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?

[cdrudge]

It was just a temporary plastic protective panel that they place over the actual window while it just sits ready to launch. It's not really "attached" to shuttle like most pieces would be.

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?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

My dad, now retired, always talks about when they developed the space shuttle. (He was a SR VP of a space and defense contractor who also had a credit reporting business, so figure out which one...) They were trying to get NASA to go with a solid fuel rocket. You light it and it goes. When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket.
Why we have this complex, unbelieveably expensive shuttle, I will never know. Whether it is a car or a space craft, the more parts, the more that can go wrong....
I hope that they replace this with a more reliable vehicle...

Re:It fell on its own?

[taped2thedesk]

The fact that they haven't checked whether the shuttle's vital parts are glued on tight or not is more than enough reason to cancel the launch.

The window COVER is meant to protect the shuttle window before launch. It's not a exactly a vital component, as it would be removed before launch anyway. It's not "glued on".

Re:It fell on its own?

[Mulletproof]

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.

Umm, money? It's a metric ass-ton cheaper than lighting off anything close to a conventional rocket that will disgard stages that you'll have no chance of recovering. Likewise, the orbiter comes back to you instead of having to hunt for it in the ocean (the largest landing zone on earth) with an aircraft carrier ($$$) or hunt for it in the back yard of some farmers house on land.

Sure, it's time for an update, but it's also the most successful launch vehical in history with only 2 catastrophic failures over several hundred missions. Knock it all you want, but regardless, it's been a good ride.

Re:It fell on its own?

[rsynnott]

That's the theory. In practice, it works out very, very expensive; probably moreso than Soyuz, which is from the 60s.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Planesdragon]

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.

No. They drew up an amazing design that was state-of-the-art, entirely reusable, and a great thing.

And then a Republican president--Nixon, IIRC--told them no, build it for half the price.

Re:It fell on its own?

[LinuxHam]

only 2 catastrophic failures over several hundred missions

Nitpick, I know, but this is STS-114, so no, not "several hundred" missions. The Concorde only had one 1 catastrophic failure over several thousand "missions" and look how well it's... oh wait.

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?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Why we have this complex, unbelieveably expensive shuttle, I will never know.

One of the major reasons it's expensive is due to unethical space contractors who charged up the wazoo, such as the company that your dad worked for.

This is often done after the bidding process is over, and sometimes companies do this after the project is well underway, and hold the project hostage until NASA agrees to the new fees. NASA often didn't have much choice in these sorts of practices, and it was already too late for other companies to bid on the project.

So, maybe your dad can tell us why so many space and defense contracts are so fucking expensive.

And yes, I agree that NASA probably could be more cost efficient. But it's not like they're selling cookies-- many free market principles don't really apply when you're doing something massive like building massive space vehicles, and when only 1 or 2 organizations can do it at all.

Re:It fell on its own?

[KH2002]

"When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket."

Wrong. Both stages of the lunar lander used liquid fuel -- hypergolic (self-igniting) propellants. More on that here.

Re:It fell on its own?

[imgunby]

So you'd give up a once in a lifetime chance to go? Yes, failure nearly always results in death, but I'm sure that each and every person that has *ever* gone up has been well aware of that, and yet, for 20+ years, people have been placing themselves in that position. I can't believe this was modded as "insightful" Chances are good that you drive a car, which is a helluva lot more dangerous than this is

Re:It fell on its own?

[Rei]

In fact, the very fact that they have protective covers over the window that they remove before launch speaks volumes as to how safety-concerned they are. Even with the windows hundreds of feet up in the air, without the cryogenic tanks filled (i.e., no falling ice), with no vibration or intense wind loads (i.e., no falling foam)... really, nothing but the tower itself and its own tank above it, and they still cover the windows. What are they worried about - falling birds? I can't imagine what else they could do, apart from build a launch pad in the vehicle assembly building itself and have the entire building retract minutes before launch, (in addition to covering the windows).

Re:It fell on its own?

[SeventyBang]

Temporary or not, the point is it fell and hit something.

If something has enough weight|heft to it it can hit something and cause damage as it falls, it should be secured.

NASA admitted after the fact, that until the foam hit the fan, they never perceived it to be a danger to the shuttle. Considering how many decimal points these guys use in their calculations (not to mention the quality of their software - mind you, this is eight 1/2 years old: They Write the Right Stuff: The right stuff kicks in at T-minus 31 seconds.), you'd think they were a bit more careful than to have oops! moments.

If something should happen, people will remember that cover falling, no matter who tries to explain it away or what they say in the process.

Re:It fell on its own?

[ThreeE]

And the amazing thing is, with the exception of the External Tank, they did. People bash the Shuttle with their 20/20 hindsight, but it is a triumph of engineering. Perfect? No. Best on the planet? Yes.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Rei]

In fact, to further that point, I used to work at Rockwell-Collins, which was mandated to use very strict time reporting procedures while I was there. Why? They were caught (thankfully!) after several years pulling one over on the government with the Shuttle contract. Whenever any Rockwell project ran overbudget, they charged the hours to the Shuttle. There were so many people working on the shuttle project that even with all of that "dot the i's and cross the t's" paperwork that NASA is famous for, they still couldn't prove that the company was cheating them for several years. Eventually they got a full audit, Rockwell got punished, etc.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Planesdragon]

Best on the planet? Yes.

Best dual-purpsose heavy-lifter and crew transport? Well, yeah.

But it's not a good enough heavy lifter that it replaced rockets. And it's not a good enough crew transport that everyone else is trying to build one.

I've heard that some of the shuttle engineers even balked when told of their budget cuts. They argued--quite rightly--that doing it right the first time would save money over the long run.

If only, if only, if only.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Rei]

Not only that, but so many here seem to have the following stupid notion: that you can just "toss junk out the window" in space, or whatnot. To get junk off of, say, ISS, you have to apply significant delta-V to it. That means, bare minimum, you'd have to develop a rocket system that is safe to operate near ISS, and a way to load your trash/experiments into. Soyuz can't keep up with ISS waste; it's cargo return is minimal.

I don't have the exact numbers offhand as to how many satellites (let alone tons of waste) the shuttle has returned, but I recall that it was in the range of 30-40 (many of those being experiment satellites whose design was to have them returned - engineering reentry survival into all of them would have cost an utter fortune).

As for "glide back to earth rather than parachute", I think you should ask the crews of Soyuz 23 or Soyuz 18-1 what they think of parachute landings. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that making capsules reusable is a lot harder than spacecraft, because there's almost always some deformation (and/or saltwater corrosion, depending on the landing site) on impact.

Re:It fell on its own?

[vought]

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.

People and fragile scientific projects.

But I agree; the reality of the space plane/truck doesn't work nearly as well as the original concept.

Re:It fell on its own?

[dmadole]

When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket.

No, the lunar lander used liquid-fueled engines, powered by nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, for both the ascent and descent stages.

More information on the lunar module and the fuels it used is widely available, as is information on thier development.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Pollardito]

What are they worried about - falling birds?

they're worried that the protective cover on the nose cone will fall off on its own and hit the windshield

Re:It fell on its own?

[Oriumpor]

It does say much to the integrity of the entire shuttle that something as small as a thin-plastic window cover can damage the shuttle's heat shielding. What if, oh I don't know, a seagull hit the shuttle during liftoff?

Re:It fell on its own?

[ThreeE]

Peace. I agree. The trade was between building a high variable, low fixed cost Shuttle or none at all.

And we are capable of building better crew and cargo boosters.

It's happening now.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> If I was captain of this upcoming mission, I'd be spam clicking the red alert button right about now. Maybe call in sick.

Yeah? Well thas 'cause you jus' some punk ass bitch. You hear me boy? You some:

Punk.

Ass.

Bitch.

Now if tha' wus' my Space Shuttle, with me sittin' up in the Captain's chair, like my main man, wuzz-hiz-name... Kurt... Kurk! Yeah, Kurk, I'd be, like, fire them motherfuckin' engines up, and warp factor 11 Mr. Soho, an shit! 'Cause no chickinshit winnowpane gonne make a bitch outta ol' Anonymous Coward.

An' I tell you anotha' thing my fine, fine P.A.B., an' that is don' you be talkin' no trash about parachutes and money bones! 'Cause any monkey bones get in my way, of my shuttle, on my mission, I'll just kick ass with my lightsabre, one o' them ones what's two, two, two lightsabres in one and, "BAM!, BAM!" motherfuckin' bones be out O' my way and I be on the radio sayin' "Dallas, Ain't got no problem here Dallas. Only problem be wit' you. You got dat big Dal-ass Mall Hair. Damn bitch. Ain't gonna be no mo-fo ozone fo' me to cruse if you keep usin' all that hair spray.

So jus' shut-do-fuck-up an' get on you littl' ol' shuttle and gut yo' punk ass up to space.

Y' hear?

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?

[snuf23]

The Saturn V was also used to place the Skylab Space Station in orbit. The Saturn V was also intended to be used to do the "heavy lifting" for future space station work, with the Space Shuttle handling logistics and assembly of components. Funding was cut for the Saturn V program leaving the U.S. without a launch vehicle capable of the Saturn V's tremendous capacity.
In comparison the Saturn V had a lift capacity of 118,000 kg to low Earth orbit vs. 28,800 kg for the Space Shuttle.
I agree the shuttle and Saturn V were made for different purposes, but I do believe if you are strictly dealing with putting stuff in orbit the Saturn had lower cost per kilogram. That comparison isn't really worth much because it ignores the flexibility of the Space Shuttle and its uses beyond just shuttling cargo.

Re:It fell on its own?

[cdrudge]

What are they worried about - falling birds?

Some engineer spent several hours cleaning the windows with Windex and putting Rain-X on. The last thing they want to do on a million mile roadtrip is to leave with a dirty windshield.

