Shuttle Missions Will Be Monitored From Space

los furtive writes "According to this news article NASA has made an agreement with the U.S. military so that all future shuttle missions will be monitored by National Imagery and Mapping Agency satellites."

Comments

and this will help how?

[trmj]

Ok, I put that subscription to good use and read the article be being able to post. The only problem is that I still have the same question as I had before I read the article.

What is this really good for? In the article, they say it's to prevent disasters like the Columbia space shuttle not doing such a great job on re-entry?

--ok then--

How will this help prevent disasters like the Columbia space shuttle not doing such a great job on re-entry?

If you all will remember correctly (or if I didn't pay enough attention and got some misinformation), the Columbia space shuttle had a heat plate problem on the bottom. These plates are made to hold up while being heated to temperatures above that of the surface of the sun. NASA knew that something happened. They were pretty sure one of those plates was damaged.

They knew and said there was nothing they could do about it while the shuttle was in space.

If another shuttle gets a plate damaged, and NASA can clearly see it while the shuttle is in space, what will they be able to do? They shuttle doesn't carry enough supplies to keep the people out there until a spare part can be brought out, and even if it did, there virtually no way to fully secure it and make it work.

So, I ask: What will this do other than waste photograph time? If anybody could elaborate I would appreciate it.

Re:and this will help how?

[ecalkin]

a *long* time ago (20+ years), when the shuttle was first going up, they had a lot of worries about the tiles. i remember someone stating worry about the 'nauts not have eva suits because they had some sort of 'temporary liquid tile replacement' stuff. an ablative (like the apollo capsules) that would protect a missing tile by burning away (and taking heat with it).

even if this was myth or no longer viable, it's amazing what kinda tools and solutions you have *if* you don't stick you head in the sand and say 'i don't want to know about it'

eric

Re:and this will help how?

[KingFoo]

Remember that before Apollo 13, the same might have been said about the chances of the crew's survival if a service module had an explosion, but they worked on the problem, and got the crew home alive. I'd imagine that a shuttle 'could' stay in orbit for quite a while on it's supplies if it really had to. Probably wouldn't be comfortable, but it's better to know.

Re:and this will help how?

[Soft]

Any number of things could have been done. Even with Columbia, knowing there was a disaster in the offing, I'd expect some creativity under pressure, if only sending up Soyuz to take them off.

There is a limit to what creativity can do. In this case, the shuttle's orbit was not inclined enough to be reachable by Russian rockets--unless they launched from elsewhere that Baikonur, but their pad in Kourou won't be in service for years.

One possibility would have been to launch Atlantis a couple of weeks early, but they would have to have known about the seriousness of the damage early in the mission (so that Columbia's crew could conserve power and have resources left to stretch). But this was luck (what if no shuttle was waiting?), and it would still imply to skimp a few safety procedures; gamble, one shuttle and seven crew lost, or two shuttles and nine crew?

And in future, I expect that NASA will have a contingency plan or two availible, with fuel and supplies to implement it.

They're speaking of scrapping all shuttle missions not going to the ISS--not that there were many--except the final Hubble servicing. In other words, don't build a safer vehicle, don't take risks, reduce our capabilities...

So the next time they blow up...

[OpenSourced]

... they will have better pictures of it. Jesus! That technology is too old. Either do it right and spend a friggin lot on a new shuttle program or forget about the idea of putting people on space for twenty years and see if the economics of space travel have changed. But getting on with the actual shuttle program is IMHO dangerous and serving no purpose.

Is this a "feel-good" response?

[MyNameIsFred]

Immediately after the accident, NASA officials said that they had considered using NIMA satellites to look at Columbia, but had rejected the idea. Primarily because the previous times they had used the satellites had not provided useful data. They commented on the problems of photographing the black underside of the shuttle in the contrasty light of space. So my question, is this something useful, or is NASA doing it to prove it is doing everything possible?

Outer space.

[rice_burners_suck]

I have a better idea. What they should do is build a space shuttle out of indestructible materials so that even if the thing crashes at the speed of light into a sphere of iron the size of Earth and more dense than the universe before the big bang, it will be the sphere that will break and not the shuttle. And they should use these materials to build space ships the size of the whole planet and fly them around in space. Someone from another galaxy will be looking in their telescope at the planets and they'll see this thing move around and they won't understand what kind of weird orbit that "star" is in. It'll really get them thinking. Then, they'll fly over here to investigate it, find that Earth is rich in natural resources and kill us all in order to take these resources. At least that'll put Saddam out of power.

Re:Outer space.

[TummyX]

Stoned huh?

In related news...

[tlambert]

In related news...

American Airlines has announced that the regular "Atlanata Shuttle" flights will now be monitored from Atlanta.

-- Terry