Shuttle gouge penetrates through shielding

[IDemo]

Source: Associated Press

NASA calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs needed

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A close-up laser inspection by Endeavour’s astronauts Sunday revealed that a 3½-inch-long gouge penetrates all the way through the thermal shielding on the shuttle’s belly, and had NASA urgently calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs are needed.

A chunk of insulating foam smacked the shuttle at liftoff last week in an unbelievably unlucky ricochet off the fuel tank and carved out the gouge.

The unevenly shaped gouge — which straddles two side-by-side thermal tiles and the corner of a third — is 3½ inches long and just over 2 inches wide. Sunday’s inspection showed that the damage goes all the way through the 1-inch-thick tiles, exposing the felt material sandwiched between the tiles and the shuttle’s aluminum frame.

Mission managers expect to decide Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, whether to send astronauts out to patch the gouge. Engineers are trying to determine whether the marred area can withstand the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry at flight’s end. Actual heating tests will be conducted on similarly damaged samples.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20237820/

[TwilightGardener]

1. WTF--how could this happen twice?

[xultar]

2. Because the suttle is a piece of shit. I wouldn't fly it from ATL to MIA.

[Buzz Clik]

6. Nor is it designed to.

It does well for it's designated purpose, but the design is such to make if very vulnerable to this kind of damage.

[xultar]

9. You really take things to fucking literally. The design of the shuttle is full of flaws.

They have done studies that say that the design his HORRIBLE. Even the designers knew that it wouldn't stand up for decades with the design flaws. The fleet is too damn old.

[knowledgeispwr]

18. The shuttle design was the result of cut-backs

They had more involved plans for a space transportation vehicle, but budget limitations led them to what we have now. Another problem is that they waited too long to design a shuttle replacement. Now the shuttle replacement (due for testing around 2010, the tentative shuttle retirement date) is more or less an updated version of the Apollo capsules/Saturn V rockets.

[Buzz Clik]

67. Yep. I agree.

[drm604]

38. Yes.

The fleet should have been retired and replaced years ago. Once the space station is able to be used as an experimental platform the best thing to do might be to go back to a one use disposable reentry capsule like the early days of our space program, and Russia's current program. Reentry is just too damned stressful and the cost of continually maintaining and replacing vehicles similar to the shuttle might actually be more expensive that one shot capsules for each mission.

[customerserviceguy]

88. That's exactly

what NASA intends to do. When the space station is finished, the Orion series of disposable boosters will take over, that's what they said when I went to Kennedy Space Center in October of last year. I think the space shuttle was designed around the ethos of reusability, and while that's a noble goal, it locked our space program into using thirty year old technology. I sure wouldn't want to be using a computer half that old!

[drm604]

89. It wouldn't even have to be totally disposable.

I'm sure it could be designed so that most of the electronics, life support, etc. could be removed and reused.

[ramapo]

40. Replacements trashed

There've been many proposals for replacing the shuttle over the years, all trashed due to politics of one kind or another.

[Buzz Clik]

66. Nice job of editing. Your first response to me was agreement, and now this?

Change of heart, or sleight of hand?

Either way, it sucks.

And save your anger for someone who hasn't seen the early show. Your routine is getting old.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

52. The shuttle was designed to be reusable effeciently.

It costs more money to refurbish the shuttle after every mission than it does just to build a brand new one shot rocket.

The shuttle is and has always been a miserable failure.

[Buzz Clik]

68. "Miserable failure" is a bit harsh, but there is no question of inherent problems.

Hanging the vehicle on the side of that enormous tank was asking for problems, and those problems keep recurring.

[Duppers]

78. I agree and...

The insulating foam's adhesion---THAT's the main problem, outside of the design.

[Parche]

71. Bornaginshuttle

:hi:

[defendandprotect]

61. Privatizing = Profiteering -- !!!! !!! !!! !!! !!!!

And so we have another level of the corruption . . . .
from MIC onto full privatizing of the MIC . . . . . .
all run by madmen like Bushco Mafia Inc.

[IDemo]

5. At least now they're doing a visual inspection

and have a tile repair kit along if needed.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

24. repair yeah, right

you face a deep, wide gouge that goes all the way through the insulation, to the extremely thin aluminum/mylar compound.

