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Space Shuttle to be Outfitted with New Sensors
Norman at Davis writes "Space.com is reporting on new "sensors designed to pinpoint potential damage from falling debris or other objects [which] will be installed into the wings of NASA's remaining shuttle fleet...." Unfortunately, the sensors won't be too sophisticated, MSNBC reports that 'the extent of damage would still have to be determined by an inspection by astronauts in orbit, using an extension boom equipped with cameras and lasers.' Apparently NASA is in the process of developing three techniques which will allow astronauts to spacewalk and repair holes up to fourteen inches in diameter. Finally... the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is also running an article on the topic, stating that "not only will computers provide state-of-the-art imaging, but Defence Department satellites will supplement inspections made by the shuttle astronauts themselves and photographs taken from the International Space Station." 'NASA's efforts to improve its ability to detect whether the shuttle has been struck during flight have evolved remarkably since Columbia's January launch, when engineers watched loops of film sent to Miami for development and projected against a wall by a noisy old projector.' Hopefully this new technology will prevent another Columbia-like disaster, as a space shuttle replacement is looking less likely by the day."
Yep, this certainly should prevent another Columbia-type disaster. Just like additional checks on the rings and seals should prevent another Challenger-type disaster. Of course, next time it will probably be metal fatigue, and this won't do anything to help.
It's a patch, and it's reactionary. The shuttles are old. They are general purpose vehicles that have been overworked, and should have been replaced. They still should be. And every time there's a hole in the dam, they slap a patch on it and say "Well, that hole's not going to leak again." Meanwhile, the entire dam is about to crumble to dust.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Apparently the astronauts will have a "patch kit" for holes up to 14" in diameter. That's a pretty big hole; how big do they think the hole on Columbia was (before it fell apart, obviously)?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Pretty much everybody that is into space stuff could tell you that (space debris) collisions are the #1 unfixable problem that could happen to almost any craft out there.
:))
While most of the systems are redundant (although the recent Japanesse problems have shown and redundancy is not all), the outer shell is obviously not, therefore any damage to it is *HUGE* oooops.
Take some problems:
Fire on board - you can control (if nothing you can vacuum the chamber).
Power failure - almost all of them have redundant power systems, enough to allow repair to the primary one.
Life systems failure - autonomous suits.
Computer/Electrical failures - switch to one of the 2 (or 4 in newer shuttle models) redundant system.
Advances in in-flight repairs might bring us the good oxygen mouth needed till we manage to come up with better, stronger, cheaper alloys.
(However, one question begs: where are the energy shields?
__________
Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace!
As I recall with the Columbia it was. There is additional equipment that needs to be taken into space. Weight always being a concern if a space walk is not part of the planned activities then the suit equipment needed for manuevering is not taken along.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
The astronauts will be equipped with the capability to patch a hole as large as 14 inches in diameter, using one of three repair techniques still being developed. The best method will be selected around March of next year, officials said.
Holy cow. Can you imagine the stress of repairing a foot-sized hole in the shuttle? Talking about your a$ being on the line.
The problem is now the shuttle suddenly got more expensive. By investing in all of this, they are going to make inspection and repair of even minor stuff a big part of every mission.
Taking a look at the surface is the shuttle is slightly more complex than walking around and kicking the tires of your car. This is going to add expensive time to every mission.
Plus, they are now going to find tons of breaks that are not important... but they will be obligated to fix anyway.
Alas...
Davak
Glad to see work is progressing with regard to on orbit repair. That's a capability which will benefit all kinds of future activity in space.
I don't know, though, about a shuttle replacement becoming less likely though. NASA might not come up with a replacement (think National Aerospace Plane, X-33) but teams now competing for the X Prize could very well produce an orbital vehicle down the line.
If a small group can win the X Prize, it will show a better way to pursue space engineering than NASA's dysfunctional bureaucracy. Such a win will lead people to start investing real money in new space technology. It's already known that if we can reduce the cost to orbit from $10K/pound ($20K/kilo) to around $1K/pound ($2K/kilo) lots of opportunities will arise for space based activity. Get that price down to $10/pound (if possible) and you see people like me taking off for orbit to do things like create art. At that lower price we might even see zero gravity dance like that envisioned by Spider and Jeanne Robinson. The possibilities are truly endless.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Unfortunately, the sensors won't be too sophisticated, MSNBC reports that 'the extent of damage would still have to be determined by an inspection by astronauts in orbit, using an extension boom equipped with cameras and lasers.
The problem with this scenario is that it is a remedy for the wrong cure. Nasa knew that something could be broken, because they had seen the piece of debris falling. So the equivalent of the crude sensors that they are going to use, was already there. It was (once again) NASAs failure to respond to the worries of the people on the work floor that were the problem.
