🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov19.175804.29085@news.duc.auburn.edu> forrepr@eng.auburn.edu writes:
>I see now why I'm not a linguist. What I meant with the above question
>is why aren't all three SSMEs throttled to 109% nominally ?? 
>i.e. - off the pad and through MECO (with the exception of Max Q throttle-down)

It's considered somewhat hard on the engines.  Originally the engines were
to be qualified for only a small number of 109% cycles in their lifetime,
strictly for emergencies.  There were later moves toward clearing them
for fewer and fewer limitations on 109% power, but after Challenger
some doubts were raised about this, and current missions use only 104%.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry