Hurricane Threatens Shuttle Program

evenprime writes "Hurricane Frances may end NASA's space shuttle program. John Logsdon, a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and the head of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has said: 'If there were serious damage to one or two of the orbiters or the facilities needed to process and launch the orbiters, I think it would raise a very large question about the continuation of the shuttle program.'"

Comments

Shuttle program != Space program

[phearlez]

Let's not get our knickers in a twist here, ya? The shuttle program is in its twilight years regardless but it's not the end-all be-all. There's a Return to Flight program.

Re:Huh?

[AKAImBatman]

This is supposedly the...

Worst
Hurricane
Ever

That's why they're worried. They only built their facilities to withstand common hurricanes with less power. e.g. The article states that the shuttle hangar can withstand winds of 110 mph. This hurricane could be a LOT worse.

Re:Huh?

[shawn(at)fsu]

The building at the Cape were only designed to with stand winds of apx. 110 mph, this hurricane out there is what 145+, I lived maybe 20 min north of the cape (Could watch the launches out my living room window) and we never got the big hurricanes some how we've been very lucky, they'd go north or south but they never came at us.

To my knowledge Volusia and Brevard county have never been hit by a storm like this, at least not in the last 50+ years. I heard through my mother who still lives in the area that the newscasters say that this is a 100 years storm for that area.

IMHO I honestly can't see building like the VAB surviving a storm like this....

Maybe not

[amightywind]

But one positive by-effect would be that NASA would be forced to consider better booster solutions.

One of those better booster solutions is sitting on the pad right now. It is even more vulnerable to damage than the shuttle orbiters. The Delta IV heavy or derivative is a likely candidate for a post shuttle manned booster. It would be bad news if it were damaged.

Re:Damn!

[Graff]

If we can get to the point that we rely on hydrogen instead of oil, or even uranium, then we'll have a virtually limitless fuel supply covering 70% of the planet up to several miles deep.

H2O (water for the few who may not know that...) is a very low energy state for hydrogen. In order to get usable energy from the hydrogen in H2O you first have to split off the hydrogen. This takes energy. Now when you burn the hydrogen you are probably going to burn it with oxygen, producing H2O and energy.

So the cycle would go:

2H2O -> add energy -> 2H2 + O2 -> release energy by burning -> 2H20

The energy you get back will be no more than the energy you put in. Actually, it will most likely be a lot less because of thermodynamics and inefficiencies. If you get back 50% of the energy you used to produce, store, and transport the hydrogen I would be amazed.

At best hydrogen is a fairly clean way of storing energy. You still need to get that energy from somewhere. Today that energy most likely comes from burning fossil fuels. Hopefully in the future we can use beamed microwaves from space stations or other clean methods of producing the energy, which we then store as hydrogen and burn cleanly.

Re:Hurricane David 1979

[slungsolow]

Hurricane David was a Catagory 2 hurricane with sustained winds between 96-110 mph. Thats around the range that the area was built to withstand.

Frances is a Catagory 4 hurricane and is currently throwing around winds in the 145-155 mph range. Can you see the concern now?

Re:NASA = idiots

[bhmcintosh]

I believe one major reason that NASA's and the Air Force's launch facilities are in Florida is a combination of lots of open ocean for downrange safety and testing, and the physics of orbital insertions that put the likely launch routes over that open ocean. Supposing Challanger had been over , say, Georgia when it disintegrated, and dropped all that debris on downtown Atlanta?