You have to deal with 0 Gravity (A real pain in the ass for construction, surprisingly), you have to deal with a perfect vacuum (an even BIGGER PIA), then you have to deal with temp fluctuations of of -170C to 300C every few hours, unless you screen the area off (which risks damaging the surrounding tiles. If you have something that freezes in the gap, it has to adhere to the surrounding area, or any imperfection will rip it out like a bumpy scab on re-entry. You may fill and patch, and pray that the surface temps keep it all in place. ( think of running really fast with a piece of paper on your chest. The paper stays put. Mostly.

Seriously, if we had been able to develop a magick Building Compound for use for serious construction in space, we would have heard of it much earlier, because construction in space would have become that much easier. But we didn't and we don't have it and this patch kit is a feeble, scary answer. Luckily, they have life rafts to send people back. That old USSR technology works great.

[piedmont]

7. It was probably happening on EVERY flight.

But they weren't looking for it until the Columbia disaster.

[Posteritatis]

35. Most likely, yeah

Every bump and scratch on the thing is going to be reported as an OMGCRISIS until they stop flying now, even the ones that are verifiably not a big deal. The 100-percenters are going to be constantly wetting themselves pretty much for as long as we have a space program now.

[OKIsItJustMe]

48. This is easily proven to be false

After every flight, the shuttle is carefully examined (on the ground) before the next flight. There has been tile damage, which needed repair in the past; but if this sort of damage happened on "every flight," we would be hearing from NASA, "Don't worry, this sort of thing happens all the time..."

[piedmont]

55. You're right. I thought about that after I posted.

Though they have had it happen in the past, and it certainly wasn't getting the media attention that it now does, to say that it happens on every flight is an overstatement.

[ChickMagic]

87. I think it depends on where the damage is

On Columbia, the gouge was on the leading edge of the wing. It probably does happen often, but not in a critical area. The tiles are ceramic and very fragile. They only send an astronaut out in extreme emergency because of that.

[yurbud]

75. shuttle's design is a compromise between reusability and safety on one hand and cost on the other

No other system uses solid rocket boosters for manned missions, and the Russians wisely put their spacecraft on TOP on their LOX tanks, not next to it so something could fall off and hit it.

You'll also recall that the heat shield on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules were not exposed at all during launch, unlike the shuttles which is out in the wind.

Hell, they could hit a seagull and if it's the right angle it could ding that heat shield.

[Mythsaje]

3. We need new equipment...

The shuttles are obsolete. We need a viable spaceplane.

On edit: We need to get out there and start collecting raw material from the asteroids and refining them in zero-gee. We could make stronger, lighter metals that we could use to build better and more fuel-efficient air and space-craft.

[Buzz Clik]

8. The big problem with the shuttle clearly is the configuration at launch.

Hanging the damned thing on the side is crazy. Every piece of crap that peals off upwind hammers the shuttle at high speed with high impact. Putting it on top of the rocket -- like the old Apollos -- is the safest route. As I understand it, the new design is leaning that direction.

[IDemo]

10. Didn't I read a while ago they were considering bringing back a Saturn-like booster?

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Yes

Version on left would be for low-Earth orbit (i.e. a trip to the space station.) Version on right would be for a trip to the Moon.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. real pity that they deliberately trashed

all the research, all the specs, all the blueprints for Saturn a few years ago.
Even the remaining model at NASA has been left unprotected and has such rot, fungus, growths, corrosion and worse, that it is almost useless to reverse engieneer.

Spending billions on brain power in the 60s should have made the task easier. Unfortunately, with BUsh 1 and Bush 2, (and to some extent, Clinton 1) the brains disappeared from our best and brightest program.

THEY SIMPLY DESTROYED ALL THAT TREASURE TROVE OF DATA, EXPERIMENTATION, AND DISCOVERY.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Posteritatis]

36. WTF? They destroyed the *blueprints*?

I thought crap like that only happened with Diefenbaker and the Arrow program up here.

Argh.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

41. the launcher, the middle section and the return

vehilce records were trashed. Only the lunar vehicle and lunar lander still have some blueprints available.

They do have some records, like how many hundreds of miles of wiring in the support vehicle alone, like the size of the O2 and fuel tanks, but the real engineering - zippo.

[OKIsItJustMe]

44. This appears not to be the case...

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five_000313.html

...

Paul Shawcross, from NASA's Office of Inspector General, came to the agency's defense in comments published on CCNet -- a scholarly electronic newsletter covering the threat of asteroids and comets. Shawcross said the Saturn 5 blueprints are held at the Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm.

