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NASA Ponders Postponing Launch until July
BitFluid writes "According to Sun-Sentinel.com, NASA is considering postponing its Return to Flight shuttle launch because of 'ongoing concern about possible ice buildup on a liquid oxygen propellant line.' Apparently, that stuff turns into debris on launch, a risk they need time to investigate. If delayed, the target launch window becomes July 13 through July 31."
This sounds strangely familiar...
Spray de-icer on it? Wrap it in an insulator? Blow warm dry air over it? Why can't there be a low tech solution to this?
They could stop the shuttle program and use the money in the few years in between now and when the new man-rated launch-vehicle comes out to seed promising space initiatives by private firms. I'm sure this would more than pay for itself.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
The big exposion was caused me Styrofoam hitting the leading edge of the wing not ice.
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
NASA did the job once, but since then they've done nothing but screw shit up.
It's time for Congress to get off their asses and ACT. Jerry Pournelle came up with the idea, which would get us a complete spaceflight system in five years, and only cost 10 Billion Dollars.
How?
Congress must pass TWO lines of legislation.
1) It is in the National Interest of the United States to have a mature spaceflight technology.
2) The Tresurer of The United States is directed to pay, tax free, the sum of TEN BILLION DOLLARS to the first American Company to keep thirty Americans alive and well on the surface of the moon for Three Years and A Day.
That's it folks. If we ain't got it, it's cause BUSH and Co don't want us to have it.
( Not that Klin-ton wanted us to have it, either, though... This idea ain't new. )
All we lack is the will to achieve great things. Killing kids over lies, that we can do. "Supporting Our Troops", check.
Pass TWO LINES of legislation to ensure AMERICANS have a stake in The Future? Nah...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
"If we die, do not mourn for us. This is a risky business we're in, and we accept those risks. The space program is too valuable to this country to be halted for too long if a disaster should ever happen."
Gus Grissom
Well the issue is suddenly that people are concerned about the heat shield failing, yes? On the old rockets that went to the Moon, was it not that the heat shield was hidden almost until re-entry?
It's a design flaw in the Shuttle, essentially. They're making sure that it's less likely happen again, over the course of the Shuttle's remaining years in service. Can you imagine what would happen if the next Shuttle were to suffer the same fate as the last? They're trying to get back to space using the only workable vehicle they have just now, so that the US is back in space, not waiting for a replacement. They might as well try to carry out this risky business in as safe a way as possible, and if that means delaying by another two months, so be it.
I realize that you are attempting to make a joke through the association of forth of July fire works displays and previous shuttle explosions. I realize "this is slashdot" but i find your attempt at humor rather crude. The astronauts who died in those explosions gave their lives for education, the advancement of science and the betterment of human kind. I would hope that someone who frequents slashdot.org who have more respect for them than you have demonstrated.
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
Detection.
... I say "medicine is detecting more than in 1965".
... from THIS DECADE!
This is like saying "cancer rates are up compared to 1965"
If you think the early flights were "safer" you're most likely sadly mistaken. They just didn't know about all the problems that could go wrong or had ways of addressing them.
Keep in mind the driving force was to beat the ruskies to the moon. So at all costs.
Though I agree. The shuttles are outdated and there are likely cheaper/safer ways to accomplish the same goal using technology
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Geez, you gotta feel sorry for these guys. They are proably quintuply(sp?) checking everything! If this one goes boom there will be hell to pay. Poor bastards. I hate management and stupid media. Whats the odds of something going wrong with a flight? pretty high? 5-20%?
And how many accidents have they had in 40 years of space flight? Not many. Come on, they had to have a few bad years.
Best of luck to them! All the best NASA! There area lot of people who love you from the old days. You were and still are the technological pioneers of the world!
Come on, think of the big picture here. I know being simplistic and small-minded is the catch-phrase of our "new generation". But what if they said this 40 years ago? Why even go to space? Look at all of the technologies we have developed whilst trying to get there. We would not be able to live without half of these advances! (Especially the freeze dried food).
More importantly, compare $3.1B against:
(a) amount spent on pizzas in the US
(b) amount spent on election campaigns
(c) amount paid to actors for acting?
If you are going to be fair, then be fair. Talk about it being a capitalist world, and that we only give money for food at all because we are:
(a) making ourselves look better on the world stage
(b) appeasing that guilty little bit of ourselves
Good luck NASA! You guys will be the ones that get us off the planet one day.
The next generation vehicle is almost guaranteed to use LOX/LH at least for its upper stage, and is essentially guaranteed to use LOX for all stages. So, solving problems related to cryogenic fuels/oxidizers is something we need to do anyways.
These problems aren't new - they've been around ever since we started using cryogenic fuels and oxidizers. Only the concern is new. We should be very proud of the fact that NASA is putting forth the money and time to try and solve these problems; we're doing a service to every other space agency in the world, especially the ESA with their Ariane rocket system. NASA has been, especially since the collapse of the USSR, by far the most prolific developer of new technology to help increase rocket safety and reduce costs. The Russians, while they have some *great* systems, haven't been advancing tech much. While refining extant launch methods is a great solution in the short term, it's a dead-end; there's only so far you can go.
As another poster mentioned, one big problem with the shuttle is that it's side-mounted. This being the first large-scale vehicle with a droppable tank, it's no surprise that hindsight is 20/20 on this one. The next generation will almost certainly be mounted on top. The LOX issue, however, is not likely related to this - this is about preventing ice formation on the LOX lines (they didn't state which ones), not the tank itself.
There are other issues that were discovered as well as we tested the Shuttle. For example, the asymmetry of the shuttle led to the main structural support being on the underside of the shuttle. However, the SSMEs are mounted to the center of the backside. The net result is that you get a stronger vibrational load than on most past rockets. Again, hindsight is 20/20.
The shuttle has been a *great* learning experience. So much new tech has been developed in the process, which will really help bring down costs and increase safety of the next generation vehicle. And we do need to move to that next-gen vehicle, and they are moving to it (the CEV). But until then, this is what we've got. And there are no "replacements" for the shuttle out in the present day. Nothing can do it's scale of cargo return, and only unmanned vehicles can do its scale of cargo launch. However, unmanned cargo launch still is having trouble docking, as we saw with Dart. So we need to use the shuttle for a bit longer, and we might as well use this as an opportunity to solve universal technical challenges.
Dear Lord: One of your creatures may be hurt tonight. Please let it be the other creature.
.... More importantly, compare $3.1B against: (d) amount spent making religious leaders rich.
Think your right? Prove it.