New Shuttle Fuel Tanks Ready

confusion writes "NASA has completed the redesigned fuel tanks for the Shuttle scheduled to for launch in May or June of this year. "On the new tank, NASA has reconfigured the struts and fittings where foam was prone to peeling off, and installed heaters to prevent ice from forming. The new tank has cameras that will allow ground workers to monitor for damage as the shuttle ascends.""

Comments

Shuttle

[spac3manspiff]

So when are they going to redesign the shuttle though?

Re:Shuttle

[RockClimbingFool]

You improve the design as much as you can up to a certain point. You could design new winshields to withstand impacts from concrete bricks or you could just make sure the shuttle doesn't fly through bricks. I know that sounds extremely oversimplified, but over and over and over again decisions and compromises must be made between capability and the expected environement. If you don't, the vehicle will never get off the ground.

Re:Shuttle

[Rei]

I'll second this. The basic design of the tanks is still the same, which is a problem. The shuttle mounts low on the side of the tanks. This is a Bad Thing(tm), and is generally viewed as such in retrospect. Even on a non-cryogenic fuelled rocket, side-mounting puts you at greater risk for debris impact, especially further down the side you're mounted.

The shuttle got its budget slashed in development, so I don't blame them. The original shuttle designs were a lot more "sane" - a smaller craft, no SRBs, a titanium frame (i.e., no extreme difficulty in trying to keep the heat down), mounted near the top of the carrier, etc. The list goes on. The original design was really impressive; with what we know now factored in, I'm sure our next major reusable will be great. But we need to stop using this half-developmentally-funded 1st-generation flying experiment. What's wrong with giving Russia an 8 year contract or whatnot for Soyuz use so that they can ramp up production while we work on our next generation craft?

BTW, before anyone says "Private industry should make it, not NASA!", private industry *does* make spacecraft. Boeing, Lockheed, etc, are prime contractors for NASA, and do most of the work. If you want *small* private industry, well, they first need to actually develop real spacecraft. They're working on it, but they're still far away.

Re:Shuttle

[jones948]

It's just like the modern drugs we see these days that reduces symptoms but doesn't cure the cause.

Ah, but where is the money in selling a cure?

Re:Shuttle

[davesplace1]

2040 if the money comes through. Looks like we will be flying on Virgin Space first :)

Re:Shuttle

[FleaPlus]

But we need to stop using this half-developmentally-funded 1st-generation flying experiment.

Yup. I really wish that shuttle recovery funds would have been spent instead on making sure that the CEV is the best it can be.

BTW, before anyone says "Private industry should make it, not NASA!", private industry *does* make spacecraft. Boeing, Lockheed, etc, are prime contractors for NASA, and do most of the work. If you want *small* private industry, well, they first need to actually develop real spacecraft. They're working on it, but they're still far away.

The problem isn't that companies like Boeing and Lockheed are large. The problem is that they're mostly isolated from competitive market forces and subsist almost entirely off massive government contracts, giving them no real reason to become more efficient or less costly. Plus, NASA has a tendency to be overly specific in their design requirements, so that NASA in effect ends up making a lot of design decisions before the company has found out what would actually work best.

Cost-plus contracting makes me twitch uncontrollably. I really wish NASA would be more like a customer and simply provide demand for craft which can achieve the functions they want. They could help out on the design/supply side only where their expertise is asked for, rather than trying to keep their grip on the entire process.

monitor for damage as the shuttle ascends...

[glrotate]

And what are they going to do if they see damage, tell the crew to jump out?

Real fix, or just bandaid?

[Theovon]

Is it just me, or does this seem more like a patch than a real fix? Rather than realizing that the foam is problematic and designing something that won't come off, they resort to finding ways of preventing the old stuff from coming off. Well, if it works, great, but it just feels unsatisfying.