"The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart."

Shawcross cautioned that rebuilding a Saturn 5 would require more than good blueprints.

"The problem in recreating the Saturn 5 is not finding the drawings, it is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960's vintage hardware," he wrote, "and the fact that the launch pads and vehicle assembly buildings have been converted to space shuttle use, so you have no place to launch from.

"By the time you redesign to accommodate available hardware and re-modify the launch pads, you may as well have started from scratch with a clean sheet design," he wrote.

...

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/webcasts/history/launius-qa_prt.htm

...
Will we ever consider launching another Saturn V?
I don't think so. The Saturn V production line was ended in 1970. The blueprint, the plans for them are housed in the national archive, so we could actually go find them and pull them out, build another one if we wished to do so, but it would take a fair amount of time to build the tools that were necessary to construct a Saturn V, and there's just no reason to do it. Plus, the technology is really very old. They had vacuum tubes in them; we would never build a vehicle like that today. If we wanted to have that kind of heavy lift capacity that the Saturn V gave us, we would build a new vehicle using modern technology.
...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

58. sorry, but your data is 7 yrs old. a 2000 article you cite is dated.

the destruction took place after 2001. If you search further, you will find under shuttle replacement, moon mission, mars mission, some articles about the destruction. it was wholesale, and its was more recent than 2001.

[OKIsItJustMe]

70. No doubt

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/extreme_machines/1280801.html?page=2

...

In addition to propelling America on the most dramatic voyages in human history, the Saturn V created a curious urban legend. In 1996, John Lewis, in his book Mining The Sky, made the startling claim that NASA had lost the Saturn blueprints. Like all rumors, the story contained a grain of truth. Paul Shawcross of NASA's Office of Inspector General came to the rescue. While the claim that the blueprints could not be found was true, that did not mean the engineering genius of the Saturn had been lost. The plans for the world's largest rocket still exist, on tiny pieces of microfilm.

...

I can see it now. After the legend has been spread, and corrected, someone at NASA decides, "Hey, let's destroy all of these historical documents!"

Give me a credible source.

[Xithras]

69. The blueprint thing isn't a big deal, and the "myth" of the destroyed blueprints is misunderstood.

As many engineers have mentioned in the past, the Saturn required a very large number of modifications over the years to improve its safety and make it fly. Most of these modifications were documented outside of the blueprints, and few of those documents were ever permanently recorded. The design alterations were lost when those engineers retired, and since the Saturn program had ended, nobody considered an accurate set of blueprints all that important. Why waste the time, money, and energy on redrafting the plans to a rocket you never plan on launching again? It's possible that the model at JSC, the only one actually built from "flight ready" sections, could be reverse engineered, but the time requirements would be enormous.

If you really want to return to a rocket-centric launch approach without developing a new launch vehilcle, the problem would be better solved using an Atlas V rather than the older Saturn design. While the Atlas doesn't generate as much thrust as the Saturn, it doesn't need to. The current Atlas models generate 1/4 the power of the Saturns (half if you factor in the untested SHLV variant), but they do it with much more efficient engines and at 1/6th the weight. The current unmodified design is capable of throwing a 50,000 lb payload into LEO without any issue...roughly half the mass of the moon missions. By augmenting this with heavier boosters, and capsule weight reductions enabled by materials developed since the 1960's (much of the iron and titanium used back then would be replaced with composites only a fraction of the weight today), we can match the Apollo/Saturn programs accomplishments without starting from scratch on the design board, and without re-engineering inefficient half-century old designs. NASA seems pretty dead-set on engineering the new Ares rocket design from scratch though, so they can re-use shuttle facilities and technology (for better or worse, the goal seems to be preserving current jobs at KSFC, and not simply coming up with a new rocket at the lowest cost).

But, if you still want the real story about what happened to the blueprints, try this link: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/588/1. Here's the short and sweet of it: NASA never deliberately destroyed anything, and they actually did initiate an effort to record as much as possible about the engines. The thing is, they never HAD a complete set of plans in the first place, and they never made an effort to collect them all from the subcontractors when the program ended. The real story is a bit complex, so I suggest reading the link if you really want to know what happened.

[unkachuck]

20. it's hard to beat....

....good German engineering....