Seriously though, they are there likely for enviromental protection. The shuttle sits outside for close to a month and in that time, it likely will rain, possibly hail, dust, acid rain, etc.

Re:It fell on its own?

[dnoyeb]

What was it doing there if it didn't belong there?

What's wrong with their procedures that allow an 'accident' to happen.

Its like a lie. If you lie to me about something petty, what else are you hiding? It speaks toward your character or in this case the integrity of the processes in place at the station.

Re:It fell on its own?

[cosmo7]

But by mileage the shuttle is waaaaaay safer.

Re:It fell on its own?

[RexDart]

So the shuttle was possibly damaged by a crashing windows patch? ;) Best add the BillBorg icon to this story.

Re:It fell on its own?

[JFitzsimmons]

If you were a seagull, I think the massive roaring white thing with fire coming out its ass would be something that you would AVOID. And it isn't exactly a stealth jet either, you've got plenty of advance "notice".

Re:It fell on its own?

[pipingguy]

Sometimes during the startup of process plants (i.e., the possibly exploding type) silly sacrificial "defects" are exposed so as to release tension for all involved. I imagine that this launch is pretty stressful.

Re:It fell on its own?

[ThreeE]

Huh? It did belong there. It wasn't supposed to fall off, but it did.

I guess we better shut down NASA...

Re:It fell on its own?

[RedWizzard]

And it's not a good enough crew transport that everyone else is trying to build one.

The Russians did - the Buran was heavily influenced by the Shuttle. The Shuttle is actually an extremely good crew transport, the problem is that there isn't really anything to transport crew to (or from) except the ISS and that only has a capacity of three (though it'd be much higher if the Shuttle provided liferaft capabilities).

Re:It fell on its own?

[damiam]

Not even that. According to Wikipedia, shuttles have traveled 424,700,332 miles and there have been 14 deaths. That's one death every 30 million miles. Meanwhile, about 40000 people die in the US every year in car accidents, while Americans drive 1,600,000,000,000 miles. That's one death every 40 million miles. So the shuttle and cars are in roughly the same ballpark, safety wise.

But of course mileage is a pointless benchmark for shuttle fatalities, because we don't use the shuttle for travel. Actually, comparing the fatality rate at all is pretty useless; cars and shuttles are different entities entirely. It's like asking, "Which is more dangerous, using a digital camera or being a giant tortoise?"

Re:It fell on its own?

[demachina]

Maybe they built it on cheap but the staggering launch costs, and inefficiency more than made up for it.

It has some great techical achievements in it, the SSME's as fickle and expensive as they are, are amazing. Unfortunately they are so expensive the wont survive the return to expendible boosters.

As a system the shuttle has really been a complete failure by any unbiased assessment. It was supposed to be cheap to launch and its ended up being staggeringly expensive. It was supposed to have a high launch rate, but the launch rate has gone down pretty much every year on top of the 5 or so years its been completely grounded due to accidents. It was supposed to do everything and now it can't do anything except finish the $100 billion hole in space that is the ISS. You can blame politics, the Air Force got arm twisted in to using it, they forced gross inflation the design requirements making it much heavier, and much more dangerous. Then as soon as Challenger exploded, they dropped it like a rock, went back to expendables, and abandoned a $6 billion dollar launch pad at Vandenburgh.

The Russians started out trying to copy the Shuttle with Buran but they came to their senses early and realized it was an insane design. The Russians it turned out were smart.

At times there has been a standing army of 6,000 people necessary to launch the shuttle, and that doesn't count all the contractors building parts like SSME's for it. No WONDER it costs a fortune, its a giant jobs program.

From Wikipedia:

"While the shuttle has been a reasonably successful launch vehicle, it has been unable to meet its goal of radically reducing flight launch costs, as the average launch expenditures during its operations up to 2005 accumulates to $1.3 billion [1], a rather large figure compared to the initial projections of $10 to $20 million. The total cost of the program has been $145 billion as of early 2005 ($112 billion of which was incurred while the program was operational) and is estimated at $174 billion when the Shuttle will retire in 2010. NASA's budget for 2005 allocates 30 % or 5 billion to Space Shuttle operations."

Though in fairness I should point out the Bush administration has already squandered way more than this on a couple years of stupidity in Iraq. But then too, if that $174 billion, and another $100 billion plus for the ISS, had gone in to space projects that weren't a dead end we might have something to show for it.

Re:It fell on its own?

[KylePflug]

The Concorde was a passenger aircraft. The Space Shuttle is, for all intents and purposes, a bleeding-edge experiment (even though it's old). It's certainly different from something that Joe Civilian plunks down a few thousand bucks to ride on from New York to Paris. Let's not mix apples and oranges, eh?

Re:It fell on its own?

[demachina]

"I guess we better shut down NASA..."

Yay, glad to see you came over to my point of view Threeep. Though you are going a little overboard. We just want to shut down the manned space program part of NASA. The great observatories, JPL, aeronautics, earth observation parts all do great work. If we can just get rid of the Shuttle and ISS there will be some money available so they can do more cool stuff AND we can turn some money over to Scaled Composites or the Russians to build some new man rated ships that are affortable.

Re:It fell on its own?

[demachina]

Geez you've posted this same comment 5 times now. I think everyones figured it out it was a throw away cover. Yea its no big deal, but.... ... the thing you are totally missing is the IRONY. For a hypersensitive return to flight launch someone goofed, didn't tie down the cover, and managed to damage tiles BEFORE the launch. Damaged tiles being the thing that doomed Columbia so its sure to put everyone, especially the astronauts further on edge, edgy is not a good thing to be in this situation.

You may not have heard of it but there is this thing called the KISS principle in engineering. Soyuz has it, Shuttle doesn't. Soyuz is pretty safe and reliable. Shuttle launches are nail biters now and everyone is just praying they hold together long enough to finish the ISS, so they can be retired before they kill any more people.

Re:It fell on its own?

[ke4roh]

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.

LDEF was pretty cool. Besides that, they haul trash back from the space station ;-).

I agree that the Shuttle isn't all it was planned to be. (The designs of the '70s thought it wouldbe much cheaper per pound to orbit than it wound up being, for example.) What we need, besides a fancy space pickup truck is a crew vehicle and a heavy lift vehicle. As soon as we have those in place, we can spend some serious time contemplating other propulsion methods, because we'll only make space travel more frequent if we can also make it more economical. What percentage of your car's weight is fuel? (Hint: about 10% when full.) What percentage of the Shuttle's weight is fuel? (Hint: about 97%)

Re:It fell on its own?

[tomhudson]

I call BULLSHIT big time. Poster wrote:

When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket.

Both the descent and ascent rockets on the Lunar excursion module were powered by liquid propellants - specifically Nitrogen Tetroxide (N204) and Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine ((CH3)2NNH2)

Look here for a cutaway diagram where you can see both the fuel and oxidizer tanks on the LEM.

More about both fuel and oxidizer here

Nitrogen tetroxide became the storable liquid propellant of choice from the late 1950's. Nitrogen tetroxide consists principally of the tetroxide in equilibrium with a small amount of nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
....
Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine ((CH3)2NNH2) became the storable liquid fuel of choice by the mid-1950's. Development of UDMH in the Soviet Union began in 1949. It is used in virtually all storable liquid rocket engines except for some orbital manoeuvring engines in the United States, where MMH has been preferred due to a slightly higher density and performance.

The need to use o-rings in the SRBs was because of pork-barrelling the contract. The winning contractor (Morton Thiokol) had to fabricate the boosters in sections so they could be shipped by barge, rather than fabricating them in one piece, which would have eliminated the o-ring that failed.

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?

[Mr. Maestro]

The guys who ran NASA in the sixties must be rolling over in their graves. They ran a safe ship, to be sure. But they also KNEW that space flight was an dangerous business.
They accepted this risk because of the rewards of doing things like going to the moon. Now however, where is the reward in seeing a routine shuttle complete it's flight plan?
Don't get me wrong, I am a big proponet of manned space flight. I think an astronaut, (and the public) were accepting that someone could die attempting to land on the moon.
But to die attempting to er..um..uhh...The average joe isn't sure what the shuttle is doing besides going up and down. (sometimes)

Re:It fell on its own?

[zippthorne]

I can remember a couple of holds for "flocks of birds" over the no-fly area and one for moron in a cessna who got too close. FYI they scramble fighters for that kind of thing. I think one actually had to be scrubbed because of a boat in the no-boating area. When I used to go down to see the launches it was about 50/50 whether they would launch that day or not..

As long as there aren't any birds immediately surrounding, I think they're above "seagull flight ceiling" pretty quick.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Lord Ender]

Your prediction assumes all seagulls are rational. This is not true. Of course, it is highly unlikely one of the few irrational gulls would be flying around the shuttle at that time... but you can't just assume it.

Re:It fell on its own?

[NanoGator]

"It was just a temporary plastic protective panel that they place over the actual window while it just sits ready to launch. It's not really "attached" to shuttle like most pieces would be."

That explains why the Slashdot headline wasn't "Windows Crash hits Discovery!"

Re:It fell on its own?

[SeventyBang]

...there isn't really anything to transport crew to (or from) except the ISS and that only has a capacity of three...

But at least the ISS has supplies should they screw the pooch.

One of the contingency plans mentioned in the news was that if the shuttle is detected to have irreparable damage; i.e. it cannot return to Earth safely, the crew would have to dock with the ISS but it would alter the rations such that there were be at most forty-three days of supplies for all parties involved. They also stated NASA said it would take a minimum of thirty-five days to get another craft prepared, on the pad, launched, and to the ISS.

Re:It fell on its own?

[pegasustonans]

The shuttle would then conveniently evenly distribute the mass of the seagull across a broad area with a thickness of several hundred atoms thus providing a further layer of protection (heretofore known as the 'rouge Seagull-layer') for reentry.