Perhaps this is just a case of extending the life of aging spacecraft a little longer for the least expense so that more funds can be routed towards newer technology that doesn't have the same inherent problems. (Perhaps different ones. *g*)

Re:I know how NASA could fix the shuttle

[WIAKywbfatw]

When someone can guarantee a 100 percent success rate for nuclear-powered launches then they'll happen. Until then, nuclear-powered ascents are a no-go.

Re:I know how NASA could fix the shuttle

[crow]

Obviously Spaceship One isn't an answer, as reaching space is much easier than acheiving orbit. Remember that orbit includes a huge horizontal velocity that Spaceship One wasn't even considering.

Of course, your point is still valid. It may well make more sense to use traditional rockets for lifting, and concentrate our manned efforts on a vehicle designed for human transport only. I'm not sure I agree with that approach, but it's certainly worth evaluating. Of course, we probably all agree that we need a shuttle replacement, just what we should develop is up for debate.

Re:Sooo

[matth1jd]

This is a good idea, however I have a question.. if they find damage to the heat shield can they repair it during an EVA? Does anyone know if this would be incredibly difficult?

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but how much does it weigh? Remember the whole underside of the spacecraft would need to be coated in this, and the current tiles while fragile are also nice and light.

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

holy shit you know nothing about the shuttle.

those tiles are not "crushable" in your hand. i have one here on my desk and after almost 10 years of abuse it has on my besk it still looks quite nice.

expensiv? yes compared to what is in your oven. Expensive compared to the job they do? nope. they are miuch cheaper than an ablative heat shield.
they also are VERY good, moron... why do you think they use them? because they work.. the guys at nasa are not idiots.

I suggest you actually learn about what you are talking about before you make shit up and try to post it as fact.

Re:I know how NASA could fix the shuttle

[LWATCDR]

Okay this makes me nuts. This is like saying forget jets, the Comet crashed and was not practical so lets just stick with DC7s, Lockheed Connes, and Boeing Stratoliners. Props work, they are cheaper, and get the job done.

The Shuttle was totally over sold and under budgeted. For some reasons people seemed to think we could go from the "Spirit of St Louis" to a 747 in one step.
What would a shuttle built today look like using the same specs and the with funding?
1. It would use "green" fuels for the apu and RCS.
2. It would be all electric. No hydraulic system
3. It would use cermets or a metal thermal protection system.
4. Liquid flyback boosters instead of SRBs.
5. Have unmanned mode and maybe even some total unmanned versions with a bigger lift.

The failure of the shuttle program is the lack of learning we are doing from it. A shuttle replacement should have been flying by 1990 or 95. What I hate is it seems like everyone wants to take two steps back or a giant leap forward. Lets make small steady steps forward.

Re:I know how NASA could fix the shuttle

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Sure. Look at how we treat many other classes of vehicles. For cars, we have person-movers (cycles), passenger carriers (cars, buses) and cargo carriers (trucks). The same differentiation applies to things like boats and planes. (Trains are a special case, since track-width pretty much dictates a "large box on wheels" style of design, and then you can just choose a box full of seats for passengers, or a box full of tie-down points for cargo.)

NASA's tried to make something of the Shuttle. Unfortunately, during the process of constant compromises to get many missions behind the single transport project, the end product is not good at any job. It is a poor transporter of people, a poor platform for satellite launch/recovery, a poor cargo lifter, and finally a poor platform for deep-space missions.

The Shuttle was a nice try. We can give NASA due credit. But a bad idea is still a BAD IDEA. The Shuttle program should be broken into at least 3 major pieces.