[roamer65]

46. Yup. Good 'ol Werner Von Braun.

The Nazi U2 rocket developer.

I am thinking of Tom Lehrer's song about him as we speak...

"Once the rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down. That's not my department, says Werner Von Braun..." LOL.

[defendandprotect]

62. THIS has only happened like 3X now . . . "Fool me once . .. eh" -- !!!

[Captain Hilts]

15. It's Ford Pinto-era technology. It's done well, but they've been worked too hard. nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. Actually...

They've flown more years than originally intended, but much less frequently.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch6.htm

[Captain Hilts]

26. Yes, but Reagan's directive that NASA had to be more self-supporting...

made NASA cut corners.

[OKIsItJustMe]

43. Corner cutting predated Reagan

That graph goes back before Reagan.

The shuttle was justified (economically) by comparing its (presumed) cost of operation to that of expendable boosters. One way to make the numbers work was by going for the cheapest design.

The other way was by assuming a much higher frequency of flights (like once a week.) These assumptions were not entirely baseless.

[Xenotime]

27. We don't need new equipment...

We need to shut down this lousy space program. This is nothing but a relic of the cold war and we don't have any business up there. Nothing good has come from it.

[Mythsaje]

29. Wrong

Our future is out there. If we have one at all.

[Xenotime]

30. Ha! Ok...Capt. Picard.

[Mythsaje]

31. Out there are all the resources we need to survive and thrive

the very resources that are now rapidly dwindling here on Earth. With what's out there we can build whatever we like and do no damage to a living world in the process. We can replace some of what we've stolen from the Earth.

I realize you're being mocking, but the fact remains that if we stay here, with the philosophies that seem to drive us, we will destroy ourselves and take half the ecosystem with us.

Space exploration and exploitation is the ONLY escape valve we have left. It's the only place left to go.

Again, if we have a future, it's out there.

[Zynx]

32. Unless someone solves FTL, we're not leaving the solar system.

Mars might be possible, but colonizing other planets is extremely problematic, to say the least.

It's still worth developing the technology and seeing what you get; the current program is just going nowhere. That's the problem.

[Mythsaje]

33. With the resources of the solar system

and nanotechnology, we can go a long way just within the solar system itself. And someone has allegedly done the math to prove FTL may be possible. I guess we'll see.

[tom_paine]

39. Agreed, Mythsaje. The future of the human species is badly in doubt

and I think, from this point, long-term (>10,000 years) species survival has to be about 1 in 10 chance or less.

But if it comes true, this longshot, I agree that it will comprise these two things (among others):

1) No more mining Earth for minerals and metals, but minign the asteroids.
2) Emulating the sun's power by perfecting rector-based, pollution-free fusion power.

[hunter]

56. Space belongs to the Artificial Intelligences.

Human beings are too fragile. Eventually we may get out into space, but as short-time visitors and as the guests of intelligences unlike ours using technologies we don't fully understand.

Essentially we end up just like the elephants in a national park, a protected species in a protected environment.

The recognition that we are just another ape and not the pinnacle of any sort of creation will be quite stark.

The earth has plenty of resources to support a human population if we just get it through our heads that we have to share these resources with one another and our fellow biological species. Once we do that, once we start sharing, we can figure out what kind of human population the earth can comfortably support, and then we humans can begin to reproduce ourselves at a rate that makes sense.

It's difficult to predict if artificial intelligences might spread out into space before, during, or after that process of human population equilibrium. It seems very unlikely to me that there would ever be any significant human migration into space because supporting human bodies away from earth is expensive and unnecessary if artificial intelligence exists.

The delightful thing about Nature is that she doesn't care about humans. We might "destroy ourselves and take half the ecosystem with us" yet in a very short time (Nature's timescales, not human timescales) earth's ecosystem would be fully diversified again with new species.

It's our decision how we want this to play out. If we are incapable of working this out, nature will deal with us the way she deals with any sudden plague species -- a lot of death all around at first, but eventually things balance out and go on much the same as they always have with the plague species extinct or transformed into something with better manners.

[The Stranger]

60. Excellent post.

[defendandprotect]

63. In other words, we never landed any LIVE astronauts on the moon ---

I agree --

Boy, a lot of secrets to be protected ---

[Duppers]

95. Uh, no!

He's referring to extended space travel. But you had to know that, right.

