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?

They're still not solving the problem

[RickyRay]

The main problem on the antiquated space shuttles is the heat-resistant tiles. They're extremely expensive, and not very good. They're so soft you could problably crush a piece with your hands, which means they're easily damaged during flight (and we've seen the fatal results of that).

Troy Hurtubise, the Canadian who did the famous bear-proof suit documented in the movie Project grizzly, spent 18 years researching how to make a flameproof material, and finally has it. It's far more heat-resistant than the space shuttle tiles, far more durable, and far cheaper. A friend and I watched him testing it for a military representative last July, and got the whole thing on film (it was so interesting we hope to turn it into a documentary). His material would solve many of the space shuttle safety issues, and do it for cheap (and he has an impact-proof version as well, which provides a cheap way to prevent many of the deaths of soldiers in Iraq; that was the focus of the testing I saw).

Here's his site:

http://projecttroy.com.nexx.com/website/

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[i41Overlord]

Troy Hurtubise, the Canadian who did the famous bear-proof suit documented in the movie Project grizzly, spent 18 years researching how to make a flameproof material, and finally has it. It's far more heat-resistant than the space shuttle tiles, far more durable, and far cheaper.

It should be mentioned that not only are his new tiles flameproof, but they're bear-proof as well. This is very beneficial for the shuttle during re-entry, where it has to survive not only the intense heat of re-entry, but the occasional high-altitude bear attack as well.

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:They're still not solving the problem

[squidguy]

They're so soft you could problably crush a piece with your hands, which means they're easily damaged during flight (and we've seen the fatal results of that) Errr...it was an impact against the leading edge of the wing -- which is covered by reinforced carbon-carbon -- not the ceramic thermal tiles.

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[AC-x]

That's funny, because I seem to remember the most likely theory on the disaster was the foam hit and punctured the leading edge of the wing which is made of reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC), and not the heat resistant tiles (which are designed so a few can be lost during normal flights anyway).

Re:They're still not solving the problem

[Rei]

Irrelevant.

Troy's bear suit uses FSA 333 ("Fire Suppression Agent 333"). Which he blames for the FBI harassing him and instigating his divorce (no, I'm not kidding - he claims that it is the secret to making extraction of Canadian tar sands cheap, and the US government is after it). It is a fire retardant, heat resistant material.

This is *NOT* what you want on a reentry craft.

You can't just insulate your way to a safe landing; you have to *dissipate* the heat. That is what the tiles are for; they have a huge surface area, and even non-fibrous ceramics are good at radiating heat. As a consequence, you can stick the titles under a blowtorch for an hour if you wanted, take them out, and a couple second later they'll be completely cool to the touch. They dissipate heat that fast. *That* is what you need for reentry; not some "fire suppression agent".

The other major in-use option is ablatatives (again, not what troy invented). Albatives "ablate" (i.e., steadily erode off) as they heat up. As they do so, they take the heat that they absorbed with them. There are also other theoretical or in-testing options being looked at

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?

Re:monitor for damage as the shuttle ascends...

[Rob Carr]

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

That's one scenario.

There are multiple abort scenarios if one or more of the main engines cut out. These scenarios can be modified to deal with significant tile damage. The orbiter will not have orbital velocity if one of these aborts were called, and so the tile system will be much less crucial.

The problem, of course, is that any damage will need to be assessed rapidly. The earlier in the launch an abort can be called, the more options there are.

Some of the abort scenarios have the shuttle gliding over an ocean and bailing out. There's a pole they would slide along to make sure they clear the orbiter. So, in fact, there are scenarios where the crew would be told to jump out.

Far better if the shuttle can land at one of the designated landing sites around the globe. Even there, NASA will have fun returning the orbiter to the United States.

If the abort cannot be called in time, then the shuttle would continue on to the ISS. Docked with the ISS, there would be a chance to a) review how bad the damage is and b) wait until another shuttle or Soyuz could be launched.

If the shuttle does make it to orbit and is damaged, recovery of the shuttle would be problematic. So far, there is no way to repair the shuttle in orbit.

The shuttle still needs a human to activate some landing systems, so the shuttle cannot be sent back on a "hope it makes it back, too bad if it doesn't." If I remember correctly, that little design screwup was actually promoted by the astronauts. Job security.

Damage-Cams

[Anonymous Coward]

"The new tank has cameras that will allow ground workers to monitor for damage as the shuttle ascends."