Re:It fell on its own?

[tgrimley]

Being a tortoise. It's true.

Re:It fell on its own?

[kd5ujz]

No but birds could release substances on the windshield. Do you want to climb that tall bastard with a rag and some windex? I seriously doubt there are windshield wipers due to the extream speed. I could be wrong, and they could be in recesses, but IANARS. Plus rain and debris from hurricanes are a very good possibility this time of year.

Re:It fell on its own?

[NanoGator]

"anyone who gets on that thing after a window just falls off on its own is a moron."

Funny, I envy those people boarding the shuttle despite the protective plate falling. Moron to some, brave to the rest. This mission was scary long before Slashdot's ignorant headline.

Re:It fell on its own?

[mi]

Eventually they got a full audit, Rockwell got punished, etc.

Did anyone get to serve time? Probably, not, which is a shame...

Re:It fell on its own?

[mi]

Bush administration has already squandered way more than this on a couple years of stupidity in Iraq

The "stupidity in Iraq" gave millions of people a good chance of better and freer life (and not just in Iraq) -- already.

It is possible, that the shuttle program will be judged just as beneficial, of course, but, technically, the shuttle did not achieve its goals -- as you rightly point out.

Re:It fell on its own?

[birge]

What's really funny is that I believe it would actually be cheaper to put the shuttle itself into orbit using a Saturn V than the way things are done now. The whole reason for the miserable idea of the solid boosters married to the liquid fueled shuttle is that it's "sortof" reusable. (If you consider having to spend millions to get the boosters ready again to be reusable.) As a whole, the space shuttle is an unbelievable waste of money and an abject failure, relative to its stated project goals. It's still a damn marvel, though.

Re:It fell on its own?

[RedWizzard]

My point though is that the Shuttle is a very good crew transport vehicle, but there isn't really any need for a crew transport vehicle with that much capacity.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. First stuff falls off on the up flight. Then stuff falls off on the down flight. Now stuff is falling off before the thing has even taken off? Next thing you know it's going to fall apart before it's even on the launch pad.

I can see it now...

"Aaalmost done building it now... Just *one* more rocket booster. *rubs hands*

*low rumble*

"Uh oh..."

*CRASH*

"Doh..."

"Marv! Call up Dubya and get us another billion."

Re:It fell on its own?

[Cecil]

I would hope it is more expensive than Soyuz. People seem to think the only redeeming feature of the Space Shuttle is that it's reusable, and that is hardly true.

The Space Shuttle is in truth one of the most advanced, and most powerful launch systems available. Period. It can launch a whopping 23.5 tonnes of payload into LEO, and particularly important for many missions, it can do this while crewed with EVA-capable astronauts and the Canadarm. No other launch system can even come close to this. For example, the Soyuz can launch a mere 7 tons. The only systems with a comparable launch power are the Titan IV/SRMU which can put 21.5 tons into polar orbit and is unmanned, or the Russian Proton which can launch at least 20 tons into LEO, again unmanned. The only rockets I know of which can exceed the shuttle's raw payload capacity are the Russian Super Energia (exists on the drawing board only) and the U.S. Saturn series, which are now retired.

Maximum payload is important because if you can't squeeze your payload into that tonnage, you need to launch it in two pieces -- and how're you gonna put those two pieces together once they're in space? Why, the Space Shuttle of course.

Basically, saying the Space Shuttle is more expensive than (X) is comparing apples to oranges as far as its reusability is concerned. If the shuttle were disposable, I assure you that it would be orders of magnitude more expensive to get the same capabilities for every launch -- 7 astronauts, with room to move about and do work and experiments, and a remote manipulation arm, and a way to retrieve large objects in a protected enclosure for re-entry. Like I said before, nothing else even comes close.

Re:It fell on its own?

[6th time lucky]

apparently the windows are cleaned (and presumably serviced) for over 40 hours after a landing! and thats just the for several chunks of glass that dont do much, not the really hot end that burns half a million gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen!!!

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...

Re:It fell on its own?

[AJWM]

When the they designed the lunar lander, they had to have something that would work 100% to get off the moon, and they used... a solid fuel rocket.

Not.

They used hypergolic liquid fuels (nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine, if I remember right). Open the valves, the liquids mix, and vooom!. Pressure fed, so no finicky pumps to worry about. The problem with solids is, yeah, you light it and it goes .. but it doesn't stop until it's good and ready (or the casing bursts). And you better hope the igniter works.

Why we have this complex, unbelieveably expensive shuttle, I will never know.

Because the NASA bureaucrats responsible want to make sure that some part of it is manufactured in every congressional district out there -- helps encourage the congresscritters to approve the NASA budget to support jobs at home. Market economics (and common sense) doesn't apply to government projects.

Re:It fell on its own?

[AJWM]

The winning contractor (Morton Thiokol) had to fabricate the boosters in sections so they could be shipped by barge,

By rail, actually. If all the shipping had been by barge they could have welded the joints. (No way could they have been fabricated in one piece -- the existing segments have several welded sections between each O-ring-requiring "field joint".) The SRB diameter was determined by the narrowest/lowest tunnel or underpass that the train would have to pass through.

Re:It fell on its own?

[FLEB]

I'm CCing this to my Congressman.

Re:It fell on its own?

[ziggy_zero]

He said being a giant tortoise. In which case I'd go with using a digital camera.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Bastian]

But the lift capacity of those little white tubes and that big orange thing on the outside of the Shuttle are again leaps and bounds ahead of Saturn V. It's all that extra mass of the Shuttle itself that is the problem - hence all the talk about variants of the Shuttle Transport System, such as the Shuttle-B.

I think that the problem with the shuttle is that it confuses the whole heavy-lift-versus-getting-humans-up-there thing. Possibly now that we have the ISS in a semiworking state, we should think of adding a new vehicle to the fleet, something that carries the shuttle main engines, but doesn't have that huge permanent hollow bit in the middle - do we really need to make the protective cover for things we intend to take up but not bring back so permanent (and heavy?).

In terms of the Shuttle and its getting-humans-to-orbit job, I think the saying, "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" fits well.

Re:It fell on its own?

[jacksonj04]

Having a huge retractable VAB seems to make sense... but you'd need to move it a hell of a distance.

Re:It fell on its own?

[cdrudge]

I would imagine that the effects from being in space traveling with little particles going 5 miles per second as well as deorbiting and re-entering the atmosphere at 20,000MPH would have a sandblasting effect on the windows, especailly over multiple missions.

Re:It fell on its own?

[GrumblyStuff]

So it's just sitting there falling apart? Sarcasm aside, can we not worry when the equivilent of a space tarpaulin falls off?

Re:It fell on its own?

[Council]

Why we have this complex, unbelieveably expensive shuttle, I will never know.

Ooh, I know this one! "To get into space."

But you're right, it's not like this is rocket science. It's obvious that the people working on the shuttle don't know what the fuck they're doing, and we are the ones to tell them.

And the lander didn't use a solid fuel rocket.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Stanneh]

frankly if it can cause a critical accident or fall down and damage a mutli million dollor part then its a problem regardless of how important it is..

Re:It fell on its own?

[hotdiggitydawg]

Let's hope that cover isn't blue, and that their repairs actually worked. After Challenger, NASA really don't want another "blue screen of death"...

Re:It fell on its own?

[walt-sjc]

Please. The cover was held on by TAPE. In case you missed it, there was a hurricane in the area. While the major part of the storm missed the site, there were still high winds. The tape holds fine in normal conditions. These were not normal conditions. Hindsight says that maybe they should use a cover that won't damage anything if it falls - but we all have 20/20 hindsight. NASA just DOES happen to learn from mistakes despite all the sensationalism and political rhetoric. Maybe you would like a $3 billion wind tunnel study on tape adhesion on the launch pad or something...

Re:It fell on its own?

[elgatozorbas]

Maybe it would think the shuttle was a _massive_ female seagull. That's why they covered the windows.

Re:It fell on its own?

[MurphyZero]

a couple years ago, the Eastern Range implemented some measures to keep the pbulic better informed, so that boats, and aircraft, would not be a problem on launch day. Also, range instrumentation scrubs are almost a thing of the past (delays in count, different story) Now, almost all scrubs are weather or launch vehicle related.

Re:It fell on its own?

[tomhudson]

That's the point - if it had been fabricated locally, it could have been done in 1 piece like earlier military designs, the casings of which were 1-piece spun glass-reinforced resin on a large mold.

They get away with this because they don't burn from one end to the other - rather, they have a long hollow core (star-shaped cross-section, to increase surface area), and burn along the whole length, from the inside to the outside. A side benefit is the increased burn surface area, resulting in more thrust.

This whole multi-segment SRB fiasco was pork-barrelling at its worst, and was pointed out as an example of politics interfering with implementation by the same people who did the Apollo 1 fire report. NASA should learn to grow some stones and just say no to design compromises (multi-segment SRBs) and bad projects (ISS, STS).

Re:It fell on its own?

[razmaspaz]

I'm not sure it matters how insignificant the thing that fell off was. IT FELL OFF! While the shuttle was just sitting there. We just spent millions of man hours inspecting the shuttle and declared it safe for use. While it was just sitting on the launch pad the "safe" shuttle had a piece fall off. Thank God it fell off now and not during launch. Remember that they had to bring out a new piece from a hanger. Thank goodness it fell off before. Had this fallen off during launch, and I think it is safe to say it would have, there is no parts store on the moon. The Astronauts would be headed to the ISS and waiting for a rescue crew in the only remaining space shuttle. WTF are we doing?

Re:It fell on its own?

[bill_mcgonigle]

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!

