Falling Window Cover Damages Discovery

Mz6 writes "At 5:30PM EDT, one of the space shuttle's protective window covers fell and struck the left Orbital Maneuvering System engine pod on Discovery today. The window cover hit the carrier panel around the OMS pod. NASA is taking a new panel to the launch pad to replace the one hit by the falling cover. NASA is expected to know by 7 PM EDT if the replacement panel will work and whether launch can proceed tomorrow as planned. The window cover in question is from one of the overhead windows. It fell on its own, not when workers were handling it. The cover was found after it had fallen and hit the orbiter. In addition to the carrier panel that workers plan to replace tonight, engineers are looking for any other damage." Update: 07/13 02:03 GMT by T : RmanB17499 points out a CNN story according to which "the launch of the space shuttle Discovery will go ahead as scheduled Wednesday after technicians replaced two protective tiles damaged near the spacecraft's tail Tuesday, a NASA spokeswoman said."

Comments

It fell on its own?

[nokilli]

Dudes, the question here isn't whether the engine pod is damaged, it's what's going to fall off the shuttle next?

This ain't no beer run these guys are going on, and it ain't like the hood ornament just decided to liberate itself. Most of the shit on the shuttle is like, important, right?

If I was captain of this upcoming mission, I'd be spam clicking the red alert button right about now. Maybe call in sick. Gotta have some unused vacation time coming to me, right? Use it or lose it!

I never liked the shuttle. A bunch of engineers were tasked with the job of building a reusable space vehicle, so they paint some wings on a rocket, give it a windshield, and call it a space plane. So it can return cargo, so what? Name something they brought down back from space that is worth all of the trouble we've gone through to glide back to Earth rather than parachute.

I'm pretty sure the Pan Am shuttle in 2001 could take off on its own. That was the whole point of the cut scene from the monkey throwing the bone in the air to the space vehicle, as if to say, "Look, no rocket boosters!"

And the only thing that fell off of anything in the movie was Frank.

Re:It fell on its own?

[ThreeE]

Vital? It was a freaking protective cover that's taken off prior to launch anyway!

More FUD.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Mulletproof]

The Saturn V WENT TO THE MOON The mission was orders of magnitude DIFFERENT. Please. These apples to oranges comparisons get old fast.

Re:It fell on its own?

[damiam]

Chances are good that you drive a car, which is a helluva lot more dangerous than this is

Let's not exaggerate too much here. 1 out of every 56 shuttle launches/landings have ended with the death of the crew and loss of the shuttle. If you had a 1/56 chance of violent death every time you accelerated/braked your car, I think you'd think twice about driving too.

Re:It fell on its own?

[demachina]

"And we are capable of building better crew and cargo boosters...It's happening now."

As far as crew boosters go why don't you wait until they actually build something for CEV and see how "better" it is, before you start doing your NASA fanboy thing and shouting how great it is. At the moment all NASA has is a massive exercise in bureaucracy called an RFP(Request for Proposal) and Boeing and Lockheed have a couple sets of weak artists conceptions. Lockheed, last I saw. was proposing a mini-me shuttle which has a pretty good shot at being worse than the shuttle especially if you want to get out of LEO. Boeing was just regurgitating Apollo elements with the notable and critical absence of the Saturn V.

As far as cargo boosters go, NASA still hasn't really matched Saturn, 40 years later. The Shuttle stack might do OK assuming you get rid of all the dead weight that is the Shuttle.

The initial Titan/Delta Heavy proposals for CEV were decidely weak, and you were going to have to have multiple launches to get all the stuff in orbit you need to get to the Moon where Saturn did it in one launch.

Re:It fell on its own?

[6th time lucky]

you'd think a 747 would be a big, noisy, 4 engined thing to "notice" and stay the hell away from too, but birds hit them all the time...

The 180? db noise of those engines would also literally scare the shit out of said bird, making a mess on the window anyway...

Again with the shuttle?

