Re:I thought this was well known?
by
rjh
·
· Score: 4, Informative
While it's true that there have been several foam impacts before, NASA never (to the best of my knowledge) said wings had been breached before. Breaches are amazingly lethal conditions, and NASA takes them very seriously; when any tile gets deteriorated by more than 0.04 inches, it gets completely replaced.
NASA's line about why they didn't throw a fit over the foam has always been "well, it never caused any problems before..."
Now it turns out it did cause problems before and came within a whisker of losing Atlantis. In a fair world, it would mean the jobs of several NASA bureaucrats--not just for not paying attention to foam-strike problems, but for lying to Lehman's committee, to Congress, and to the American people about how there had never before been any foam-strike problems.
From this AP story you can read that one of the astronauts on board the Atlantis when it had the wing-breach found out about the wing-breach when she was contacted by the AP for a comment. Not only had NASA covered up the wing-breach--they weren't even informing astronauts of the risks.
Dodged a bullet, but by accident
by
jwriney
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The AP article mentions that ice impacted Atlantis' *right* wing. This motivated ground teams to perform the cold soaking procedure. But the actual damage was on the *left* wing, and was caused by improper installation of some sort of seal thingy. So Atlantis may have been saved by the cold soak, but the truly dangerous condition that could have cost them the orbiter and crew wasn't the one they prescribed the cold soak for!
Slashdot Mirror
While it's true that there have been several foam impacts before, NASA never (to the best of my knowledge) said wings had been breached before. Breaches are amazingly lethal conditions, and NASA takes them very seriously; when any tile gets deteriorated by more than 0.04 inches, it gets completely replaced.
NASA's line about why they didn't throw a fit over the foam has always been "well, it never caused any problems before..."
Now it turns out it did cause problems before and came within a whisker of losing Atlantis. In a fair world, it would mean the jobs of several NASA bureaucrats--not just for not paying attention to foam-strike problems, but for lying to Lehman's committee, to Congress, and to the American people about how there had never before been any foam-strike problems.
From this AP story you can read that one of the astronauts on board the Atlantis when it had the wing-breach found out about the wing-breach when she was contacted by the AP for a comment. Not only had NASA covered up the wing-breach--they weren't even informing astronauts of the risks.
The AP article mentions that ice impacted Atlantis' *right* wing. This motivated ground teams to perform the cold soaking procedure. But the actual damage was on the *left* wing, and was caused by improper installation of some sort of seal thingy. So Atlantis may have been saved by the cold soak, but the truly dangerous condition that could have cost them the orbiter and crew wasn't the one they prescribed the cold soak for!
Disturbing.
--riney