Fitting sensors on the shuttle is just a way to avoid having to admit that nothing has changed in NASAs orginization since the Challenger disaster.
The cause of the accident was not the O-ring, it was the choice to let political pressure cut into safety margins. It was the failure to listen to worries of the people who actually build the thing.
The second disaster is no different. The potential problem was already identified and some effort was undertaken to run computer simulations on the debris impact on the underside of the wing.
However, these were not written to simulate such a large chunk of debris. The coders of the software mentioned this, but this was ignored, because the conclusion was convenient. Ofcourse, it turned out to be the leading edge of the wing that was the problem, which was not even investigated because it was supposed to be indistructable.
I think that Feynmans report on the Challenger dissaster can be transfered to this dissaster. The details are different, but these details are symptoms of a common problem, which is NASAs chain of command.
The failure of Columbia, as with Challenger, was one of process, i.e. beaurocracy, as much as a mechanical one. "Take off your engineer hats, and put on your manager hats." "We don't really need to have the Air Force look at it with a KH-11." Etc.
Saw both of them on TV. Live. Saw the first launch of Columbia, skipped school that day (9th grade) to watch.
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Yes, yes it is. It's very expensive and dangerous, and they have to cover the entire underside of the shuttle, the leading edge of both wings, and the nose. It's hard enough getting cameras and 3D sensors to all those areas. Getting an EVA there would be very difficult.
I remember my two stays at Space Camp... both times a group of campers screwed up on ther mission at the end of the week and burn up on re-entry or collide with the space station. While we explored the aspects of using the shuttle's computer to compensate for mistakes and accidents (such as fuel loss) we pretty much considered any physical damage to be a lost cause.
From the looks of how NASA really runs the show, it appears they held the same attitude with the shuttle fleet. Granted, it's nigh impossible to do complex repairs in space (especially to repair a heat shield) and inspecting an in-flight shuttle for damage analogous to a medevial European investigating himself for any wounds and praying he hasn't gotten an infection. Because of this "hope we don't get hit" attitude, the shuttle fleet needs some kind of in-flight repair process. Unfortunately, the nature of the shuttle design makes it extremely hard to perform such repairs. Sure, there is a repair process being develop (good) but it's a repair process for an out of date product used by an agency that refuses to replace it (bad).
I'm glad the shuttle fleet was made and it's something that needed to be done. But it has served its purpose and is now outdated. It's time we upgraded and it's time NASA's management understands they are not the top dogs of engineering and astrophysics anymore.
--Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke
Currently the US does not have a non-resuable space capsule available at all. Non-reusuable means that for every flight a new vehicle must be built from scratch; this might seem a bad thing, but it means that a) new design features can be added all the time, b) the components are all "new" so fatigue and wear are less of an issue and c) the production lines are in constant use.
The latter is vital. It's now pretty much impossible for a new shuttle to be built as the tools, production techniques and knowledge to build them were all lost or destroyed years ago. Endeavour, built to replace Challenger, was constructed from spare parts that were already fabricated at the time. The contract to build it was awarded in 1987, but construction on the crew module started in 1982 (as a spare module). If a single use capsule had been in use (in addition to the Shuttle or not) then the tooling, production data and knowledge would still be current.
Russia has the Soyuz capsule, which has been constantly upgraded over the decades the design has been in use. China now has Shenzou, which is Soyuz based (although it appears that there may be some quite radical differences under the hood). The only non-Shuttle design that the US has that is close to being ready-to-build is the Apollo CSM (or Mercury or Gemini, of course).
In some ways concentrating on the Shuttle at the expense of other designs of spacecraft has lead to the situation that NASA now finds itself in - and, to a large extent, the fault can be laid at the doors of those who control their pursestrings.
"as a space shuttle replacement is looking less likely by the day."
Thats because NASA has 2 big mental problems. They are a huge Government Beauracracy that suffers from Not Invented Here(NIH) Syndrome. Their other huge issue is the 'It Has to be Reusable' Mytosis.
Russia has a warehouse full of brand new engines, but NASA won't buy em. We have a whole fleet of Rocket Designs that are proven, but use once. More importantly there is 'infrastructure' to support those vehicles, tools, launch pads, software. All ready.
I've seen these NASA people...they make 46 year old Trekkers look like fscking 'Geniuses'. These are people who CANNOT get a job anywhere else in the world.
