Crack Found in Shuttle Tank

hpulley writes "The shuttle's new fuel tank, supposedly redesigned to be safer, has a crack in it. Pictures were sent to the manufacturer who decided that it is too small to be worrisome. Hmm, what caused the Columbia disaster, pieces of foam? Meanwhile, there will be a second shuttle on standby, just in case the first one has problems after being hit by foam, etc. If the first shuttle has a design flaw, what's to say the second one isn't afflicted by the same problem? Won't there be a good chance of them stranding the rescue crew in addition to the original crew? If an aircraft crashes and the redesign to fix it crashes, would you send another of the same type to rescue it? Of course not! The ISS is going to be a smelly, scary place with the regular complement and two shuttle crews onboard and no way home but a Russian Soyuz capsule that isn't slated to launch again until September and has seats for just three..."

Comments

Why?

[DarkHelmet]

I know that the tank itself was redesigned, but the whole concept of the shuttle is incredibly outdated.

STS was originally conceived in the 60s, implemented in the 70s, and was launched in the 80s. I turned 24 today. The space shuttle first took off when I was six days old.

From a technology standpoint, I don't use the same computers that were out in 1981. I don't drive a car that was made or designed in 1981. I don't even talk on a phone whose carrier techology was around in 1981.

So why, WHY are we launching people into space with a program older than I am? And of all things, if we're really so keen on going to Mars, why should this of all things be our jumping off point?

Re:Why?

[mabinogi]

It worked in 1981, it works now.
The existence of newer, better stuff doesn't make older stuff automatically stop working.

Also, I'd be surprised if they really were using all the same computer equipment and software from 1981.

Re:Why?

[kizzbizz]

The technology in the planes you fly in are over 50 years old. Old doesn't always necessarily equate to Bad. NASA doens't have the kind of private sector innovation that the computer you use or the car you drive has. They only have themselves. Hopefully as the X-Prize evolves the private sector will be able to get its foothold in, but untill then, the Shuttle is all we've got. And just because its 24+ years old, doesn't mean it isnt capable.

Re:Why?

[happyemoticon]

I have a lot of gripes with the shuttle. If we ever seriously want to get into space, we need something less Industrial Revolution, something that's reusable and doesn't involve burning a metric assload of solid fuel and tend to cataclysmically explode.

However, those shuttles represent billions upon billions of dollars. Sure, all the blue-sky types at NASA want something more reliable, sustainable and smaller. However, in the current "budgetary climate," as they say, with Bush trying to start World War III with Islam and the economy still dusting itself off, your chances of getting Congress to authorize a new project are slightly less than zero. The shuttles are the only toys NASA has, and if they break, they're not going to get new ones.

Re:Why?

[zymano]

Space shuttle replacements

Hypersonic X-30 cancelled in 1993.

What happened to the X-33.
Cnn article on the troubles of the X-33
aerospike engine for x-33

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"so what does that say about their reliability? ;)"

Actually, airline aircraft service life is much more about cost effectiveness than airframe durability. Lot of parallels with personal computers: Yer 486 and P1 still work fine, but don't deliver as good bang for buck as new equipment, and the parts for the old equip gets expensive when you need them. (Airlines, like sys admins, don't have time to go shop on ebay.)

Passenger psychology also comes into play.

Also note the An-24 is a short haul aircraft and isn't dealing with the pressurization stresses that larger aircaft do. The 747-100 and -200 may well be timed out. That type has set hours, whereas unpressurized frames simply undergo unlimited regular inspection. Hence B-18's and DC-3's still fly.

I also don't know how the Russian firms calculate things like airframe life. Their stuff was still behind the iron curtain when I was in aircraft college; they developed their own system from the rest of the world. It's possible some of those old aircraft wouldn't be flying under the same standards. (Not that a little airline in Cuba would be operating to Aeroflot standards anyway.)

To be anecdotal, I have heard the Russian heli's used for logging up here are incredibly more sturdy than their western stablemates. But I've never met anyone who's serviced Antonovs et al, so I don't know if the engineering attitude carried through to fixed wing.

Re:Why?

[Detritus]

It stands for High-level Aerospace Language / Shuttle, designed by Intermetrics for NASA. I suspect that the acronym was selected first, and then they found some words to fit it, a common practice in those days.