Fortunately they don't hire wusses to captain Space Shuttles.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Kombat]

I would imagine that the effects from being in space traveling with little particles going 5 miles per second

According to a documentary I saw on the Discovery channel, the shuttle's windows aren't vulnerable to space debris while in orbit, because the shuttle positions itself such that that bottom or side of the craft is facing in the direction of orbit. Ever notice how whenever you see a picture of the shuttle in orbit, its always upside-down (that is, with the "top" of the shuttle facing the Earth below)? It's so that the windows won't be in the path of any space debris.

A particle the size of a BB, traveling at orbital velocities (5-7 miles per second) impacting a solid chunk of aluminum would blow a crater in it the size of a grapefruit.

Re:It fell on its own?

[router]

The Shuttle has had 113 flights with two failures over 25 years. That's almost a 2% failure rate. That's playing roulette with a 50 shot revolver.

andy

Re:It fell on its own?

[Kombat]

I seriously doubt there are windshield wipers due to the extream speed.

No, above a certain speed, windshield wipers are both ineffective and unnecessary. Airplanes have them, but they only use them at low speeds or while taxiing. Above a couple hundred miles an hour, the rain just blows right off the windsheild anyway.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Kombat]

My dad, now retired, always talks about when they developed the space shuttle. They were trying to get NASA to go with a solid fuel rocket.

NASA did go with a solid fuel rocket. 2 of them, actually. That's what the booster rockets are. SRBs. Solid Rocket Boosters. Once they're lit, there's no way to turn them off.

I saw a program on rocket science, and they indicated that the use of solid fuel is virtually mandatory in order to achieve the fuel energy density required to lift the fuel itself plus a payload into space. Almost every launch program out there relies on solid fuel for at least part of the launch. Those that don't either don't need to reach the higher altitudes, don't weigh much, or are experiments in how to shake the dependence on solid fuel (mainly due to its rather significant drawback of not being able to be turned "off" once lit).

Re:It fell on its own?

[Kombat]

The "stupidity in Iraq" gave millions of people a good chance of better and freer life (and not just in Iraq) -- already.

That might be an acceptable explanation, if that's how the mission had been pitched in the first place. But it wasn't. The war was justified using fabricated claims of WMDs and terrorist strongholds, neither of which were true, it turns out.

Re:It fell on its own?

[halber_mensch]

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

The booster rockets?

Re:It fell on its own?

[skarphace]

You have to have 'oops' moments. It is impossible to forsee everything that can happen. The reality is that this is a dangerous program and shit will happen.

I really don't understand why people are so freaked out about the 2 disasters. There were only 2. That's what, 14 people that died in this program? After how many successfull launches and how much valuable information? Not to mention that these people signed up for this. They know the risks, they know that they may not be coming back. It's a reality of the business.

Hundreds of US soldiers died in Iraq. Do you see them suspending war to fix these problems?

A handfull of people die on fishing ships in Alaska every year. Do they stop doing business to fix these problems? No. It's a fact of the job.

Re:It fell on its own?

[demachina]

"NASA just DOES happen to learn from mistakes"

Please, maybe they learn from SOME mistakes. Track record shows they clearly didn't learn from to mistakes that got people killed:

- O-ring blowby was a known problem and had occurred on missions before it doomed Challenger. It was KNOWN to be worse and more dangerous the colder it was, as the O rings got stiffer, and they STILL tried to launch on one of the coldest days ever at Kennedy to keep Ronny Raygun happy so he could talk about the teacher in space for his State of the Union speech

- Ice falling off the external tank and damaging tiles has been happening since the FIRST flight until it finally broke them in a fatal place on Columbia. THey put insulation on the tank, it kept falling. It happened so much they had to write software to do a statistical analysis on whether it we going to cause fatal damage. When it finally did they ignored it.

"Maybe you would like a $3 billion wind tunnel study on tape adhesion on the launch pad or something..."

Nope just ground and abandon the shuttle and ISS and give the money to someone new to build the next manned launch vehicle who understands the KISS principle. The problem with the Shuttle isn't a cover falling off here, an O-ring failing there, tile damge up there. The problem is its an absurdly complex launch vehicle and there is ALWAYS something going wrong with it, either due to bad design, human error or mechanical failure. Any vehicle that requires 6000 people to keep it working is NEVER gonna be reliable, and its ALWAYS going to cost a bloody fortune to launch.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Cornflake917]

Haven't you play Final Fantasy II? Giant tortoises are very weak against lightning.

Using a digital camera is quite safe. Unless you try to take a picture in a topless bar (not that I would know about that or anything).

Re:It fell on its own?

[AJWM]

No, only smaller solid boosters are made from composites. Especially 20+ years ago. Prior to the Shuttle SRBs, the biggest solid boosters were the ones used for the Titan 34C and follow-ons, which were both smaller diameter and shorter. Even those were made up from multiple welded segments.

Building the tube is only part of the problem. Casting the propellant -- and ensuring no voids or cracks that could cause sudden pressure surges due to increased burn area -- is also problematic.

(And the star shaped cross section on the core gives a high surface area = high thrust at first, with the thrust tapering off as the core rounds out as it burns. Just the thrust profile you want to limit maximum acceleration as the total mass is reduced as fuel is consumed.)

Mind, going to SRBs at all on a manned vehicle was bloody stupid, and NASA by its very nature has to pork-barrel.

Re:It fell on its own?

[Rei]

I ran into an article which discusses part of the issue (although not the entire issue).

In a 1982 letter to congressional investigators, June Gibbs Brown, NASA's Inspector General, revealed that a large portion of Rockwell's work on the fixed-price GPS project was being charged to open projects like the space shuttle. A few months earlier, in November 1982, the Justice Department agreed to a $1.5 million civil settlement with Rockwell after investigating similar allegations. According to Brown's letter, the settlement may have been too easy on Rockwell. NASA audits revealed that Rockwell's cost-plus government contracts, had huge cost overruns, some as high as 400 percent. Rockwell's fixed-price contracts, underwritten by the company when costs exceed projections, had no over-runs.

That's not the whole story, though. They also got in trouble for the same thing on all sorts of projects, like the B1. They had all sorts of messed up billing practices back then that they ended up getting busted over.

Re:It fell on its own?

[cloudmaster]

I think you meant to say "White president" - that'll offend more people while having equal relevance.

Re:It fell on its own?

[pegasustonans]

Well, if I had a 1/56 chance of violent death during the time it took me to drive my car the total mileage traversed during a normal Shuttle flight, I can tell you right here and now that those are significantly better odds than the reality of driving my car or anyone else's.

Re:It fell on its own?

[pegasustonans]

Well, I'll bet on the Shuttle surpassing this mark handily during the remainder of its lifetime, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. :)

Re:It fell on its own?

[kd5ujz]

thats kind of what I figured, that and if they tried to use them above 200mph they would probably rip off. Not sure that the windshield would even be usefull except for landing, and I did not know the approach speed (~180Knts?), or if it would be enough to take care of rain during landing.

Re:It fell on its own?

[shadowbearer]

I imagine they're installed before the shuttle enters the VAB, to protect the windows from damage during assembly. Dunno for sure, but that would make sense.

cheers,

SB

Re:It fell on its own?

[NateTech]

You got a +2 Interesting for complete bullshit. Must be Slashdot.

Your dad's full of shit, or you are.

The Lunar Lander was built by Rockwell, not TRW as you elude with your comment about credit reporting agencies.

Rockwell sent North American a towing bill as a joke for Apollo 13, when the Lunar Lander "towed" the broken Command Module back to earth. Engineers worked exceedingly hard on both systems, with a number of published biographies that show most of the heads of these projects chose not to have much of a life outside of working problems. And those problems at the time of working them were almost always things that had NEVER been done before. They also had a sense of humor back then.

Anyway, the Lander used hypergolic fuels in the engine. Specifically because it had to light, every time. Hypergolics ignite as soon as you mix them.

The only worry was one valve in the system that couldn't/didn't have a secondary system... if that valve didn't open, the Apollo astronauts on the moon would never come home. They knew this and took the risks. Today, we scrub launches for a redundant sensor (1 of 4) in a redundant fuel level warning system. We're becoming a nation of pansies who won't let these scientists and pioneers do their jobs they VOLUNTEER to do. If the Astronauts are concerned about their safety, that's one thing... as were a number of NASA Astronauts who visited MIR as it got older. But these people understand the risks and our society won't allow them to take those risks anymore and we're not proud of the people who built the machine they go up in anymore. This sucks.

Anyway, the Lander information and other information I've mentioned here are all readily available via Google searches and documented in various very good books. I recommend "Failure Is Not An Option", by Gene Kranz if you want to learn how to make safety decisions. The job "Flight Director" didn't exist before NASA started it. These guys had to create their original safety procedures out of thin air, showing their true grit.

In fact, after reading all the B.S. around here about the Shuttle systems and people too lazy to look up the information online (how much easier can it get? It's not like you have to go down to a local library and check out a book or anything...), I'm totally amazed that the Slashdot generation is so clueless about amazing Engineering feats like Apollo.

There's stuff to be learned from these guys, no matter if the popular thing of today is to bash them for supposedly bad Engineering/Management practice or not.

There once was a time when the country was in complete awe that Shuttle even flew, let alone did it safely.

It's just a fad of the politically correct times we live in to berate and belittle the hard work NASA employees and sub-contractors have done over the years to pull off things no other country could. And the sad part is, they have to cowtow to it and act like they're giant screwups in every press meeting so they don't get caught in a simple misstatement about something.

Russia had their Shuttle but it never flew with humans on board... and never will. History will show whether or not China gets their Shuttle to fly.

U.S. Engineers can rightly point to the STS and say, "We did that!" We should be proud. Do we need a replacement for manned spaceflight? Hell yes. But should we beat the horse that isn't dead yet? No.

Already fixed

[cdrudge]

CNN is reporting that NASA has already given the go ahead for Discovery to launch. The damaged tiles on the tailfin have already been repaired.

Re:Already fixed

[cujo_1111]

I hope the glue and dope that holds the balsa and tissue paper together is dry in time for launch...

Re:Already fixed

[Guy LeDouche]

It should be, the rubberband that they are winding up is going to take a while.

Re:Already fixed

[iphayd]

It's easier nowdays, we use CA glues that dry quickly, and our "tissue paper" is actually an iron-on shrinkwrap plastic.

Now, if I were NASA, I'd be making sure the batteries are charged, and a bit of fuel tubing is holding all of the control clevises shut.

Oh, and that their AMA card is on the frequency they're using.

Curse?

[TripMaster Monkey]

What the hell??? Is the shuttle cursed?

FWIW, if the previous window cover fell off on its own, I wouldn't put too much faith in the replacement...

Re:Curse?

[DigiShaman]

I was thinking the same thing. I mean, in terms of odds...well...I would rather be playing craps in vegas then riding this pony to space.

Maybe it's a sign from God saying "Scrap that pile of shit, just build something better and cheaper"...or something.

Re:Curse?

[EraserMouseMan]

A plastic windshield cover fell 60 feet and damaged several tiles. Forgive me, but I'm a bit skeptical that the problem of debris hitting the tiles at mach 25 has been fixed.

Re:Curse?

[birge]

Maybe it's a sign from God saying "Scrap that pile of shit, just build something better and cheaper"...or something.

Actually, that would be a much nicer and subtler sign than the ones he's been giving so far.

A sign, maybe?

[8086ed]

Does ANYTHING go where NASA wants it to?

Re:A sign, maybe?

[Osmosis_Garett]

Mabye you missed the recent Temple1 success, or the two rovers that are sitting on Mars, doing science? Maybe you're just trying to bump up your post count?

Re:A sign, maybe?

[Aeros]

Look at the rovers...they sent this thing millions of miles and landed it almost exactly where they planned. Thats pretty impressive

Funeral

[Selfbain]

Why don't they just hold the astronauts funerals before they launch so they can attend.

Re:Funeral

[Anonymous Coward]

this calls for the rarely used but often called for "+1 Tasteless" mod

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.

Re:Funeral

[Selfbain]

Hmmm well my point was supposed to be that NASA is taking enormous risks with the lives of their astronauts for no other purpose than to save face. If my comment is tasteless (and it is) doesn't that mean at the back of everyone's mind they recognize that they may face eminent death by proceeding? What if it hadn't fallen off now? What if it had happened midway through launch?

I'm afraid that I subscribe to the Duckman school of thought that says humor should offend.

Re:Funeral

[skroz]

What if it hadn't fallen off now? What if it had happened midway through launch?

I'll tell you what would have happened... some astronaut would've said "Well thank god the fucking window cover came off so we can goddamn see what's in front of us. What jacknutted imbecile left it on there in the first place?"

• It's a window cover that just sits there while the shuttle is hanging out on the launchpad. It's to keep bird shit off the windscreen.
• Yeah, I know they really don't actually look out the front window much during takeoff.
• Yeah, if it WAS somehow left on there, and DID fall off during launch, and DID hit an engine pod at 900+ KPH, it would probably fuck it up a whole lot worse than a little piece of foam.

Re:Funeral

[Selfbain]

Don't interfere with my deranged and irrational posts.

Re:Funeral

[damiam]

The sibling asked for a +1, Tasteless, not -1, Tasteless.

Re:Funeral

[rbarreira]

Actually it was funny. Humour requires reading things in the right perspective... For all you know, he could be extremely worried about these problems.

Re:Funeral

[The_Wilschon]

Perhaps if I had run across such a joke, I might have reacted the same way... Certainly strikes me as tasteless... Don't call me a hypocrite unless you are pointing to some specific hypocrisy that I have committed. No, I am certainly not claiming to be free of hypocrisy (is anyone?), but I do claim that I am free of the particular hypocrisy you are referring to.

Vulnerable

[fembots]

If a fallen window cover can damage the space shuttle, isn't it very vulnerable once it's in the Space?

Re:Vulnerable

[spike hay]

There isn't much in space. Even space junk isn't usually a huge concern.

Re:Vulnerable

[taped2thedesk]

If a fallen window cover can damage the space shuttle, isn't it very vulnerable once it's in the Space?

Of course not, they raise the deflector shields when they get into space...

Re:Vulnerable

[Inominate]

"Damage" to the space shuttle is common.
Heat tiles are frequently found to be missing when the shuttle lands. Small minor damage is not uncommon. What brought down columbia was more a case of a golden bb than anything else. (Plus it was a heavy object traveling quite fast)

That said, space is a pretty easy environment to survive in. It's the part where you're burning a few thousand tons of explosives, and slowing down from 20,000mph using the atmosphere that are the dangerous parts.

The damage that occured to the space shuttle here is trivial.

Re:Vulnerable

[Rakishi]

Yes it would be, if the Shuttle went into space with the covers which it doesn't. Even if they tried I assume they'd fall off somewhere during launch, probably doing some nice damage. So the answer to your question is: Mu.

Re:Vulnerable

[MrScience]

Falling things are the only things the shuttle is vulnerable to in space... since, you know, everyting falls in space.

Re:Vulnerable

[thecitruskid]

That was my first thought too. And you would think a big flat foam panel would float to earth pretty gracefully and not be a big problem. I knew the thermal tiles were brittle, but I had no idea they were this fragile.

Maybe they should consider some sort of ablative shield over the leading edges to cushion them on launch which would then burn off during the process of re-enty. I don't think the aerodynamic characteristics of the shuttle's wings matter much as it's riding those two roman candles into orbit.

Re:Vulnerable

[Rickler]

There isn't much in space yes. But something as small as a paintchip flying 5000mph can do a bit of damage.

Re:Vulnerable

[Fjornir]

I see you're not advertising about your less-than-stellar new user retention rates. Is the new game any better?

Re:Vulnerable

[SPY_jmr1]

Well. from what I understand, yes, big flat foam falls softly. BUT, it was also covered in ice. Ice is hard and heavy, remember? And it didn't just fall, Columbia hit it on launch, not at rest. By that time, it was going UP at quite the speed, while the big flat foam thing, wanting to float gently, was going slowly, and then BLAMMO, they colide.

So... Beware running into large foam at high speeds.

A good engineering practice...

[Scorillo47]

... is to insure minimum time between failures (MTBF).

In this case, the engineers ensured that whatever components are broken in the shuttle, they will fall of BEFORE the launch.

Re:A good engineering practice...

[Black Tezcatlipoca]

Not if you're a government contractor you dont. If the thing didnt break, NASA would never order a new one.

windows this, windows that

[ne0n]

all i ever hear is whining about windows here! ;)

Re:windows this, windows that

[Daxx_61]

so this window... crashed? Hmm.

Re:windows this, windows that

[Anne_Nonymous]

BSOD

Blue Sky Of Death

2001

[8086ed]

... You know that was just a movie, right?

It Fell off?

[nurb432]

That is a problem by itsself.. this stuff shouldnt 'just fall off'..

If it had come off in orbit, we might be going thru the loss of another crew on reentry.

Re:It Fell off?

[cdrudge]

It's a plastic cover that comes off before launch. It would never have even gone up in orbit anyways.

Re:It Fell off?

[ThreeE]

RTFA. It doesn't fly with the Shuttle.

Re:It Fell off?

[vollmerk]

One thing that I would like to know is, how many times has this type of thing happened in the past. This launch is being picked over with a fine tooth comb. Every little slip up, "what if" "wups" "oooh my" and "doh" is being throw out into the press.

Although what we are hearing from the press is slightly disconcerting. We really need to ask how much of this is news 'hype' and how much is really stuff we need to worry about.

Considering the Media today, and the fact that it sounds like NASA has already cleared it to launch again, this sounds like it was blow out of porportion.

Arg, I'm rambling again..

If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[the eric conspiracy]

He would have given us something better than a space shuttle.

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[r_cerq]

Yeah, and if that same "God" had meant us to cross the oceans 500 years ago, he should have given European powers a couple of jets to avoid scurvy and mutinies out of boredom.

Transportation technology and exploration missions have always started out with rudimentary technology, prone to risk and with lots of fatalities paving the way. Crossing the oceans, crossing the continents, going to the poles, the mountains and the abysses have always been dangerous undertakings, and we've gotten better at it over time. Space is just another frontier, and another learning curve.

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Koiu Lpoi]

Like Zerg Overlords.

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[rsynnott]

He did, lots of things, but they were generally killed for political reasons (see Orion Project, NERVA).

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Planesdragon]

Yeah, and if that same "God" had meant us to cross the oceans 500 years ago, he should have given European powers a couple of jets to avoid scurvy and mutinies out of boredom.

1: small grammatical swipes at religion only makes atheism look even more stupid.

2: He did. Ever hear of the vikings?

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Surazal]

Um, not to take the wind out of your sails or anything, but the Vikings were not Christain. Though I suppose God loves all, of course, but the meaning of your argument tends to lean towards the ludicrous. ;)

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Planesdragon]

Um, not to take the wind out of your sails or anything, but the Vikings were not Christain.

Point 1: God is god of us all, even those that don't worship Him.

Point 2: The vikings were rather thoroughly Christianized. It's actually where the baptists come from (to grossly oversimplify.)

Point 3: Even before christianization, the norsemen (inclusive of vikings) had the most Christian of pagan religons. "Life sucks, but live well anyway" is a powerful moral.

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[pete-classic]

God is god of us all, even those that don't worship Him.

It's cool that you believe that and all, but it's a weird thing to proclaim in a public forum. Here's an example -

Phil is God of us all, even those who don't worship Him.