JoeR
I'm a diehard supporter of manned spaceflight, however even I have to acknowledge the fact the space shuttle is like your old Pontiac 1991 that broke down every other week. It's old, it's outdated, and it serves no purpose. The only real advantage of the shuttle is it's payload capabilities, which haven't be used very well in the last couple of years. We'd be better off using capsules to ferry astronauts back and forth from the ISS, which is another big failure. What's the point of doing the same thing over and over? Most of the experiments being conducted in low earth orbit are jokes. Baby steps are great for dangerous activities, but a leap is what's needed to keep us in the game. Real scientific revolution.
While NASA's technology continues to improve beyond even my expectations for a under funded, it's dream, it's vision continues to splinter and die. This is just another example of that, being able to successful inspect and repair for damage in space is important for bigger and better things that might come in the future, it's being used to keep an aging useless shuttle fleet going, sucking up money and basically behaving like a cancerous growth.
GG NASA
Best thing NASA could do right now IMHO, scrap the shuttles, redesign the ISS and boost it to the Legrange (Spelling?) point. Use it as a construction yard for the Mission to Mars. One problem is solved already, food for the space station. Once the Chinese build a moon base they'll have a steady diet of Chinese takeout.
Why not simply add two high-speed/high-res cameras aimed from the cockpit level towards the wings, and just record the data local in the shuttle. Once in orbit, they can download the movies for analysis by the ground engineers for impact troubles.The cameras can even burn-up on the re-entry in the atmosphere and be replaced.
10. "Now we can see if Lance Bass is on his way a lot earlier, so we can shut off the lights and make it look like no one is home"
9. Cerebro mode to make Professor X feel welcome.
8. To prove WMD's on Mars in advance of invasion
7. Now they can finally find out if that is a Class-M planet down there.
6. New Stroboscopic Polarizing System now makes the Mushroom Planet visible at last.
5. Sensors? I thought you said "Censors". Drats! There are too many astronauts watching Hentai aboard this thing.
4. To find out if that is Val Kilmer's robot dog scratching at the outside walls, or just space junk.
3. "A cloaked SCO battlecruiser, of the Penguinkiller class, off the starboard bow!"
2. So we, for one, can see and welcome our new alien ant overlords before anyone else.
1. Lazy fat American Astronauts can now sit in ship and see everything outside, no need for spacewalk.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When is titanium going to come down in price anyways? (been over 2 years now)
We need to be using new alloys for things like this instead of cell-phones!
Structural fatigue is a common fear for the shuttle and can be eliminated!
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
The foam on the main tank can absorb moisture, so with a fresh load of liquid hydrogen (and an overnight rain)it condenses and freezes, making not a chunk of foam, but a chunk of ice break loose and hit the shuttle wing.
There's more details of course, but you get the picture. He did mention that at the temperatures and pressures of re-entry, a hairline crack would be disastrous, and such a crack would not be detected by an astronaut doing a space walk.
holy shit, someone stole my horse! I'm gonna go lock that barn door RIGHT NOW!
First, the problem that caused the Columbia failure was not in the Shuttle's wings, but that its fuel tanks were designed with insulation that can fall off! Commercial airplanes don't have in-flight wing repairs because the FAA wouldn't let them fly if pieces of them were allowed to fall off. Then, if something did malfunction, the mission(flight) would be aborted, not continued until there was no hope for a safe return. I worked for a company that has designs sitting on the shelf of replacement fuel tanks for the Shuttle with internal insulation (it can't fall off that way!) that weighed 50% less than the current models. All with existing technology. The frustrating thing about NASA and aerospace in general is that 'unobtanium' isn't necessary for inexpensive access to space. Reusable launch vehicles can be built with existing technologies and materials, I've designed one under DARPA's RASCAL program. The problem is that there's too much money to be lost by replacing the Shuttle. A standard government contract includes a 10% profit margin, and there are no incentives for coming in ahead of schedule or under-budget. Therefore, companies lose money by supplying the government with less expensive products, because the total value of their contract decreases. You'll notice that the same companies that bid on NASP and every other 'Shuttle replacement' are the same companies that support the Shuttle. It would only undercut their profit margin to develop a more reliable and inherently less expensive vehicle. This is also because the government is their only remaining customer, and since they obviously don't hold them accountable for an inferior product, why should they change? There is no longer much of a commercial satellite industry in the US as a result. The government gave loan guarantees to cable companies so they could install cable across the country. This resulted in a huge infrastructural overhead that forced the cable industry to offer their services at a loss in order to compete with the satellite television providers. Luckily, when the cable companies went bankrupt and defaulted on their government loans, they no longer had this overhead and can now operate at a profit will undercutting satellite service costs. Now the risks associated with commercial satellite service in the US is so high, that these companies have left (to France) or gone under. So, not only has the government insure that we can't readily launch satellites, but they helped bankrupt the companies that would even use the services in the US. Man, aerospace is frustrating...