manager(s) at the contractor who built it didn't bother to check that.

The Beagle 2 fiasco would be a failure of British engineering.

Sorry, I got the wrong one. No-one is sure what happened to the Beagle 2 although the shape of it has not even been suggested as a problem.

[Spectre]

I recall one of the ESA guys commenting to the press at the time of the failure that if the probe landed face down, it didn't have enough power to right itself. Consequently, it would run out of power quickly and go inert.