Re:Why?

[olafva]

Challenger was definitely preventable, just ask McDonald who was in charge at the Cape, BUT was over-ruled. He has agonized over this for years as he had to carry the Fax down the hall (which he disagreed with) to go ahead with the launch. Also, NASA lacked an administrator then (like now) who could call the shots. Jim Beggs wouldn't have allowed Challenger to be launched, but the DoJ was tying him up with trivial GD legal matters he was later cleared of. But he had to step aside to defend himself from the creww of DoJ attorneys. To some degree you can blame the Challenger disaster on the overly agressive and politically motivated Department of Justice attorneys. William Graham, Beggs temporary fill in, was not an experienced engineer (he was CS), and lacked both the clout and understanding to stop the launch.

Regarding Columbia, it is now clear we should have launched a rescue mission, which (according to O'Keefe) was definitely possible, as Atlantis was at the cape nearing it's launch. The fatal flaw was that taking damage photographs and launching a rescue mission were not pert chart options at Mission Control. In addition, the Crater analysis code (spreadsheet) and supporting Powerpoint slides were seriously flawed, giving the wrong impresssion to those who tried to interpret them. To some degree, Powerpoint was a culprit in Columbia as the Columbia Accident Investigation Report pointed out and why NASA employees were encouraged to take Tufte's course and read his books.

Re:Why?

[CrimsonAvenger]

The problem isn't so much the Shuttle as the insanity of the ISS and the manned space programme as a whole. What are they for?

No, the problem is the shuttle. Or, perhaps, the manned space program, but not the way you mean it. Problem is we approached it as if it was never going to be anything other than a few scientists being lofted, instead of industrializing it.

If we'd built 50 shuttles, we could have a launch every four days (allowing 200 days between launches of each shuttle). We'd be able to put 2400T or thereabouts in orbit every year. Note that 2400T is more about ten times as much as the Mars Mission will require.

Fifteen years of that, with half devoted to the space station, and we'd have a REAL space station - 10000T+, capable of supporting some serious industry and whatever science wants to tag along for the ride.

Plus our moon base (and anyone else's who wants one - a real space station makes it much easier for newcomers to get into the game, as long as they play nice), an asteroid mission or two, maybe a probe to look at a monolith on Europa or some such...

The possibilities are endless...

Four, on the other hand. Essentially worthless - they can't do their design mission, they can't build a decent space station, they can't do much of anything....

Re:Why?

[Mondoz]

They have been making tweaks as they go. Columbia, the first orbiter, had several design elements that the other orbiters don't have. (Look at pictures of the tail in comparison with the other orbiters for a quick example)

All the orbiters are different weights, for another example. As they went, they designed better technologies to acomplish the same goal.

They've been doing avionics upgrades (as discussed above), and had many, many major design changes planned.
Some orbiters have heat resistant blankets instead of tiles to reduce weight and complexity.

Each orbiter was slightly tweaked to perform certain functions.
Due to the station's orbit, any orbiter that was to go to the station had to be modified for weight requirements just to get there.

My personal favorite were the Flyback Boosters. Modified solid rocket boosters designed to fly back to KSC and land like a plane to eliminate refurbishing them after fetching them out of the ocean.

Unfortunately, NASA's budget isn't something they can plan for over a long term period. They have to fight for every penny from congress, and are subject to the President's whims.
When Bush took office, one of his first acts was to scrap two elements of the International Space Station.
How can you plan and budget effectively with things like that happening?

Some of NASA's budget is also diverted over to the 'Save the Russian Space Program' fund. A presidental mandate ensured that we'd be employing Russian rocket scientists so they wouldn't end up going to work for some other country and designing missiles or other weapons.

Other major SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) designs have been developed (X-33, Delta Clipper) only to be nixed by Congress.

NASA does contract out a great deal of the STS processing; United Space Alliance handles a major portion of Shuttle & Station aspects.

NASA also cannot sell anything. Their charter prevents them from profiting from their research. If NASA could sell some of their technologies (Velcro, Microwaves, UV Sunglasses, Pacemakers, etc...) they'd be amazingly rich.
Unfortunately, they have to give it all away.

Personally, I hope NASA will someday be split into a research organization and an exploration organization. It's trying to do both, and its budget can't really sustain it.

Re:Why?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Increasing the number of flights per year beyond that would require a corresponding increase in personnel, and therefore funding.

Surely would. Even so, the funding would increase less than linearly as the number of flights increase - because SOME of the overhead isn't per flight, it's per program. So you come ahead with more flights.

Note that I don't consider more funding for manned spaceflight a bad thing.

The shuttle is WAY too complex. It was designed to do everything

Possibly. A truck, by its nature, is pretty general purpose, so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But, yes, a better set of vehicles could be designed. A better Shuttle would have been designed, if the Congress of the period hadn't gutted funding for the Shuttle over and over. A better Shuttle would exist now, if NASA had been budgeted for ongoing improvements in the basic design (I still think the SRB idea sucks - I'd prefer replacing each of them with an F-1 plus a fuel tank, in the same form-factor).

Real problem is that we were spent the wrong amount of money 0 it should have been enough more to make a serious effort, or none at all. Same for all the rest of the Space Program. Apollo wasn't worth doing without a follow-on (and I curse the Congress that ended Apollo on a regular basis to this date). A manned Mars mission won't be worth doing if we're going to go once or twice, then stop. Which is likely to be the way it works out, by the time the Congress 10-20 years along votes the funds.

Enough bitching about shortsighted pols. The weekend is almost here....

Why are you so scared?

[Keith Mickunas]

The shuttle has flown over 100 times with only two serious failures. There have been minor issues from time to time, but most of the time it's flown just fine. Why do you think that this one will be so different? Do you believe that some of the modifications may actually make it more dangerous? Sure something could happen, but the notion that the standby shuttle would also have a problem is just a bit paranoid, don't you think?

Re:Why are you so scared?

[SPY_jmr1]

/me quickly does math on previous programs...

Mercury... didn't one of them sink on splashdown? I call that a bad day, if i'm riding it... 1 out of 7 error, there.

Gemini had a GATV go nuts and spin one like a tilt-a-whirl... also not good... that's one out of... /me looks up... 10 gemini's

Apollo; More interesting... Far higher capibilty/risk vehicle then anything before or since. Apollos 1,7-17,SkylabCSM 1-3, and the ASTP were all manned, for a total of 16 missions, with two failures out of those. (Add several more launches for unmanned saturn boosters, which is (if i am correct) the only booster to never have a disabling failure.)

I found the numbers.. someone else can do the math, it's late ;-)

Probably Ok

[GizmoToy]

If the manufacturers determined that the crack is unlikely to cause a problem, I wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty minor. NASA knows, at this point, that the launch is going to be under intense scrutiny. I seriously doubt they'd put the mission in dager if they were anything less than 100% certain it wouldn't be a problem.

Besides that, I still disagree with the official explaination of the Challenger disaster. I don't know if anyone else watched the very interesting piece on the Discovery channel about a new form of lightning they're just beggining to fully understand that actually appears to travel from the ground up to the sky... Anyway, there was a picture taken by someone in San Fransisco that clearly showed the Challenger being hit by this lightning during its descent. The lightning trail was dismissed as a camera artifact. The owner has be unable to reproduce any such "artifacts". Anyway, I'm sure someone here knows a bit more about it than I.

I hate the shuttle too, but...

[crymeph0]

This kind of pessimism isn't going to help the situation. The fact is, outdated as it is, the shuttle is the only means we have for getting massive equipment to the ISS, which we're obligated to do.

Space flight is risky, and the shuttle is even riskier than it has to be, but we have to finish the job. In this case, that means putting people's lives at risk, even though we know the shuttle is basically a huge mistake. Giving up on the ISS now will leave us out in the cold when the next space race heats up, and this time, it's not going to be us vs. one other country, it's going to be a whole lot of countries, probably forming alliances. If we don't do our part now, we'll be left out of all those alliances, and it will be us against the world.

Ooops. Think again

[helioquake]

Allow me to re-submit my journal here. Just because. Remember, the federal government invests a large amount of sum to do basic research and development. The knowledge trickles down eventually to private sectors, which could not have had done the R&D in the first place because of its prohibitive cost.

****

Exploration and investment are the reasons for a [space] mission like this.

The former -- exploration -- is what NASA and scientists will advertise in front. Why? Because we know so little about comets. Imagine, if the judgement day comes and we have to "shoot down" one of these in order to save the humanity, wouldn't you be rather comfortable to know what and how comets are really made of? We really do not know what happens to a comet when we toss a stick of dynamite into it, as its structural integrity is not well known.

The latter -- investment -- is the second and the foremost important reason. In order for a super-power nation to sustain its technological supremacy in this world, its government must invest its money for the advancement of engineering and science [*]. The investment to a NASA's mission like this may not seem as important as an investment toward curing cancer, etc., but such assessment is near-sighted. For example, building of a scientific instrument requires a miniaturization of electronic component (in order to reduce its size and weight). Each component is also certified to withstand harsh cosmic environment (sudden changes in temperature and severe bombardment by cosmic radiation). The skills learned through these R&D may eventually trickle down to the industry, and hence possibly leading to development of affordable high-tech components (e.g., IC chips in a decade ago). Basically the high cost of R&D may be paid by the government and the industry would benefit from such learned knowledge. It is not too surprising that a medical breakthrough on cancer may come from the spread of affordable technology obtained through space research.

[*] There was no time in history that a single nation had dominated the world without its technological advantage.

But at the bottom line, the choice is up to you and other constituents in the nation. You ask your representatives to choose either to feed the hungry right now or to invest on the future. I'm inclined to choose the latter.

Re:Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's gray tape. A friend of mine works on one of the ground crews responsible for general arbitrary repairs in space (ie. "this thing is acting up, what do we need to do to make it work again"). NASA gray tape is similar to duct/duck tape, but it is not electrically conductive. According to him, there is a shitload of it on the ISS, and it is an acceptable repair method as far as NASA is concerned.

This is what happens when you build your Space Center in Texas.

Re:Sour Grapes Anyone.

[Cruithne]

Quite honestly, this article should be modded -1, Flamebait. It's completely and utterly pointless, except to rile us up and get us talking. I realize thats the point of slashdot, but come on editors, can we get some CONTENT here?

Re:-1 Whiny Liberal

[kevcol]

Actually, you'd do better to find and link Gary Webb's original 1996 story from the San Jose Mercury News, Dark Alliance.

Once the boat started rocking uncontrollably after the SJMN published it, they backpedalled furiously and effectively destroyed Webb's career. Webb interviewed after Mercury pulls series from web site.

The book Dark Alliance was pretty powerful stuff. Webb committed suicide in December.

And of course none of this has anything to do with the space shuttle.

Re:Was that bird shot down. . ?

[fname]

Wow, I've just spent the past hour re-reading your old posts (here & at Kuro5hin) for some strange reason. Please just answer one question for me:

Do you really believe in all these alternative theories (who shot JFK, who killed 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, did aliens crash in Roswell, did an energy beam knock down the shuttle- y'know, b/c foam at 22-23 mph couldn't do it-, etc.), or do you just post them for fun to see the reaction of the community?

Either way, I think it's brilliant.

Re:Two words

[timeOday]

NASA gray tape is similar to duct/duck tape, but it is not electrically conductive.

Duct tape is a good conductor? I think not.

What does that say about communism?

[solios]

Boeing built the 7x7s with service contracts and years and years of supplying spare parts in mind as part of the design. Commercialism at its finest - the units are a source of revenue even after they're out of production.

Russian aerospace, conversely, was designed to Work And Work Well, not to Work And Turn A Profit. So they were Built To Last, not built to be replaced in 10-15 years max.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Even if one fails, the second is likely to be fine

[Eric Smith]

If the first shuttle has a design flaw, what's to say the second one isn't afflicted by the same problem?

The shuttle has historically had a catastrophic failure rate of less than 2%. It is unlikely that the recent changes have made the shuttle any less reliable. Thus if there is a problem with one, it is still reasonable to send a second one after it.

However, if they're willing to have a second shuttle on standby, their excuse for not doing a Hubble servicing mission (too dangerous, can't go to ISS) is complete bullshit. But everyone has known that ever since it was revealed that they made that decision without bothering to actually do a risk analysis.