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I know that the tank itself was redesigned, but the whole concept of the shuttle is incredibly outdated.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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Sounds like Unix. And we're still using it, too.

Re:Why?

[nametaken]

I guess because its really expensive to start from scratch? I'm with you though... time for a clean start.

From the summary: Pictures were sent to the manufacturer who decided that it is too small to be worrisome.

I say, tell that to the astronauts who have to sit on top of the goddamn thing.

Re:Why?

[LWATCDR]

If it makes you feel better the shuttles do not use the same computer they did in 81.
They have been updated a lot since they first flew.
The Air Force flys Bombers designed in the 40s and built in the 50s. Fighters that where designed in the 60s and built in the 70s. Even the Boeing 747 was first built in the 60s as was the 737. I agree that the shuttle does need to be replaced but it is not the same shuttle that flew in the early 80s

Re:Why?

[Man in Spandex]

I could tell you why we are still using 30 year old shuttles but that would involve me using the Chewbacca Defense.

Re:Why?

[Frumious Wombat]

According to a couple of people I know who are pilots, the issue with any aircraft isn't physical age, but hours in the air. This is why you can still safely buy and fly a Piper Cub, or, if you're SAC, a somewhat updated B-52, first built back in the '50s.

Those shuttles are probably finally making it to broken in, from an airframe standpoint. (even if they are approaching the day for that one, last, flight to the Air and Space Museum)

Re:Why?

[ThJ]

Anyone but me misunderstand "Crack Found in Shuttle Tank"? XD And here I was thinking astronauts were smuggling drugs into space.

Risk vs Reward

[fembots]

Pardon me for being insensitive here, but I always wonder what the problem is with a potentially problematic space shuttle? Is it the cost, bad PR or safety of the crews?

It always puzzles me that a country which recruits hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spends hundreds of billions of dollars to go to wars with guaranteed casualties (and not all die in action) are so timid in losing a relatively small percentage of lives/dollars to go to space.

Everything has a risk, if you send those astronauts to do sky diving (or just drive to the supermarket) often enough, some of them will get killed too.

Why can't we allow those who are more than willing to sacrify their lives to go to space to do just that?

I understand that we have the responsibility to maintain certain level of reliability and to minimize risk, but all the safety concerns are slowing things way down. Other countries are catching up fast, maybe their lives are cheap? Or maybe they knew and anticipated the risk of losing lives to achieve something great?

I guess we can't go to the moon now because of the deadly moon dust, imagine what would have happened if we discovered it before landing on the moon?

Re:Risk vs Reward

[shadowbearer]

Sacrificing your life in war is honorable and deserves recognition because of your service to your country; Sacrificing your life in space because of some stupid engineering/manufacturing mistake is a waste.

So if a soldier sacrifices himself in a war zone to save his buddies from a situation caused by a "stupid engineering/manufacturing mistake" - and it happens somewhat often - what do you consider that?

Do you not consider training for decades and risking your life to further our national goals in space "service to your country"? I'm afraid I can't see your point.

SB (no disrespect to soldiers of any stripe meant)

Two words

[fiori]

Duct tape...

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.

Not too much thought went into that title ...

[nacs]

Here comes a deluge of +5 funnys. ...

"I thought NASA had their funding cut not increased?" ...

"Does Bush know there's crack on the space shuttle? He would probably want to join in on the action". ...

"If I would knew there was crack available there, I would have paid more attention on the Cape Canaveral tour"

Sensationalist headline

[mkmccarty]

If the poster read the suggested articles he would know the crack is in the tank's insulation and not the tank.

wow, glad hpulley came up with all these q's...

[deft]

I bet the people at NASA who are smarter in their sleep than I will ever be could never come up with that.

Hell, I bet this guy knows what the tolerances for the tanks are intricately... way more than the GUYS WHO DESIGNED IT AND MADE IT FLY FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS.

This whole article reminds me of a little dog jumping up and down saying "hey boss, what if, hey boss what if" and you just want to kick it.

Kudos to the DEA

[PornMaster]

I wouldn't have even thought to look in the tanks.

Cracks

[florescent_beige]

Maybe not everyone knows this...every airplane you ever flew on has cracks

There is a whole branch of structural engineering called damage tolerance which deals with cracks. The certification process for new airplanes deals with it extensively. For example, we must assume that any airplane can have a .050" crack at any location. Such a crack is assumed to grow, and it might get quite long before it must be found. I'm talking inches in length, sometimes.

Submitter is an alarmist

[fname]

I think the submitter needs to study the Columbia report and understand the Aerospace industry a lot more before trying to (and apparently succeeding at) alarming the /. crowd (which, quite frankly, isn't that hard to do).