Human are not really built for it and there's a hell of a lot of obstacles to over come.
What's wrong with taking care of the planet we're on in the mean time, as he said? It has sustained hominids for millions of years. What's wrong with conservation and limiting our populations so we have more than one option?

And yes, I do know that our sun/star will eventually die and incinerate earth. But that's five BILLION yrs. from now and we're facing some major disasters within the next 100 yrs.

My message is simple: Take care of planet earth....while exploring and over coming the obstacles of space exploration.

Btw, FTL is it, folks. Prof. Einstein was not wrong. We'll need multi-generational and sustainable space craft to find a suitable environment for future humans. And isn't that a big Endeavor? (Yeah, I know it's a cheap pun.) :)

[Vidar]

42. I agree entirely My personal theory is that mankind has almost

an innate need to expand his/her horizons. The usual outlets, historically, have been exploration or war. (Scientific exploration is an interesting variant.) Personally I find exploration vastly preferable to war, & being as how we've run out of room on the planet, I feel that space exploration & particularly cooperative ventures, such as the International Space Station, are increasingly vital.

[kestrel91316]

53. IMHO our future is here. We don't get a do-over on another planet.

For one thing, we haven't earned the right to even try.

Our sacred duty is to fix the mess we have made of the earth and get by with what we have right here. If we can't do that, we have no business exporting our failed civilization elsewhere.

[Mythsaje]

79. See, I just don't get this attitude.

Our follies are a direct result of our evolutionary path and, despite everything that is happening in the world today, we're a heck of a lot more advanced morally than we were even a couple of hundred years ago. As we run out of resources here, we're bound to lapse back into barbarism unless we can claw our way into the next frontier and change the whole dynamic once again.

Of course, if barbarism is your thing... :shrug:

[Posteritatis]

81. It's fun and easy to decide everyone else gets to die, I guess

A lot of those "we have no right!" types sure are eager to tell the other six and a half billion of us what we may or may not do. Myself, I have difficulty respecting people who think my grandchildren won't deserve to live because the world of my grandparents was largely fucked up.

Hell with that type of thought; I greatly prefer the worldview you seem to have, instead.

[Mythsaje]

82. I have faith in the human race...

Strange as that may seem to some. We're foolish monkeys sometimes, but we're not monsters. Well, some may be, but not the majority of us.

[Odin2005]

84. These luddite misanthropes should be mocked at every available opportunity.

Their wold view is disgusting, they are an insult to mankind.

[Nihil]

90. Have to say that I don't get your attitude either

> Our follies are a direct result of our evolutionary path and,
> despite everything that is happening in the world today,
> we're a heck of a lot more advanced morally than we were even
> a couple of hundred years ago.

No ... we're a heck of a lot more advanced *technically* than
we were a couple of hundred years ago but not morally.

The main reason for this is that "morals" are just an abstract
construct, a set of optional rules that can be used to justify
action or inaction according to the wielder. The technical
advances can be seen in the increased complexity of the tools
that we use (even though some are still very close to the old
pieces of shaped flint that we started with) but the nature of
the creature wielding those tools is essentially the same as
the very first homonids no matter what airs & graces we adopt.

:shrug:

[Mythsaje]

91. Just the fact that we gather here

to argue so emphatically about the rights and responsibilities of human beings in general and Americans specifically, that a good part of the world recognizes that ALL people should be afforded equal rights and that religion doesn't give people the RIGHT to kill others who don't believe as they do DOES speak of moral advancement.

Anyone who doesn't recognize this is woefully ignorant of history.

[Nihil]

101. If we had truly advanced, you wouldn't need the weasel words.

> ... that a good part of the world recognizes that ALL people
> should be afforded equal rights ...

There has always been a subset of the total humanoid population that
acted altruistically and another subset that acted selfishly.
This is what we still see today around the world - same shit, different day.

> Anyone who doesn't recognize this is woefully ignorant of history.

Anyone who doesn't recognise how little difference there is across the
millenia is the one truly ignorant of history ... and of nature.

Mere technical details (such as the weapons used) separate the crusaders
of the 12th century from those of the 21st. The underlying drives (mainly
greed, revenge and monotheistic dogma) are the same.

The fact that there are some good unselfish humans around today is all
very nice but you can see the same behaviour in apes, otters and a wide
variety of other animals too. More to the point, there is *nothing* to
suggest that these are recently acquired traits in any of these species.

