NASA decides against shuttle repair in orbit

[IDemo]

Source: MSNBC

Managers decide Endeavour can return home as is, with gouged tiles

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA decided Thursday that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour’s belly and the space shuttle is safe to fly home.

Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty — both in orbit and on Earth.

“Please pass along our thanks for all the hard work,” radioed Endeavour’s commander, Scott Kelly. Mission Control replied, “It’s great we finally have a decision and we can press forward.”

The astronauts had spent much of the day running through the never-before-attempted repair methods, just in case they were ordered up.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20294830/

[ohio2007]

1. strap in and hold your breath.

going to be a bumpy ride Sally

[Xipe Totec]

2. Pucker time nt

[pretty_lies]

3. If They Can Repair The Hole, Why The Hell Not Do It?

Mind you, this explains why the astronauts are drunk all the time.

I'd have to be completely off my face to set foot in that deathtrap.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Can't risk damaging any more tiles

The tiles are very fragile. If they accidentally ding another one with a tool, they're right back where they started.

They've actually made another tile with the exact same divot and tested it extensively. They're confident it won't cause a major problem.

[tammywammy]

14. You're right, they are sensitive

My dad worked on the tile (works still really) on the tiles. He said that the carbon-carbon used is tough, but the actual tile is sensitive. And the carbon-carbon is a thin coat, so really a slight ding will hurt the tile. He helped them replace all the tiles on the Endeavour's nose cone and leading wing edge. (I'm not sure exactly what he's doing now, I'm sure working on tiles for another shuttle).

[Canuckistanian]

15. I heard Chris Hadley (Canadian astronaut) talking about them

He said that the tiles are about as fragile as the blue styrofoam insulation in buildings. You could easily poke your finger through it if you wanted.

That's neat that your father works on the tiles, but not surprising. There's almost a whole industry dedicated to manufacturing, fitting, installing and repairing those tiles.

[tammywammy]

17. He works at Lockheed Martin

It's pretty cool. He moved over to that department soon after the Columbia tragedy. He gets all technically jargon-y when I ask him, so we haven't talked about it in awhile. :) But it's definitely interesting work.

[NoodleyAppendage]

4. May have been more dangerous to repair. Spacewalk to underside of shuttle...pretty risky.

I suspect that they weighed the prospect of damaging further tiles during any spacewalk repair and the general difficulty of even attempting the work-arounds.

J

[TheOtherMaven]

5. Scary....

Do the astronauts get any choice about whether to return with the shuttle, or wait at the space station until the next craft is sent up?

Or do they all have to roll the dice and pray?

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Trouble is

the ENGINEERS wanted to do the repair. The ADMINISTRATORS and SAFETY OFFICIALS said skip it.

I am getting out the nails and the wood. This guy and his pals BETTER be right. He just bet it all on seven people's lives and the future of the space program.

[NoodleyAppendage]

18. Didn't realize that. I'd bet with the engineers any day. The Admin are pencil-pushers.

At least this time we'll know FULL WELL who to blame if things go horribly wrong.

J

[IDemo]

7. NASA has said the repairs were only to prevent additional work on the ground

and that the damage was not in an area that would endanger the astronauts. If dangling an astronaut on the end of the 100 ft. crane underneath the shuttle might have resulted in further, possibly more serious damage, then they made the right call.

[Kagemusha]

9. We can only hope they're right.

They may be right - but if they're not, the whole problem, the whole reason some were leery about sending shuttles back at all, is that if the damage really was fatal... do they have good chances of actually doing something about it in space? Sure, they train for it, it'd be insane not to, but still, if there's such impressive chances of doing additional damage even if repairs need to be done Or Else... maybe there's really nothing they can do in such a situation? Maybe this has all been on a hope and a prayer where dings to the shielding is concerned?

But hey. Let's hope.

[ohio2007]

10. The space shuttle was a waste of NASA funding. That space "truck" never

delivered the projected #'s of one shuttle launch every ten days.
At least the end is near for that pork program

[MilesColtrane]

11. Telling quote from the article....

"Not everyone was convinced NASA's decision was the right one. Stanford University's Douglas Osheroff, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who served on the Columbia investigation board four years ago, questioned NASA’s hesitancy to perform the repairs since they “can only increase their chances of making it down.”

“I don’t see why NASA is going to invent a fix and not use it,” Osheroff said. He added: “This attitude of, ‘It looks like it’s OK, let’s not do anything about it,’ it seems like the Columbia NASA.”

I don't see how those folks are going to be able to sleep.

[Phoonzang]

12. I'm not normally superstitious

But if I was one of those Astronauts I would have been nervous letting the teacher on board. She's nothing but bad luck. Hole in the tiles, a hole in the gloves. Hell something even went wrong with the docking procedure. Maybe the others should tell the teacher that they have a very special present for her in the airlock...an apple perhaps? Problem solved, everyone can come home safely.

This post was a joke btw...in case you couldn't tell. Being DU, I feel that I need to point this out. :)

[ChickMagic]

13. On Columbia

The damage was on the leading edge of the wing. Where the damage is located plays a big part in their decision. I only hope they're right and that the 'nauts return safely.

[RL3AO]

16. Yeah. It doesn't get nearly as hot where this tile is as with the wing and nose.

[TheLastMohican]

19. That's a Russian Roulette

The sarcasm of the situation is that Russians (on the contrary) use quite safe, tried and tested method to return from the orbit in the Soyuz capsule.
Maybe they could lend a hand in returning some of the austronauts home?
From what I found the Soyuz capsule has only one spare place for the passenger which is a bugger.

I hope everyone returns safe.