First, while it was "pieces of foam" that caused the problem, it was decided that it was most likely a single suitcase-sized piece of foam hitting the leading-edge carbon/carbon that led to the eventual destruction of Columbia. The SOFI (spray-on foam insulation) process has been improved to reduce the number & size of voids in the SOFI. The maximum size of foam expected to fall off now is on the order of 1% of the size of the piece that doomed Columbia. Further, the bipod ramp foam has been eliminated in the redesign. Further, they've developed new techniques to inspect the SOFI so they can detect any anomalies. If they found something, which apparently they have, engineers can assess it and determine its severity. I'm not familiar with the specific issue, but depending on its sign & location, it was apparently deemed to not be a problem. Essentially, NASA is probably inspecting better now, so they are seeing more lumps. It doesn't mean that this isn't the best external tank ever built (it doesn't mean it is, either).

And in general, the whole SOFI system has extremely high visibility at NASA (I don't work there) and beyond (I do work there), and if any engineer thought it could be a safety issue, the launch would be delayed.

Not to mention, the tank wasn't "supposedly" redesigned; it was redesigned. Unless the submitter is suggesting that there was a massive conspiracy to deceive the public into pretending the shuttle tank was redesigned when it wasn't (but apparently not large enough to squelch any whistle-blowers), he should refrain from making those sorts of allegations.

The rest of his comment barely qualifies as idle speculation; the rescue crew is a last-resort, and NASA is not anticipating any problems. The idea of preparing a "rescue" craft was in direct response to Columbia when it was asked what NASA could do if they knew shuttle was doomed. If they detect a problem, NASA will assess and decide to either a) land at Kennedy/ Edwards as planned if there's nominal risk (I'd rate that at 95%), b) land in White Sands with a full crew if there's low to (I'm guessing) medium risk (let's call that 4.9%); c) launch a rescue mission and either ditch shuttle if they're sure it's doomed, or land at White Sands with a minimal crew if the think it might be doomed (I'd say 0.1%).

No, I'm not a rocket scientist. I'm a rocket engineer. And I find it sad that Slashdot chose to post this story when I bet there were other, fact-based submissions written by people more knowledgeable about the subject at hand.

Real Engineering

[Braf]

I know it's too late and no one will read this, but...

I would like to point out that the level of engineering involved in the design of the shuttle is in a completely different class than any technology you have in your computer or in your car or that you've likely ever have had physical contact with. Cars and computers advance quickly because they are cheap and if they occasionally don't work no one really cares.

Everyone bringing up the age of the space shuttle sounds like morons. Whatever our next orbiter is going to be, the technology will be outdated. It has to be outdated by the time the thing is ready for flight because it has to be proven. You don't use the latest composite materials or computers in building something of this cost (dollar, life, and national pride) because you don't know how they respond to the excessive accelerations, vibrations, and high energy radiation involved.

This is assuming you're building a real vehicle and not a toy to win a prize. And actually, we probably will not see another feat of engineering like the current orbiter because the government doesn't give money to people who know what they're are doing like they use to and the private sector is too lazy and opportunistic to engineer it right.

Re:Real Engineering

[gerardrj]

The Apollo missions were all carried out with cutting edge technology for their time and they were just as safe or failure prone (depending on your point of view) as the much more expensive space shuttle program.

The Apollo program achieved all of its goals in allowing for frequent human missions to space and the moon. The Space Shuttle has failed in most of its design goals; if you don't recall, the program was designed to put a shuttle in to orbit 10 times a year for 10 years each ferrying inhabitants and materials to a space station. Each shuttle was supposed to last for 100 flights and there were 5 shuttles, the math show then that there should have been 500 shuttle flights between 1981 and today. To date I think there have been 103; that's pathetic.

The space station the shuttle was to shuttle to and from a space station, itself a joke. Over budget, less than half the designed volume, less than 1/5 the designed occupancy, the science it produces is negligible and could (for the most part) be performed via robotics.

NASA screwed the pooch on these programs. Am I playing monday morning quarterback? Sure, but these were NASA's top priority missions. They had the greatest visibility, funding and brain-trust. Why have a partially re-usable space shuttle that has to be dismantled, inspected and refurbished after each flight. How is this any better than mostly expendable vehicles? The space shuttle is not a product of engineers, it's a product of politicians and special interests.

Who do I blame? The politicians. The elected ones and the middle and upper management in NASA. If NASA was properly/well funded and the managers just let the engineers do what they do, things would likely be very much better off.