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Shuttle Fleet Upgraded

Posted by michael on from the shuttle-2.0 dept.

angel'o'sphere writes "Space.com reports that the shuttle fleet will be upgraded with more technology, like new sensors to detect debris hits on the wings, etc. Also, the foam causing the Columbia accident (intended to insulate the tank and prevent the formation of ice) will be replaced by: heaters. I wonder if heating up a tank with liquid oxygen is a bright idea."

28 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Extra Goodies for Shuttles by dolo666 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shuttles also now equipped with new space-aged stress relief.

  2. It's a great idea... by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You definitely can heat up a tank with liquid oxygen when there's a risk of ice... if it's that cold, there's no risk of the tank becoming too hot. The cool thing is, heaters can be turned off when you don't want them on. :)

    1. Re:It's a great idea... by FunkyRat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg AFB, SLC-6, was built with heaters originally. Had 39B at Kennedy been so equipped, there is a good chance the Challenger tragedy would never have ocurred. Of course, no Shuttle ever launched from Vandenberg and SLC-6 was abandoned in place. There was a particularly haunting photo that was floating around the web back in the 90s showing SLC-6 sitting there all rusted out (I googled but couldn't find it). I believe SLC-6 has since been rebuilt to fly Atlas-Centaurs.

    2. Re:It's a great idea... by blockhouse · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nope. No shuttle ever launched from SLC-6. My dad was a flight operations analyst at Vandenburg from 1983-1987, so he would know. SLC-6 was originally built to launch the shuttle into a polar orbit -- the shuttle would launch in a southerly direction. (You can't launch into a polar orbit from Canaveral because the spent solid-fueled boosters would fall onto Brazil, and that would probably torque the Brazilians off.) Unfortunately, the solid rocket boosters were redesigned after the Challenger accident, and enough weight was added to preclude ever launching into a polar orbit, so SLC-6 was, in fact, abandoned. I was last there in 1996, and it was rusting out pretty badly.

      Also, they've used heaters on liquid O2 before. I was reading "Moon Lost" by Jim Lovell (the Apollo 13 astronaut), and he explains that heaters were used in the Apollo spacecraft's O2 tanks to keep the system pressurized. O2 pressure too low? Just turn on the heaters, more of the supercritical O2 would resublimate, pressure's back up to nominal. In fact, heaters were chosen instead of pumps because pumps have more moving parts which means more things that can malfunction.

  3. Yeah, bright idea by dus · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if heating up a tank with liquid oxygen is a bright idea.

    Yes, it is. Very bright.

  4. Perhaps.... by Sevn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They could upgrade the fleet with some people smart enough to use some cameras to look at a shuttle wing before reentry after a HUGE ASS PIECE OF DEBRIS very obviously slams into one of their shuttles. Just a thought.

    --
    For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
    1. Re:Perhaps.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If they had stretched consumables, fuel, etc. Columbia could have stayed in orbit for another 2 weeks.

      Atlantis was already undergoing checks for a flight in ~a month, and they could have turned her around in time to launch with a skeleton crew, meet up with Columbia, and transfer people over.

      I have no doubt that they could have rescued them, if they had imaged the wing and seen the damage. The shuttle was designed to be turned around in weeks - NASA sold Congress on a flight every week in order to get them to approve the project. Working 24/7, they could have done it. In-space rescue technology has been discuessed for years and someone would have put something together.

    2. Re:Perhaps.... by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Informative

      Trying to land anyway may well have been the best option left, granted.
      However, how sure are you about the no way of repairing part? The shuttle standard inventory shows some tile repair components onboard. If they aren't at least some use on the leading edges of the wings, it would be nice to know what they ARE intended for. Sprucing up a just landed shuttle before the press gets there to photograph it?
      While we're at it, the later reports have included the possibility of a rescue mission using another shuttle, and the ultimate board conclusion is this is too risky, but notice, there's no breakdown of the risk assessment made available to the general public.
      Obviously, a rational risk assessment would be different for a shuttle developing a problem that is an unusual, apparent fluke accident, or one that might well be developing on the rest of the fleet as well, and for a problem known about soon after launch as opposed to when there's only 3 days life support left. How did such considerations get rolled up into the blanket risk assesment made public?

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    3. Re:Perhaps.... by C10H14N2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      They had two weeks of food and three weeks of oxygen. The only options visited in the accident investigation reports are a rapidly deployed Atlantis and on-orbit repair. The former would provide a maximum window of five days assuming absolutely zero error in processing. Considering that would be rolling a three-month process down to two-weeks, one can imagine that likelihood. The latter solution included the possibility of a crew bail-out in case the wings were expected to completely collapse on landing. Bottom line: THREE WEEKS. You don't just lob a Soyuz into the air and hope it hits a shuttle in THREE WEEKS. Sure, there are lots of things that could do the job, but organizing that to happen in less than a month? The crew would die on flight day 31 due to lack of oxygen and it took until day eight just to get all the imagery in line. Now, I don't claim to be qualified in astronautics, but I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt that three weeks is a pretty tight schedule to execute an impromptu orbital rendezvous. Rather than accusing a casual observer of being ignorant, go read the damned report. I trust the findings there to any armchair astronauts on /. http://www.caib.us/news/report/pdf/vol1/full/caib_ report_volume1.pdf

  5. Third time is the charm. by Shivetya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They blow it again and its over. Frankly I am not worried about them actually performing the technology based changes, those are easy. I do not see them making the administrative changes. Oh I see new glossy surface polishing, but underneath what will really change.

    The is Government, they weren't accountable when Challenger blew up, and I doubt anyone was held truly accountable for Columbia.

    Ditch the damn shuttle. All it does is hamper any possibility of real space usage. It is nothing more than a modern day spruce goose. It has so many things that can go wrong something will. I don't know if the nation has the stomach to lose another 7, and I don't want to find out.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
    1. Re:Third time is the charm. by Epistax · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am a fan of mega huge projects, such as the mag lev in Japan/Europe, the multination fusion reactor project, etc, and what I think NASA and every other space agency in the world needs to do right now is allocate funding to research and development of the space elevator. Sure we've invested x billion in what we currently have, but many costs will fall so dramatically as to make it far worth it.

      I'm certainly not the best source of information on it, but everything I've heard is good. Even the worst-case scenario (the obvious tether snap) would result in the mass floating away, not towards, the planet (or so I've read).

    2. Re:Third time is the charm. by arth1 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      They blow it again and its over. Frankly I am not worried about them actually performing the technology based changes, those are easy. I do not see them making the administrative changes. Oh I see new glossy surface polishing, but underneath what will really change.


      NASA, like many other big organisations and corporations, has long since reached critical bureaucratic mass. What this means is that ANY big change is only going to increase bureaucracy, and never reduce it. Even if the intention is to reduce bureacracy, you'll end up with NEW administrative positions creating procedures for doing so, and enough paperwork for the bureacracy reduction to warrant at least a 5% increase in administration, or if this is not possible, at least a 5% increased administrative workload for non-administrative positions.

      The only way to get out of this is if a new organization or company can take the place of the old. When we're talking about government-funded large scale operations like NASA, it just isn't going to happen any time soon. Our hope, ironically enough, is that China gets their space program together. Then, and only then, can NASA die and be replaced with something less porky.

      Regards,
      --
      *Art
  6. Hmmm... by mOoZik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While it is probably a step in the right direction, I find it saddening that we must have disasters to begin upgrading certain aspects of the shuttles. In my opinion, every aspect of the fleet should always be tested, simulated, improved, and tested some more every single month. Who's to say that another shuttle won't go down in a decade or so due to a problem that was never considered?

    --
    A blog like any other.
  7. Postponing the inevitable by radicalskeptic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is just avoiding what many people see as the obvious conclusion: the space shuttle in its current incarnation needs to be replaced. It was designed before I was born.

    Unfortunately it looks like NASA is moving in the wrong direction, cutting the funding from their shuttle replacement project. Of course, I'm all for making the existing shuttles safer, and what they're doing now is a good idea.

    --
    WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
    1. Re:Postponing the inevitable by ColaMan · · Score: 5, Funny

      In your link it said the $6 billion expected for shuttle replacement has mushroomed to $35 billion. I don't suppose you have that kind of cash lying around to keep funding this program?

      35 billion? That's only half of that 'war fund' that your prez rammed through congress. Cash seems easy enough to get your hands on, if you can work a WMD or terrorist threat into it.

      NASA (to congress): "We have reason to believe that Osama Bin Laden is cunningly hiding in space, possibly on the Moon or Mars. We'll need some cash to go design and build a ship to pick him up."

      Congress: "Hmmmm...."

      NASA (thinking quickly) : "Oh , er, it looks like he might have a, er, WMD or two with him as well..."

      Congress: "Here's 35 Billion dollars. Go."

      NASA (collectively steepling fingers): "Exxxcellent."

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
  8. Re:Heaters mean less weight? by mOoZik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, the purpose of the foam is to keep the tanks from getting warm (as liquid hydrogen/oxygen have very low boiling points) and to keep ice from forming on the exterior.

    --
    A blog like any other.
  9. The problem is the stomach.... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ditch the damn shuttle. All it does is hamper any possibility of real space usage. It is nothing more than a modern day spruce goose. It has so many things that can go wrong something will. I don't know if the nation has the stomach to lose another 7, and I don't want to find out.

    And you didn't think more things could go wrong? The Apollo missions were a suicide run, if you compare the technology. And even in the future, it's likely that people will die in space. They're pioneers. Look at the recent Mars flop, where they can't get contact with the probe. Anything similar with a crew onboard would be fatal.

    The US has a serious problem with lives lost. Not that it is not a bad thing and should be avoided, but sometimes there are risks involved. Like e.g. stationing troops in Iraq, and sending men into space. You must be able to accept some losses in the name of peace, progress and prosperity. Fair? Nope. But it never was, was it?

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:The problem is the stomach.... by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, but the question is always whether it was really an unavoidable accident, or blatant negligence. Even in wartime, we understand MANY soldiers will lose their lives - but it doesn't mean we tolerate an officer ordering his troops into certain mass death because of bad planning or decision-making.

      I think the recent hold-ups with NASA have been largely because folks are concerned they're cutting corners on safety -- choosing to save a few dollars rather than do what's most prudent.

      The astronauts may be willing to risk their lives for the sake of the space program, but I think they want to do so as heros, not casualties of NASA cost-cutting gone wrong.

  10. not a technical but an organizational Problem by NoSuchGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's not a technical but an organizational Problem

    You don't need more technology to read an email from a technician or engineer who warns because of missing or destroyed isolation foam.

    The NASA has to change the way on how to react on such warnings.

    --
    Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
  11. STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech by Howzer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Space Transportation System (STS), which is essentially the shuttle main engines + the big tank in the middle and the two solid fuel boosters on the sides, is a fantastic heavy lift vehicle which has undergone significant testing (all shuttle flights) with one failure from which much was learnt. The take-home fact:

    The STS is capable of lifting over 100 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit, or throwing 40 tonnes to Mars (with an appropriate small upper stage).

    Capacity like that means humans to Mars in a decade or doubling the size of the current ISS (into something useful) in ONE THROW. Or, having an Apollo-class launcher ready for the let's-go-back-to-Luna folk.

    The Shuttle, on the other hand, the Winnebago of space exploration, is a horrible hybrid device. It's essentially a portable space station, which is fine when you don't have one, but now we do. It's not a good repair vehicle (a capsule would be much better and hugely cheaper), it's not a good "escape pod" (not even the ISS uses it for that purpose), and it's not a good space transport system, because it itself weighs ninety of those precious, expensive, to-orbit tonnes.

    My heart sank when I read that more space dollars were going to be spent "upgrading" this thing that has trapped us firmly in Earth's orbit for 20 years.

    Come on NASA! Show some balls! Show us just a little bit of the "right stuff" you used to manufacture in bulk. Pick a destination, strip the shuttle off the stack, and GO THERE.