[tono]

I'm afraid I have to echo the sentiment here. I don't care if the cover was designed to come off, the problem is it FELL off no human interaction required. They had to repair tiles on the tail from where the bit of plastic hit the shuttle. If I were an astronaut, that wouldn't exactly inspire confidence in me. Christ, who puts these things together, the guy down the street with the beat up pinto? It's time to retire the shuttle and just pay the russians to launch us until there is a suitable replacement. Remember people, the simpler the design the fewer points of failure there are. Seems like if Burt Rutan can get it right NASA should be able to too.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[Tyler Eaves]

NASA is 30 years behind NASA.

slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[SuperBanana]

This was on my local newspaper's homepage hours ago.

Why is it that virtually everything I read on slashdot, I've already seen on the AP/Reuters wire stories from my paper?

I don't come to slashdot to read news wire stories; back in the very late 90's I came here to read stuff that you couldn't find anywhere else. I certainly don't come here for the insightful commentary (judging from the 20 comments that all say "dude, who cares about the window, what fell off and damaged it?", a number of which have been modded up, instead of modded down as redundant).

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[Quirk]

"Why is it that virtually everything I read on slashdot, I've already seen on the AP/Reuters wire stories from my paper?"

The short answer is you've got too much time on your hands.

I put in 12/14 hour days, too often 7 days a week. I'm a quick study and an experienced researcher, but, even with those skills I only manage to stay abreast with news out of /. and the Reg. I read the headlines from a few feeds, but have to steal the time to read the full articles.

You and the others who jump on /. for lagging behind your reading must do not much else but casually surf the web satisfying your whimsy. Alot of us can only find the time to choose one or two sites to keep us informed. Contrary to the /. critics /. does a fine job of keeping me informed about "stuff that matters."

cheers

Can we see it fall from 107 angles?

[loddington]

Where is the footage? I expect to see images of the cover falling off from the 107 cameras they recently installed.

Time Warp?

[Stelminator]

"NASA is expected to know by 7 PM EDT"
posted: 8:21PM

anyone else think that maybe we could've had an update before this hit the front page?

Re:Funeral

[The_Wilschon]

Wow..... that was really really morbid and gruesome... Did you actually post that? I mean, really. Sibling was right. -1, tasteless. And -1, sicko, to whoever modded it funny.

Protective Windows

[mschaffer]

So, what exatly are the window protectors protecting the shuttle from? Peeping-Toms?

I mean, honestly, aren't the shuttle's windows supposed to be fairly durable because of all of the debris in orbit with the shuttle?

Re:True, but...

[Rei]

(sarcasm)It's not like the craft and launch assembly have hundreds of thousands to millions (depending on how you measure) of often precision-engineered individual parts or anything...(/sarcasm)

Getting to anything orbit (as opposed to suborbital) is a huge task. Getting a huge, man-rated craft to orbit is a Herculean one. You better believe that almost every one of those engineers has been sacrificing their personal lives to try and make their "baby" as safe as possible. Seriously, talk to a NASA aerospace engineer some time about the craft that they're working on; you'll find people who do things like build a spectrometer for a probe who dote on it more than they do their own children.

There's going to be a lot of missed breaths when that countdown nears zero.

Ironic & scary

[amavida]

Yeah I know all the intellectual reasons for why this is not a big deal but you have to admit that it's ironic they spend so much time & money trying to stop shit falling offf this baby at a zillion miles a second and then some shit just ups & drops off it while it's standing still...

If I was about to be strapped into it my bowels would be loosening right about now...

Waitaminit...

[dpu]

Excuse me, "fell off on it's own"???

In 200 years when every Tom, Dick and Harry has a little space romper, that's all fine and dandy - lots of things have fallen off various vehicles I've owned in the past, and I doubt it'll be any different for people in 5 or 6 generations.

But right now, the shuttles are arguably the most complex electro-mechanical constructions mankind has ever built. If something "just falls off", then it ain't ready to send people thousands of miles above their landing zone!

You need a dream

[bluGill]

You need to dream a little.

If NASA came to me now with the offer to go up in this flight I would go, even if the catch was a 99.999% chance of failure on re-entry. That is the other 6 crew are going to stay on ISS and take the rescue shuttle home, I'm there to push the autopilot button to get it out of the way. (and a .001% chance that I also get to lower the landing gear)

That won't happen of course. Even if they would, I couldn't get there before the launch window closes, even if I drove my car to a plane waiting on the runway. You bet I'd go though.

Of course I don't have a family to take care of. Many people would love to go, but have kids to take care of.