- or I could take it further -

Phil is God of us all, even those who don't worship him. Those who do, and eat only of tuna-fish on Tuesdays, shall earn a an eternal reward of pudding and helium balloons. Those who do not, and eat of non-tuna-fish on Tuesdays, shall be cast down into a great, scalding bowl of gravy.

My point isn't to disparage your beliefs, but to give you an idea of what your attitude is like from my point of view.

Can you see what I'm saying?

-Peter

PS: Your Galaxis account is suspended. You might want to remove the link from your user page.

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Surazal]

Point 1: God is god of us all, even those that don't worship Him.

How I wish more American Christains take this view (I speak as an American Christain, though not a horribly faithful one... in the institution that is, not God himself).

Point 2: The vikings were rather thoroughly Christianized. It's actually where the baptists come from (to grossly oversimplify.)

The impression I got from studying history was that though many Viking literary works were Christainized, the Vikings themselves were not until very late in the game. Granted, this probably helped end their plundering, barbaristic ways, but stating the Viking were "thoroughly Christain" is sort of like saying my dog is "thoroughly feline". Last I checked, there isn't a modern tendency to worship Thor, the Thunder God.

Point 3: Even before christianization, the norsemen (inclusive of vikings) had the most Christian of pagan religons. "Life sucks, but live well anyway" is a powerful moral.

Except for that whole plundering, looting, and raping thing that they were famous for...

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Planesdragon]

Except for that whole plundering, looting, and raping thing that they were famous for...

See the Crusades, the colonization of America, and the biblical account of the ancient land of Israel.

Plundering, looting, and even raping is something Christians do as much as anyone else. To paraphrase our Lord and Savior -- "we all suck."

Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space

[Planesdragon]

It's cool that you believe that and all, but it's a weird thing to proclaim in a public forum.

It is, but not as wierd as you take it to be. The parent I responded to "started it".

While it is arguable not proper to bring up one's religion in a public forum (and a LOT of religions, strong atheism and scientology included, violate it with abandon), it's nothing more than an insult to one's own religion not to defend it when it is attacked.

My thoughts precisely

[r_cerq]

Your first sentence is exactly what came to my mind when I read the summary. Like... WTF? A part of the shuttle falls off and they just go "shit, someone has to go there and stick it back with chewing gum" or something? They spent all this time trying to "certify" the thing as flight-worthy, all the safety paranoia after the Columbia, and a window cover wasn't placed (or fixed) correctly? What's next, a flat tyre they'll just notice when they try to land?

Fallen window ...

[sk999]

A falling window knocked out the shuttle? Geez, those things are supposed to keep the cabin pressurized in space, and one just fell out?

... oh wait, a window cover.

duck tape and zip ties

[smeagols_ghost]

Duck tape and zip ties, thats what nasa needs more of.

Re:duck tape and zip ties

[Black Tezcatlipoca]

What he does with his tape and waterfowl is his business.

Re:duck tape and zip ties

[3nd32]

First, you aren't allowed to say someone else needs more dictionaries and english lessons. I'll correct your post for you. "It's "duct" tape. I think you need more dictionaries and english lessons." That reads much better. Second, "duck" tape is correct. While it is no longer used to refer to the overall type of tape, it would still refer to the tape manufactured by Duck Products.

How NOT to write a headline

[iminplaya]

Here's the story I saw.
Cockpit window falls from Discovery, hits engine pod...
Is this what you would call "sensationalistic"? Jeez, and I thought the Star was bad.

Seriously?

[aussersterne]

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

NASA spends two years to fix the problem of stuff falling off the shuttle during launch and damaging it.

Now, after all that work and money, they've regressed: now not even the forces of launch are needed to cause bits to fall off and smash tiles.

In fact, no force at all is needed to cause the problem. The thing is disintegrating as it sits there.

A bad batch of super glue, perhaps?

Re:Seriously?

[hawado]

A bad batch of super glue, perhaps?
Too bad they sold off the rights to Velcro... coulda used some of that here...
Also, WTH is with these tiles. A piece of foam damages them, a piece of plastic damages them. I got some nice tiles in the kitchen that even my psycho girlfried throwing a pressure cooker at me couldn't damage, so after millions of dollars of research they came up with fire resistant tiles that are about as tough as poolboy at a gay bikers convention.

Re:Seriously?

[InfiniteWisdom]

It's window covers that would be removed before launch. I'm not saying this kind of thing is excusable, but your comment is a little over-the-top.

Re:Seriously?

[InfiniteWisdom]

Can your kitchen tiles withstand a blowtorch on one side of them while remaining cool enough to touch on the other, while being a fifth the density of water?

Didn't think so. You might look less stupid if you read up a little before your next post.

Re:Seriously?

[cdrudge]

But do your kitchen tiles survive in -150 degree to +250 degree frequent tempature swings, deceleration from 20,000MPH, or 2,500 degree reentries? Just because they are easily damaged one way doesn't mean they aren't increadibly strong (for lack of a better word) another way.

Re:Seriously?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I got some nice tiles in the kitchen ...

Hehe, fine, you can make your shuttle with kitchen tiles. What other design optimisations can you offer?

Re:Seriously?

[hawado]

I wasn't saying NASA should use kitchen tiles on the space shuttle, only that with that much spent on development you would think things like strength and impact resistance would have been pretty far up on the list of requirements.
Granted my kitchen tiles were not designed for heat dissipation ?sp.
As to design I would like to see a giant mosaic on the bottom of the shuttle... perhaps one that reacts upon reentry so that the shuttle looks like a flaming skull or something tearing through the atmosphere.

Hey, be kind to them.

[jd]

They don't use rubber bands on the space shuttle, the water wheel is quite sufficient.

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?

[geekoid]

"Seems like if Burt Rutan can get it right NASA should be able to too"

Burt Ratan doesn't have near the requirements NASA has.

Yeah, he got a guy in space. Now make a reusable launch vehical with the same payload as the Shuttle.
If he can do tat, he will onlt be about 25 years behind NASA.

" If I were an astronaut, that wouldn't exactly inspire confidence in me. "

well, no worry there.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[SpaceLifeForm]

I don't care if the cover was designed to come off, the problem is it FELL off no human interaction required.

Objection: Assumes facts not in evidence.

Has sabotage been ruled out?

Or was it due to the wind?

How come this particular problem has not been reported before?

Has the engineering of the cover or it's mounting points changed from previous flights?

I vote no-go until those questions are answered.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[Anne_Nonymous]

It didn't fall. It was pushed!

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[washley]

You're not going uphill tomorrow, the crew is. They know a heck of a lot more than you about what's going on and they made the decision to go for it, so let progress be made instead of arm-chair administering NASA.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[Tyler Eaves]

NASA is 30 years behind NASA.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[NarrMaster]

Was it pushed to protect us from the terrible secret of space?

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[Vellmont]

It's time to retire the shuttle and just pay the russians to launch us until there is a suitable replacement.

Except for one small problem. The Russian progress has a max cargo lifting capacity of 3200 Kilograms. The Shuttle has a max cargo lifting capacity of 28,000 kg. The construction of the space station is largely being done by the Space Shuttle. My guess is that Progress doesn't have to capability to lift the modules designed for the space station.

Seems like if Burt Rutan can get it right NASA should be able to too.

Why does everyone think they can compare a sub-orbital flight of 3 guys to lifting several tons of cargo into an orbital flight? Is your riding lawnmower at all similar to a tractor trailer capable of going across the continent?

It's great what Rutan did, but isn't simply nowhere near the same as creating a space station.

Re:Again with the shuttle?

[DerekLyons]

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.

Well, given that Rutan hasn't yet 'gotten it right', your thesis fails. SS1 is a high performance airplane - not a spacecraft. It's no more in the Shuttle's league than a Matchbox car is in that of a Formula 1 racer. (Rutan and co. have made an outstanding first step - but let's compare apples to apples.)

Somebody handled that window...

[qualico]

...questions are who and why did that window fall off?

I'd rather see the mission delayed for a short time as opposed to a long time should something else shake loose.

Ominous indeed.

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

[cdrudge]

Probably because Slashdot is ran by a few bozos in Holland Michigan or where ever they are located at these days. They don't have several thousand reports all over the world poised to jump on any instantly braking news to report it to you the instant it happens. They also don't pay to be a part of an AP or Reuters newswire, nor do they have autoposting news stories.

Slashdot is a glorified blog ran by people more or less at their convienence. When you think of it that way then a prime time news source, things are a lot more reasonable. If you even look at the article summary, you'd see that it was posted 21 minutes AFTER the press conference was suppose to happen to talk about if it was OK or not...2 and a half hours AFTER the actual incident happened.

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

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If you see something that hasn't been posted on /. yet, submit it. That's how /. works. You have to submit the stories for them to be posted.

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[Illserve]

I don't know about you, but I read slashdot for the commentary on the wire stories

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[noidentity]

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

Slashdot is a discussion forum.

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[torpor]

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

why is it so hard to understand that aggregation is a good thing if all you have open is a web-browser with slashdot in it, and no time for other web-cruising?

many people use slashdot as their home page, just to catch up on news for nerds in between Real Work. having interesting nerd-related articles pop up in this list of news items is a feature, not a problem.

not everyone has the time and energy to stay on the bleeding edge of the news-o-sphere. i'm quite happy getting my 'mainstream news-for-nerds headlines' mixed in with the rest of the usual /. blather ..

but then, i've been a slashdotter since the beginning, i drank the kool-aid early..

Re:slashdot, the AP regurgitator

[Kombat]

I can not think of a single time where /. had stories that couldn't be found anywhere else.
Care to point to a single /. only article?

Sure. Every single book review, interview, and "Ask Slashdot." How'd I do?

They aren't safe enough!

[stefanlasiewski]

Obviously these new safety measures aren't safe enough!