1. Command and Control. These operations can probably fall back into NASA's general idea of controlling space operations.
2. Mission Vessels. We could get the X15 plans out of mothballs and give Burt Rutan and his little prissy ship a run for his money. The X15-ish ships would be used for small satellites, small person transport, and of course repair missions. They should be cheap to launch as far as a rocket is measured; perhaps strapping 1 or 2 of these babies to an Atlas.
3. Heavy Lifting. We already have a heavy-lift system called the Shuttle main tank, engines and SRBs. But we mostly lift that goddamned Shuttle with them. Ditch the shuttle mainbody and install a internally-reconfigurable body that can contain 100 tons of cargo, people, several satellites, or a deep space mission. If people are supposed to come back (for instance, a personnel-swap mission for the ISS), then install instead a re-entry body. It will be far cheaper and safer to have a re-entry body that does a splashdown off Florida than to even use one of the old orbiters.

Re:Sooo

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Check the heat shield? And then what? "Houston, we have damage." {crackle} "Commander, nice knowing ya. Please refer to your cyanide capsules. It beats suffocating to death. We'll name some high schools after you. Over and out."

Re:Apollo had better heat sheilds

[Rei]

That's SLA-561V. A variant, SLA-561S, is already used on the shuttle's external tank for shielding during liftoff (it's what gives it its orange color). It's not good enough, however, for reentry; plus, there are some technical problems due to its relatively low strength.

There's always this wierd assumption around Slashdot that NASA is a bunch of idiots, and that they don't know more than a bunch of random people on the internet when it comes to (insert topic here). The number of different types of heat shielding that have been experimented with by Nasa is huge; it's not something that they take lightly. Depending on the mission, they look at what is avaialble, what they have budget for, and use what is best, just like what any reasonable person on Earth would do.

Wrong debate

[CaptRespect]

-- "Private industry should make it, not NASA!", private industry *does* make spacecraft. --

The debate is not weather federal employees build the shuttle or private contractors, but rather that private industry should PAY for the contruction, not public tax funds.

GOVERNMENT: Give us some money to explore outer space.

JOE TAXPAYER: No, I don't think it's that important. Besides, I'd rather spend this money on food for my family, or heat for my house, or invest it for my retirement, or half-life 2.

GOVERNMENT: We'll take you're money anyway. If you resist we'll throw you in jail. If you resist going to prison, we'll shoot you.

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[timeOday]

those tiles... are VERY good, moron... why do you think they use them? because they work.. the guys at nasa are not idiots.

I think there are some astronauts who would take issue with you on that if they weren't dead.

management, not cures & rebuildable not reusab

[hpulley]

If you could take a vaccine for the common cold once then you'd lose all that money for cold remedies. And if you could cure high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and arthritis instead of managing these conditions then you'd make much less money. It is the opposite of the old saying about teaching someone to fish rather than giving them a fish for dinner. In this case, they'd rather that you were dependent upon them for the rest of your life.

In the same vein, the shuttle is very expensive but this is good for the companies that essentially strip them down and rebuild them for every launch, which is what they do rather than just reusing them. The SRBs are salvaged out of salt water and rebuilt. The shuttle is a prime example of pork barrel politics and make work projects. It is meant to make political capital for certain states, not to solve a problem. The contractors love being the only game in town and since they can charge a margin on top of subcontractors and equipment and software bought for the projects they never use things over again, they buy it all from scratch. It is a large waste of money, but good for the economy in a way if you like having the gov't fund what amounts to corporate and personal welfare.

Until there is a completely private alternative, accountable to shareholders instead of politicians at the trough, space travel will continue to be outrageously expensive and inefficient.

Shuttle was NEVER state of the art Re:Why Bother?

[Macrat]

The shuttle design in use today was picked from several concepts in the early 1970's.

They purposely picked a design that required NO NEW TECHNOLOGY TO DEVELOPE in order for it to be cheaper to build.

One of the rejected designs was a 2 piece craft that was 100% reusable..... Yup, exactly like SpaceShip One today.

Another design was a 1 piece craft that was 100% reusable. But that requried development of high speed ram jets that no one wanted to fund.

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[amabbi]

I think there are some astronauts who would take issue with you on that if they weren't dead.

Why is this modded insightful? The ceramic heat shield tiles did not fail, the leading edge reinforced carbon-carbon panels failed.