opinions on the state of Aerospace

[vt_hokie]

<font color="yellow">"IIRC, Boston area has lots of defense electronic firms which is good only if you're a 'sparky'. But hey, all these electronic boxes need to hang on to a piece of structure somehow."</font><br /><br />Now that I think about it, Raytheon might have something up there.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Speaking of Princeton, there used to be a GE-Astro who makes good satellites, but then they were sold to Martin Marietta which was later sold to Lockheed, who took the business and shutdown the plant."</font><br /><br />Ah, yes, I have at least one colleague who used to work there. I believe the plant was entirely torn down, and there's probably a shopping mall or something there now. I think the last satellites produced there were LockMart 7000's....don't think it lasted into the A2100 era. <br /><br />I think they moved everything to Sunnyvale, only to move it back to the east coast a few years later! I think the A2100 satellites are built near Philadelphia now, although final integration and test might still be in Sunnyvale!<br /><br />SES Americom has its U.S. headquarters in Princeton, I'm pretty sure, and a satellite operations facility in Vernon, NJ.

 

[vogon13]

I formerly worked for the company that made the auxillary power units for the shuttles (and processed problem reports on them too). These are actually amazingly small and powerful engines. During the Columbia investigation, it was revealed that some of the very last telemetry from the shuttle indicated the APUs were still running (although the hydraulic fluid had all been lost at that point from the severed lines in the left wing).<br /><br />That was quite an emotional experience for me.<br /><br />Conversely, something supposedly simple (plastic foam) instigated the accident.<br /><br />The US aerospace is capable of some truly amazing feats. And also some amazingly enormous failures of what should be a simple and mature technology.<br /><br />Not sure what to make of the dichotomy.<br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>