Not much of a reassurance to the crew though, are they?

Ground worker #1: "Looks like she's breakin' apart."
Ground worker #2: "Mm-hmm."
Ground worker #1: "We install brakes?"
Ground worker #2: "Nope."
Ground worker #1: "Ejection seats?"
Ground worker #2: "Nope."
Ground worker #1: "... So, how about them Cubs?"

Sooo

[temojen]

Are they going to send one of the astronauts on an EVA walkaround inspection before re-entering this time? Truckers check their brakes before a big hill, why don't astronauts check the heat shield?

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:Real fix, or just bandaid?

[fusion812]

NASA is to a real fix as Microsoft is to their 'Service Pack'..

..A failure, but marketed better than a video of Paris Hilton

Not only that....

[AtariAmarok]

"Troy Hurtubise, the Canadian who did the famous bear-proof suit documented in the movie Project grizzly, spent 18 years researching how to make a flameproof material, and finally has it."

Not only that, but if you apply this bearproofing technology to the shuttle program, you are ready to go for the Ursa Major mission.

Re:Not only that....

[October_30th]

you are ready to go for the Ursa Major mission

Wouldn't it be safer to start with an Ursa Minor mission first?

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.

My last support call at the IBM PC Help Center...

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

The very last call I took at the IBM PC Help Center [which, I gather, is in peril of being relocated from the RTP to the PRC] was with the guy who administered the laptops that the astronauts took on the shuttle. Could only see about 100 of the 300 servers on his network, so we figured it was a networking problem [I was in networking, not laptops], and I spent three hours with him before we finally realized that it was the drivers for the PCMCIA bridge that were killing the ethernet stack. Updated the drivers and la voila - everything worked perfectly.

ANYWAY, this was early 1997, and he told me that the shuttle was filled with 8-bit processors dating from its design in the 1970s, and it was cheaper for them to have the astronauts carry light weight IBM laptops onboard as a form of an upgrade rather than ripping the beast apart at the seams and upgrading all those 8-bit processors to 32-bits [which I suppose nowadays would be 64-bits].

Wonder who they'll use for such sensitive equipment now that Big Blue has jumped in bed with Big Red?

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

[Ironsides]

We have put nuclear reactors into orbit before. On one of the missions, the rocket even blew up. The net gain in radioactivity? ZERO. The casing around the material was designed to be able to tolerate a rocket explosion. They recovered the material (every last gram) and reused it on a later mission. The problem is not garunteeing a 100% success rate, the problem is making sure that if something does occur, that the material doesn't get spewed all over the contry side. And that is orders of magnitude easier.

Re:I know how NASA could fix the shuttle

[Waffle Iron]

There basically are three major cases of nuclear-power on spacecraft: nuclear-powered liftoff stages, nuclear reactor powered deep space drives, and radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) for electrical power. I'm not sure which incident you're referring to, but it's probably an RTG (which are very common, and which is not a nuclear fission reactor). The Soviet Union put a few dozen actual fission reactors in orbit. (A couple of these accidently reentered, and the are still in orbits that will decay within a few hundred years). The US has only put up one or two test fission reactors.

RTGs are potentially worrisome, but the fuel can be heavily protected as you mention. However, they are most often used as electrical power generators, not propulsion systems. RTG fuel is nasty stuff even before the RTG is put in use.

Fission reactors (not RTGs) that are not activated until orbit really aren't that much of a big deal on launch because they can be fueled with fresh U-235 which really isn't very radioactive or dangerous until you switch the reactor on and start generating fission products. The only issue is if they don't make it out of earth orbit and eventually the orbit decays. Powering an ion drive with one of these to do missions to the outer planets might make a lot of sense.

The scariest nuclear propulsion case a the high-thrust rocket used for the first or second stage liftoff. These have been successfully tested on the ground but never flown. They basically pack all of the power of a large commercial nuclear plant into a package only a few feet in diameter. They run full blast with little or no shielding. There is no way to heavily shield or isolate the fuel without impeding the huge heat transfer rate that is necessary to propel the massive amounts of propellant gas out the rocket.

These high-thrust rockets operate at the very fringes of material strength capabilities and probably have a high probability of disintegrating, spewing partially spent fuel and waste into the atmosphere. That's one reason that they've never been actually used.

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: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.