On Sunday 01 December 2024 03:27:27 pm Donald H Locker via groups.io wrote:

I would dispute the "let's waste money" part - there were a LOT of unknown variables when they started and they learned a LOT of lessons with little loss of life. The lives lost were due to making decisions about variables that they thought they knew about, but which were actually not as well known as believed - Challenger SRB O-rings and retainers; ice damage to thermal tiles; fire hazard of wire insulation in a high-oxygen environment coupled with lack of consideration for rapid module exit requirements.

There was waste, for sure, but I would argue the increase in knowledge far exceeded the dollar cost.

Donald.

On 12/1/24 14:34, wn4isx via groups.io wrote:

My uncle worked for a company that made sub assembles for NASA and NASA ordered a special run of maybe 1000 1N4004 in glass. They wanted to study what vibration did the the PN junction. It worked out the glass couldn't withstand the g forces of the shake table and failed long before any meaningful data was collected,
My uncle gave them to me. I should have saved them because they'd be collector's items today.

The company made the locking solenoids that held the LEM to the Apollo command module.
I have one of the engineering prototypes made for proof of concept.

So yes 1N4004 diodes are a dime a dozen (or nickle) but the glass envelopes were an odd ball.
NASA did all sorts of similar "Let's waste money." The major companies loved those projects, cost plus were contracts were amazingly profitable.

For some interesting insights into this stuff,  they had a publication out called "NASA Tech Briefs",  which I subscribed to for a while some years back.  It was one of those "free if you qualify" kind of subscriptions...


--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
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Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin