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I know that the tank itself was redesigned, but the whole concept of the shuttle is incredibly outdated.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

[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?

[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.

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: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:-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.

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.