> Just the fact that we gather here to argue so emphatically about the
> rights and responsibilities of human beings in general ... DOES speak
> of moral advancement.

Really? To me it speaks of technological advancement that we can hold
a discussion over thousands of miles, between continents that are separated
by more distance than could be envisioned (much less crossed) until
comparatively recently. Discussions about the "rights" of different
groups of humans were widespread thousands of years ago, it is simply
the scale that has changed (along with the frighteningly large populations
involved now). Remember: we have sufficient free time to indulge in these
discussions, we have the technology to support it, we have the freedom
to expound our thoughts without fear of retribution ... this means that
we are not in the majority of contemporary humanity but in the relatively
tiny minority (the elite if you wish) so talk of "our moral advancement"
really isn't representative of that of the human race en masse. The vast
majority of the human race has seen no such advancement.

The human species knows no "moral advancement" as that term is just a
luxury construct, an abstract beloved of a very small fraction of that
species not a genuine attribute of the whole.

[Odin2005]

83. What a disgustic, misanthropic screed.

'Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.'

--Carl Sagan

[Mythsaje]

92. Great Sagan quote!

Thanks for that.

[kestrel91316]

93. BTW, I loved Carl Sagan. I just happen to think that mindset is

a castle built on sand...........

If we want to go back to the moon and see what we can do there, fine. But the universe is not our personal oyster, to rape and pillage as we see fit.

[Mythsaje]

94. And what, precisely, would it hurt

for us to exploit the resources of the solar system?

I completely disagree with your premise...I think that's precisely what we're supposed to do. That's why we have brains and hands and imagination.

If I believed in God, per se, I'd say that was his plan.

What you propose is stagnation and death for our whole species, not to mention all the creatures we'll drag down with us.

I reject that completely.

[Odin2005]

97. A-Fucking-MEN!

n/t

[Odin2005]

96. Your assumptions are wrong

There is no ecosystem damaged when we mine asteroids, there are no species that go extinct as the result of getting helium-3 on the moon for fusion engine fuel. getting resources from space means we need to get less resources from earth, and thus less harm is done to Earth's biosphere. Technology is not the enemy, technology is the solution. Ignorance, stubbornness, overpopulation, and a social system that encourages conspicuous consumption are the enemies.

[Mythsaje]

98. I choose to echo your "Amen!" here.

Awesome point.

[Posteritatis]

104. Heh, reminded of someone I ran into awhile back..

He claimed we have no business up there because we'll "pollute the pristine environment of space with deadly radiation."

...

Yeah.

[Posteritatis]

34. Yeah, who needs those newfangled weather satellites? Rubbish, I say! (nt)

[LanternWaste]

85. Weather and TelCom Satellites?

"Nothing good has come from it."

Weather and TelCom Satellites? Science? Hope....? :shrug:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I don't think I can go through another teacher lost in a shuttle accident

I was teaching when the first died, and it was hard-very hard.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Photo

[Xipe Totec]

12. That's a problem

They can't let that go without a repair.

The danger is not just burn through, but the zipper effect if the tile comes loose.

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. They've had similar damage before

However, I don't think they'll cross their fingers and hope for the best on this one.


This time they know about it while they're in orbit, and they now have a repair kit.


http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/video/shuttle/rtf/html/fd0.html

[TheMadMonk]

16. Looks like a relatively simple trowel job.

O.K. vacuum, micro-G and gloves complicate things, but they're trained for that.

This looks pretty much like a tailor made scenario for trying out that bloody expensive puncture repair kit.

[Xenotime]

28. You hope they trained for that...

I'll bet they don't know what the hell to do... These guys are idiots.... They have lost an unacceptable number of astronauts

[Posteritatis]

37. The shuttle crews are idiots? Whatever. (nt)

[kestrel91316]

54. They have had extensive training in making tile repairs.

They are idiots?? Do you know how many of the astronauts DON'T have PhDs in one scientific field or another? Probably none.

I suppose you could do better.

[LanternWaste]

86. On what do you base that statement?

"These guys are idiots"

On what do you base that statement? :shrug:

I was under the impression that NASA pilots had to a) be at the the top of their respective classes, b) qualify by scoring in the top 1% of extensive testing, and c) maintain and excel in all aspects of training. Is that incorrect?

I can only imagine that you have numerous and advanced degrees in order to qualify calling them idiots...

