🚀 go-pugleaf

>	Max Q (moment of maximum tension) during a shuttle launch is at
>+75 seconds (that's when the Challenger exploded) when it reaches max
>velocity (Mach 11), so acceleration has to be faster than just 3G,
>probably around 5G or so. 

Ack.  Should've thought of this before I sent off the other message. 
This fact I'm sure of:  The shuttle hits a maximum speed of Mach 25
when it takes off, but it gets there gradually so as not to jellify the
crew.  5-6G's is a bit high...anyone not wearing a G-suit would black
out right at around 5G's (and AFAIK shuttle crew during launch wear
standard pressure suits, which don't have those fancy air-sack
compression pumpey things [my stunning vocabulary] that G suits have).
I think the whole point here is not to do a maximum, all-out
accelleration, but to economize on fuel to get the longest possible
burn out of the engines.  The shuttle is traveling at it's fastest at
or around the moment of the seperation of the SRBs, and then the main
engines are throttled back to about 60%, again to maximize on fuel
efficiency.
-- 
Lee Hutchinson
Poke...@ix.netcom.com
"One hundred and six miles to Chicago; we got a full tank of gas, a half-
pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."

"Hit it."