I hearby propose that NASA create a new covering to cover the existing "window-cover", to ensure that the existing "window-cover" isn't damaged while it's protecting the actual window.

Re:They aren't safe enough!

[saiha]

If only they'd built it with 6001 hulls! When will they learn?

Re:They aren't safe enough!

[mendaliv]

I'll support your proposal, so long as the cover-cover is manufactured entirely in Knoxville, TN at Gimbal-Wingnut Aerospace in a Gov't-funded factory expansion with a sufficiently large tax break.

windows crashes, grounds shuttle

[putch]

i can't believe it hasnt been mentioned, or have they all been modded troll already?

Re:windows crashes, grounds shuttle

[michaeldot]

i can't believe it hasnt been mentioned, or have they all been modded troll already?

Probably modded just-not-funny, but I seriously did start parsing the headline as Failing Windows etc.

The Vomit Comet and protocol

[gardyloo]

Some of my colleagues here have flown several times on one of the KC-135s that NASA has used (until it gets replaced relatively soon) for micro-g experiments. The testing that their research equipment had to go through to even be allowed on the flights were really very rigorous. Each aluminum stay had to withstand so much torque, each bolt had to be tightened just so, the electronics had to take such-and-such a shock, tools have to have velcro on them, and the frame had to have so much of the opposite-gender velcro so that things could be anchored, etc.
What amazed everyone is that one group was not required to pressure-test their pressurized vessel, and a window blew out during one of the flights, sending nice bits of glass all over. Now, how can all of these other (arguably over-specified) aspects of the experiments be so rigidly-controlled (with carefully-worded protocols for everything), and they leave out PRESSURE TESTING GLASS WINDOWS?

Re:The Vomit Comet and protocol

[Detritus]

They probably do it now. A major part of engineering is based upon learning from the mistakes and failures of the past.

Re:The Vomit Comet and protocol

[gardyloo]

You're probably right. However, these flights weren't all THAT long ago (~8 years) and many, many such experiments had been flown on the KC-135 before. I doubt that any had blown out windows like this particular one, but I, at least, would expect either a requirement of a special safety glass, or extra testing of pressurized vessels. After all, the military and NASA are supposedly pros at over/underpressure conditions. To waste time and effort on relatively piddly safety protocols concerning crush tests on Al frames (which had to withstand several hundred times the maximum expected torsional forces at the joints) and ignore overpressure behind glass is ludicrous.

Re:The Vomit Comet and protocol

[Hektor_Troy]

I need stronger glasses. I could have sworn the subject was "The Wallace and Grommet protocol".

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.

Re:Can we see it fall from 107 angles?

[maxoct97]

hahahahha...funny that they don't work when we need them.

Re:Can we see it fall from 107 angles?

[nihilistcanada]

You know with 107 cameras you could do a real spectacular bullet time effect shot of the it striking the shuttle.

True, but...

[jd]

...it does indicate a slight... negligence on the part of the engineers doing the final prep work. Right about now, I'd be inspecting the shuttle for all the things that the engineers DIDN'T come clean over. (People treading on something fragile, that sort of thing.)

So, true, the Shuttle isn't falling apart at the seams. However, the indication is that the engineers either rushed some of the prep work or failed to set adequate precautions in place. In either case, they may have messed up elsewhere and not said.

If you were up there, knowing that the world's media was focussed on your every twitch, knowing that any delay would finish any chance of you having a future but that any unconfessed and unobserved error on your part would be utterly untracable, would you be willing to take the fall?

Given that kind of pressure, I'm not confident that other accidents haven't happened. All I can do is HOPE they haven't and that NASA will take the time to verify as best they can in the time that they haven't.

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.

Re:True, but...

[AKAImBatman]

Getting to anything orbit (as opposed to suborbital) is a huge task. Getting a huge, man-rated craft to orbit is a Herculean one.

Arguably it's the "huge" part that's the problem. For some unfathomable reason, the US decided to man rate a cargo-carrying super-booster. So thousands of little details that would have otherwise not mattered, *do* matter.

The Space Shuttle is a marvel of engineering. But if we're going to man rate the darn thing, let's at least fly it with loads full of people instead of space station parts. Put a passenger module into the cargo bay, and you could lift (and bring back!) a good 50 people at a time! Leave the cargo to the Delta-V's, Energias, Protons, Titans and Atlases of the world.

But for tonight and tomorrow, I wish every person who's working on the Shuttle or will be flying on the Shuttle, goodluck and Godspeed.

Re:True, but...

[Rei]

You know, I should just set up a script to reply to your posts with "I agree 100%!". ;)

Man rated, and has enough payload capacity to take 50 people (with five times the human mass for infrastructure) or a hundred (with 2 1/2 times the human mass) to LEO. And instead, we use it as a cargo hauler :P It's no real shock that the "next gen" designs are moving more toward what we need: smaller for the man-rated vehicle (which makes reentry easier, given the greater surface area to mass ratio) but still reusable, and built on existing infrastructure; and a big unmanned heavy lifter, also built on existing infrastructure. And of course, both inline, not side-mounted! :)

But, yes - for tomorrow, none of that is important - what is important is getting the job done safely.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[rsynnott]

Actually, Energias aren't flying so much, any more (sadly). America made a serious mistake with the shuttle, as did the USSR in following it. It's a recoverable mistake, though.

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:Time Warp?

[Anne_Nonymous]

Today's updates will be in tomorrow's dupe.

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:Protective Windows

[Detritus]

They are commonly used on vehicles with expensive windows to protect them from accidental damage and foreign materials. It keeps them from getting scratched and covered with bird shit or other atmospheric contaminants. The Air Force has similar problems with their aircraft. A window or canopy can be polished or refinished to remove scratches, but it is time-consuming and expensive.

Re:Protective Windows

[zippthorne]

interesting. Why can't they put that sticky junk that race car drivers use to avoid having wipers?

Re:Protective Windows

[wizardguy]

I read a news article that in Iraq/Afganistan the army is using the same plastic covers as NASCAR cars to protect the windshields of the AH-64 Apache choppers. Apparently because of sand/dust the biggest maintenance for these choppers was replacing the windshields every 3/4 months

Re:FTUA

[nurb432]

My post was based off the story summary.

If that makes my post 'uninformed', then blame the editors, not me.

PS, dont throw stones... ( no, i wont explain that to you. )

Here's a head-scratcher...

[jpellino]

"The lightweight plastic cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows came loose while the spaceship was on the launch pad, falling more than 60 feet and striking a bulge in the fuselage, said Stephanie Stilson, the NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations. No one knows why the cover -- which was held in place with tape -- fell off, she said. "

Maybe it fell of because IT WAS HELD ON WITH TAPE!

Who's in charge over there - Red Green?

Re:Here's a head-scratcher...

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Who's in charge over there - Red Green?

Obviously not, he'd use duct tape, and that doesn't come off for anybody.

Re:Here's a head-scratcher...

[failure-man]

Plus, the foil type probably makes a decent substitute for thermal tile. ;)

Re:Here's a head-scratcher...

[shadowbearer]

LOL

What surprised me more is that it didn't spin off away from the shuttle like a tarp. Those windows are pretty good sized and the covers really are pretty lightweight.

Guess that's why Murphy didn't haunt *me* today ;-P

The tape thing actually makes sense. High humidity, winds, perhaps the tape was old or just plain had a bad adhesive run at the factory. Of course it *could* have been just plain sloppiness - but I seriously doubt it. The flight pad crews really know their jobs.

Cheers,
SB

Re:FTUA

[hazem]

And that's different from most posts how?

Maybe it's just hindsight...

[Mr. Cancelled]

...But it sure does seem to me like they have a lot more problems these days than in years gone past. Is it that they're getting getting better at discovering the problems, or are we just hearing more about it now due to the increase in news options we have today, or is timing coloring my memory, and I'm glossing over a lot of "oops's" tha have occured in the past?

Don't get me wrong, NASA's had more than their share of ups and downs, including some several notable tradgedies whichi resulted in loss of life, but it seems like through the late 80's, and into the 90's, NASA had a lot more success's than they have lately, as far as manned missions go.

People were zipping into space via the Shuttles, space-based experiments seemed to become almost standard reading material. In particular I remember reading about experiements growing things in space, and the effects that zero gravity was having on the plants. Or so I remember...

Nowadays when I hear about NASA and manned missions, it seems like it's usually for a failure, or yet another setback or problem with the shuttle. Granted, the media focus's on failure much more than success, but it seems like there's been a lot more setbacks in recent year than success's.

Or is this a case of me simply glossing over the problems of previous years, and they've been fairly common all along?

Wow

[mfloy]

My dodge seems to be better built than these space craft

Re:Wow

[Vengeance]

Built better than something, and it's a DODGE!

Wow indeed!

Re:Wow

[thedak]

let's see your dodge launch to lower earth orbit ;)

NASA TV coverage

[crow]

I saw the press conference on NASA TV a short time ago. The summary is slightly wrong--they discovered that it had happened at 5:30, but they don't know when it actually happened, though it was after a previous inspection. I would have thought that they would have video coverage that they could check, but perhaps not until launch.

Also, they said that it was repaired, but the repair left it slightly out of spec. However, engineers reviewed it and certified it for launch.

My impression is that this is near where they lost a number of tiles on early missions that proved to be non-critical.

Not a big fan of the space shuttle, but...

[mclaincausey]

could the inclement weather have had something to do with the item falling off? Some pretty stiff winds there...

Time for Training

[daemonenwind]

The next training class for the NASA engineers:

Gravity 101: Still In Full Effect.

"I launch an astronaut into the air, and if bits land, I know not where".

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...