    1. Re:STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech by evilWurst · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "or doubling the size of the current ISS (into something useful) in ONE THROW"

      Um... no, think about it for a moment. That won't work unless you can collapse all those parts as if they were empty cardboard boxes and then re-assemble in orbit. I doubt many of the big workhorse rocket designs ever lift close to their true capacity - the awkwardness of the payload (in terms of aerodynamics and balance) is not trivial. And then if you get that to work but require human assembly at the destination, you still need to send people up, except now you're sending them on something else at the same time. Now you've got to manage two spacecraft designs, two coordinated launches, and so on.

      While I agree with your general idea (learn from the old stuff and do BETTER), spaceflight hasn't gotten any easier, and upgrades to spacecraft aren't as simple as swapping out a video card and loading new drivers...

      (Personally, I think we should try to do everything at once - do better rockets AND build the space elevator. They are different enough projects that they wouldn't steal specialist engineers from each other, thus we could work on both at the same time. If either one works, we win, and if the elevator works we really really really win)

  12. Vandenberg shuttle launch. by FunkyRat · · Score: 4, Informative

    No shuttle missions ever flew from Vandenberg, although there were quite a few landings there.

    Part of the reason is that the launch facility was rife with problems. However, the bigger reason is political, in my opinion. Basically, NASA needed the Air Force as reluctant partner in order to get funding from Congress for the shuttle program. From what I understand, the Air Force was interested in using the Shuttle to put spy satellites into polar orbit.

    Polar orbit is not something that could be achieved from Kennedy primarily because NASA would never risk putting the Shuttle on a trajectory where early launch failure could result in the orbiter and boosters plowing into a populated area. One does not have such worries at Vandenberg with nothing but desert and Canadians in tehe way should the Shuttle fail.

    The numerous problems with the Vandenberg facility (rumoured to have a Native-American curse on it), some really bad press coverage and changes in Air Force administration resulted in the abandonment of SLC-6. The Air Force figured that they could get their spy sats into polar orbit more easily and cheaply with Titans.

    BTW: If a Shuttle had ever been launched from Vandenberg, I think it would have been the Discovery. If I am remembering correctly, as part of the deal NASA struck with the Air Force, they actually got ownership of the Discovery. I apologize if any of this is factually incorrect, I am pulling straight from memory here. If you peruse the sci.space.shuttle newsgroup you'll find some truly informative articles there from people who really know about this stuff because they were the ones who actually worked on the shuttle program.

  13. wadda they gonna use... by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Funny

    space heaters?

    --
    What?
  14. I wonder too by dtrent · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if heating up a tank with liquid oxygen is a bright idea.

    Yeah, maybe NASA will finally get their shit together and check things with some random Java programmer before their next mission. NASA, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, COME TO YOUR SENSES AND CONSULT A RANDOM JAVA DEVELOPER ON THE TANK HEATERS, HUMAN LIVES ARE AT STAKE.

  15. I can't help but feel... by JordanH · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ...that piling on more and more complicated systems to try and correct for other problems just means there is ultimately more things that can go wrong.

    People will believe that if the sensors don't show it, it must not be there. The heating systems will complicate and potentially lead to other, new kinds of catastrophic failure (as anticipated by the /. editor Michael's comment on the wisdom of heating a large tank of liquid oxygen).

    This article is must reading, I think.

  16. Re:hey mr rocket scientist... by arth1 · · Score: 5, Funny
    You're not smarter than the people at NASA!! SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!!!

    Aw, c'mon. It's not like this is rocket science...

    --
    *Art
  17. Apollo reliability by Latent+Heat · · Score: 4, Informative
    Apollo being a suicide run?

    Lets start with the Saturn V rocket. The thing was designed by the Huntsville Germans. When you think of German engineers, think meticulously designed and crafted, expensive as heck, and reliable. Did they ever lose a Saturn (Saturn V or Saturn Ib) in flight? Titan was much cheaper than Saturn but hasn't had quite the same record.

    OK, now consider the Apollo CM with its ablative heatshield and low-lift blunt-body design. And with a Max Faget solid-fuel tractor escape rocket. Compare with Shuttle with wings, and tiles, and computers flying the thing and with the Shuttle parallel to the tanks where stuff can fall off or blow up. In the Challenger explosion, the crew capsule remained intact and killed the crew when it hit the water. If something happened to the Saturn rocket, the Apollo crew had an escape rocket, they had space suits to survice a cabin puncture, and they had parachutes to make a safe water landing.