[slackmaster]

57. To the rescue...

[0rganism]

72. Sure, let's get Super Mario up there with a can of spackle :D

I've seen Mario defeat vicious fire-breathing magical dino-turtles with little more than dedication and head butts, so I think he can handle something like this.

Heck with this whole "teachers in space" thing, what we need is more plumbers and carpenters up there, dang it!

[Chovexani]

74. Mario? Whatever, man.

We need her up there:



I mean, who else'll be able to make those repairs and fight off the face sucking aliens at the same time?

[Cronus Protagonist]

100. I see Jesus in it !!

Or is that a map of Africa?

[sam sarrha]

14. can the crew opt out of re-entry if they dont want to burn up.. ..it's thru the F'n shield

[TrogL]

103. The shuttle is a glider

There's no go-arounds.

Once you've started your descent you're committed.

[KG]

21. time to discontinue costly and dangerous manned space flights

the shuttle missions aren't accomplishing any science that couldn't been done by unmanned robotic vehicles.

[shireen]

22. except Hubble servicing missions. nt

[moondust]

50. Yes!

The robots are doing great at a fraction of the cost!

[defendandprotect]

64. The phoniness of all of this was obvious long ago -- humans are tied to this planet --

space probes are the way to go and have been for ages.

[Phoonzang]

73. Humans could have done in a week or two

what all of those probes we've sent to Mars have taken 30 years to do. Also there's the matter of spreading our species beyond this planet. I know there's those who say that we'll destroy other planets, but I'm personally not a species suicidist.

[defendandprotect]

76. Manned probes seem to have proven to be too expensive and not worth it --

and most other countries have done the probes --

Note: No one has been back to the moon . . . if it evere happened at all --
doubtful.

[knowledgeispwr]

99. Do you really doubt that we've been to the moon?

If so, astronomer Phil Plait debunks the "we didn't land on the moon" articles on his website, bad astronomy.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html <== this links to him taking apart that dreadful FOX "special" from several years ago claiming we didn't/couldn't've landed on the moon. There are also more links at that site.

[Mythsaje]

80. For a species to advance far enough to even leave

the surface of their originating world, they have to be fighters. On a world where they didn't have to fight tooth and nail against nature to survive, they wouldn't develop the motivation to explore and expand.

Why people think we're somehow horrible when we are the product of our evolution is beyond me. We argue every day about right and wrong and, despite some throwbacks, we are more morally and ethically advanced than we were even a couple of hundred years ago. Hell, as a general rule we're more advanced than we were FIFTY years ago.

I get tired of the human-bashing sometimes. We're not perfect, but we're not monsters either.

[truthisfreedom]

23. Imagine what kind of space program we COULD have if we had decided to change our

energy infrastructure so save us from our mad greenhouse gas emissions and eliminate the need for the Iraq invasion.

[roamer65]

45. The shuttle is really stupid for most earth orbit operations.

It's overkill and just getting more dangerous with age. They should use something like the old Apollo capsule for earth orbit ops. For example, Soyuz is rusty, but trusty.
NASA has done it before, the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission used a much smaller rocket. The Russians have been at the space station so long and with such duration, they might as well call it Mir 2.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

59. you mean it is stupid to mix

a truck (easier and cheaper unmanned)
a bus (easier to build a russian style pod to go up and down)
a smaller EVA orbiter with greater manueverability and range in space (under design, never built) to service things that needed servicing (hubble, space station. future mars lander)
and put them all in one platform, doing the three tasks OK, but not great and at three times the price?

who would have thought it?

[roamer65]

47. Maybe the Russians will send up a Soyuz capsule to bring some of them back.

Putin would enjoy that very much and it really would be a smart move if they can't fix it with certainty.

[Javaman]

49. Oh great, then that means the shuttle will be in the front yard on

cinder blocks for months!

"sure, honey, I'll get around to fixing it, just gotta find me a little bondo..."

[defendandprotect]

65. They were always ahead of us in space -- looks like we need a rescue operation -- ????

Brownie!!! Brownie!!!

[Blue_Tires]

51. i hope the astronauts come home safe nt

[Endangered Specie]

77. Ah its just a flesh wound!

[Norrin Radd]

102. Space elevator.

There's an answer. And solar sailing. Now about that cosmic ray problem...it's not as cool for you as Marvel Comics would have you believe...