    Sure Apollo was primitive by comparison, primitive in the sense of Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Safe). Oh, and Apollo had redundant space crafts so even when the Service Module was blown to shreds (as a result of ground handling to empty a balky oxygen tank by running tank heaters until the insulation burned off), they brought back to crew, although one guy had a 103 F plus fever from a urinary infection because he didn't think they had enough electric power for him to take a leak often enough.

    Give me Apollo primitive over Shuttle any day.

    1. Re:Apollo reliability by Idarubicin · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Lets start with the Saturn V rocket. The thing was designed by the Huntsville Germans. When you think of German engineers, think meticulously designed and crafted, expensive as heck, and reliable. Did they ever lose a Saturn (Saturn V or Saturn Ib) in flight? Titan was much cheaper than Saturn but hasn't had quite the same record.

      Well, the first stage was designed largely by the Germans. They built it simple, reliable, and strong. The original design for the Saturn V first stage (the S-1C) called for four F1 engines. When this was later bumped up to add a fifth engine, engineers found that the structure was sufficiently beefy that little extra bracing was needed. It was fuelled by kerosene (JP-1) and liquid oxygen. It was simple, rock-solid, sturdy, and reliable. It was a truly beautiful monster, and it did its job admirably.

      North American designed the second stage (the Saturn S-II). Since the S-II stayed with the rocket longer and higher, weight was much more important. Liquid hydrogen had to be used for its higher energy density than kerosene. Traditional rugged German rocket engineering would have made the S-II solid, reliable--and too heavy to fly. The S-II components were designed to bear a load precisely 1.5 times the load anticipated in flight. Parts that were too strong were shaved down and tested until they failed at exactly 1.5, so as to save every ounce of weight.

      Probably the biggest engineering challenge of the S-II was construction of its common bulkhead between the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. Despite both being cryogenic liquids, in use they're about seventy degrees (Celsius) apart in temperature. Usually this was a nonissue: the top of one tank and the bottom of the other were hemispherical, and met at only a single point. Unfortunately, such construction added weight, so for the S-II (and for the third stage, the S-IVB) a common bulkhead design was used, where a single hemisphere formed the wall between the two tanks. Entirely new techniques had to be developed to assemble the structure--miles of perfect welds were required; the metal was shaped by being pounded into a mold with explosives. And they had to do it twice for each S-II--two thin hemispheres of aluminum sandwiched a layer of insulation to make the bulkhead. Absolutely phenomenal, and way beyond anything that the Germans (or anyone else) had done before that point.

      Anyway, IANAA (I am not an American) but I hate to see all of the engineers at North American Aviation and Boeing (for the S-IVB) get shrugged off--the Germans were instrumental without question in the early US space program, but credit where credit is due...the S-II and the S-IVB worked absolutely perfectly (to my knowledge) throughout the Apollo program. (Almost--a single J-2 engine of the five on the S-II failed to ignite on Apollo 13. This alone had no impact on the mission, and certainly was the smallest issue that 13 faced.)

      Oh, and Apollo had redundant space crafts so even when the Service Module was blown to shreds (as a result of ground handling to empty a balky oxygen tank by running tank heaters until the insulation burned off), they brought back to crew, although one guy had a 103 F plus fever from a urinary infection because he didn't think they had enough electric power for him to take a leak often enough.

      The redundant spacecraft didn't exist because NASA anticipated a possible accident (explosion of the service module) and supply an extra spaceship. There was a second ship present because the mission required it--the only way the Americans could get to the moon on a short schedule was by leaving most of the craft (command and service modules) in orbit, and landing the smallest ship possible--the lunar module. It was a lucky coincidence that Apollo 13 could use the lunar module in that way, and even then, it wasn't really designed with a 'lifeboat' capacity in mind. A favourite example is in the case of the ship's scrubbers--lithium hydroxide canister

      --
      ~Idarubicin