Re:Ironic & scary

[Beolach]

Actually, while I don't think it's the case here, often things that are designed for high speeds have troubles when standing still. Just one example, the SR-71 Blackbird's fuel tanks expand due to the heat produced by air friction when it's in flight. The way they were designed relies on the fuel tanks expanding - when it lands, its fuel tanks contract as they cool, and often have problems leaking fuel, so the fuel has to be drained ASAP after landing, so it isn't wasted.

Re:Ironic & scary

[amavida]

Wow interesting to know that about the sr-71!

Guess it's like how people think they can drive 4wd vehicles in water with impunity (like the ad's) whereas any decent mechanic will shake his head & say 'hey, oil seals are mean't to keep oil IN, not water OUT!

Mechanical things are sometimes counter intuitive...

Re:Ironic & scary

[rhennigan]

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

Me too, but I'd still strap in knowing the risks.

Re:FTUA

[the_quark]

And, Lord knows, this was a slashdot-specific story, and you certainly couldn't have gotten details anywhere else before you opened your mouth.

In Other News:

[VectorSC]

In other news, the space shuttle launch was canceled early this morning when an errant piece of seagull excrement struck the shuttle directly on its ceramic heat shielding and caused a 16 square foot hole.

Shuttle commander Eileen Kahlins saw the bird dropping strike the orbiter while talking with the media about her confidence in NASAW's (1) ability to meet tomorrow's launch window. Amid the rain of ceramic tiles and structural members around the podium she was speaking from, she was heard commenting to NASAW director Sean O'Keeth, "I thought you said you fixed that, you a**hole."

A heated arguement ensued, live, on national television, but was cut short when O'Keeth was struck down by a full HWSU (2) container falling from the orbiter. Kahlins immediately left the scene, telling reporters she had some vacation time coming.

(1 NASAW: National Association of Stupid Aerospace Wankers)
(2 HWSU: Human Waste Storage Unit, Solid)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Re:In Other News:

[shadowbearer]

(1 NASAW: National Association of Stupid Aerospace Wankers)

Please note that the only position NASA takes about the NASAW is the crash position; head between legs and ass in the air. :D

SB
Deserves a +1 Tasteless if anything does

Problem is fixed and they're go for launch

[Nefarious Wheel]

...weather gods permitting. It's in TFA, link supplied in parent post.

Space trash

[HornWumpus]

I think they use the Rusky supply vehicle to take off trash. Not that much delta-V is required to get it to burn up.

Why on earth would you even consider reusing a capsule? The whole point about staged rockets is that you get away cheaper overall because everything is use once.

Besides the shuttle does'nt come with two identicle hotties arguing over who's the clone. That just ain't right.

Re:Space trash

[Rei]

Yeah, as mentioned previously, Soyuz has had to make up the slack in taking trash and finished experiments home - but it can't take much, so it's been building up.

Why would you consider reusing a capsule? Ask the folks at T-Space - that was their bid for the CEV (and all the Rutan-worshippers praised them for the idea, completely unaware of capsule reuse difficulties). It certainly is doable, but for a group that's never even been to orbit or messed with a TPS to plan to reuse a capsule? Not very realistic. :P

Re:Space trash

[sznupi]

By "rusky supply vehicle" he means Progress, not Soyuz. The former can take quite a lot trash in it once the supplies are aboard the station...

Re:Space trash

[Rei]

Progress is a modified, unmanned Soyuz, first launched in 1978.

Re:Space trash

[sznupi]

Progress isn't Soyuz. Period.

Re:Space trash

[Rei]

Progress is Soyuz. Period. If someone said "Progress-M1 is Soyuz-TM", that would be false, but "Soyuz" is a family. In fact, the launch vehicles of Progress-M are called "Soyuz 11A511U" and "Soyuz FG". Even the orbiter is structured similarly.

Progress began as 11F615 Soyuz, but had its habitation module (bitovoy ostek, BO) replaced with a cargo module (gruzovy ostek, GO) and the descent module (spuskaemiy apparat) replaced with an extra fuel module (ostek komlonyemntov dozravki, OKD). Progress M upgraded Progress to merge it with the Soyuz-T orbiter design so that it could serve the same roles (Mir et al).

Re:Space trash

[sznupi]

Do you know what "is" mean? It is something like "=" applying to present time. Progress IS NOT Soyuz. You wrote arguments behind it yourself: Perhaps it began (was) like this. Perhaps one of the three main modules is the same - which leaves us two more, much more important because they make it what it is. And we're talking what it is. Launch vehicle has nothing to do with it - it was also used to launch maaany satellites/probes. Do you call them all "Soyuz"?

Re:Space trash

[sznupi]

And anyway...why do I even waste time shifting the point of mine/original poster posts to technical genealogy?

We were talking about FUNCTION, that was the whole point. In light of it Progress is an ENTIRELLY different beast than Soyuz.

Re:FTUA

[idonthack]

Wow. The only things not linked in that post are the hyphen and the period.
---
What subliminal message?
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Re:Quality Journalism

[idonthack]

Oooops?
---
A guy walks up to his friend and sees him hitting himself on the head with a hammer. "Why are you doing that!?", he asks. "Because it feels so good when I stop.", was the reply.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Cameras are good

[Veilrap]

I guess those cameras were a good investment.

I see the only solution in this kind of situation

[gummyb34r]

... let the astronauts out. NASA would not be able to keep them there, as they are trying to break windows and escape already.

Reservation Changes

[Doc Ruby]

The NASA admins in Washington are definitely looking at a lot harder recruitment campaign for new astronauts with these constant displays of "oops". After the Shuttle was grounded for years following the explosive deaths of all the astronauts, they had to make the return to flight look perfect. This does exactly the opposite. After they announced that they weren't going to do everything specified in the report on the last explosion - specifically the hardest 2 items on the list. If I were an aspiring astronaut, I'd be considering other options. If I were booked on this flight, I'd think about taking the train instead.

Damn Windows!

[joelsanda]

If it weren't for Windows ....

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!

Another suggestion

[RM6f9]

Lots of vitriol being spilled around this issue, might be time for yet another meaningless poll:

How to handle Space Exploration for the next decade:

1. Leave it as it is - The Vulcans will be visiting us soon anyway.
2. Bless those brave astronauts!
3. Ground the shuttle until we're absolutely positive nothing *else* will fall off.
4. In Soviet Russia, old Korean window covers fall off of CowboyNeal.
5. Space is too expensive, we need to pay for other stuff.
6. With the new Ultra-Telescopic lenses, all 107 cameras can resolve breasts from orbit! (sign me up!)

Keep a good a(TT)itude!

Why the shuttle?

[zoid.com]

It seems to me that the shuttle is so old school that it's costing more than it's worth to prep for launch. Most of the air breathing launch vehicles have proven that the rocket approach isn't required. even the re-entry doesn't need to be so fast that it requires heat shields that vulcan could be proud of. OK I's stupid......

What?

[J05H]

You IDIOTS!!! How could you damage the Shuttle AGAIN? Griffin talks about culture change and all that gobleddygook, and you foolish padrats drop a window cover on roughly the same place that doomed Columbia? Are you people stupid?

NASA does amazing, absolutely amazing things, witness Deep Impact and the Mars MER rovers. I wish Griffin would just say "it's broke, we're grounding them" and not fly the Shuttles anymore. This is ridiculous, they are outdated and fragile garbage scows. Put the old birds in a museum.

Josh, pissed off.

No Big Deal

[mirio]

I'm fairly confident little things like this happen to the shuttles all the time. This particular incident is getting so much press because of the anxious nature of this particular mission.

I for one wish them all the best...

Re:No Big Deal

[mirio]

Well, the thing that fell was not part of the shuttle, it was a cover over a window...not something that's 'attached' to the shuttle. The covers are only only there to prevent sunlight from coming into the crew cabin while the shuttle is sitting out in the hot Florida sun...it's not like it's part of the shuttle.

RFID tags on tiles

[brian0918]

Why don't they put RFID tags on all the tiles? A cheap solution, and they'll know the instant one of them is removed or severely damaged.

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

Oh great. So when the shuttle goes out shopping and walks into a store, all the alarms are going to go off!

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[Wilson_6500]

No, won't work. I don't think NASA has enough tape to keep the tags on.

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[ediron2]

heh heh heh... oh, wait... you're serious.

Adding complexity is rarely the answer to a problem. Put another way, every new complexity becomes a new way to fail.

IANARS, but adding a mechanism to get close enough to ping every RFID tile, ruggedizing the rfid for extreme force/heat/cold/vibration/thermal-expansion survivability, adding redundant rfid systems to EVERY tile to avoid failure of an RFID being mistaken for tile failure, designing the fail threshold (does a tile trigger a failure if 30% breaks off and that part doesn't have the rfid circuitry? What happens if the tile merely cracks, or loses the top 95% (after all, I'd put the rfid at the bottom of the tile as a ruggedization measure). I'm sure there are other modes of failure that are well-understood that you'd have to re-examine, but let me repeat, IANARS. Gamma bombardment could kill RFID chips, or electrostatic buildup or whatever.

(and here's me, getting sucked into yet another naive slashdot suggestion about rocket-science. No disrespect, but slashdot users have no credibility on rocket science, based on prior rocket-sci comment modding/posting insanity)

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[Bastian]

Hey! That's a great idea! And while they're at it, they can install Linux on all the tiles and make a Beowulf cluster out of them!

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[ElAsturiano]

you should be glad I dont have any mod points at this time... i would bring you down from that 4:Interesting pedestal someone put you on. BTW: RFID is not penicillin. it is not the next miracle of science godddammmmit!!!

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[brian0918]

Wow, some serious issues going on in your head.

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[brian0918]

Actually, I was referring to before the shuttle enters space. The last two shuttle problems (Columbia) and the current minor problem that the article discusses, were the result of problems happening before the shuttle enters space. We could keep track of all the tags before it enters space, and determine if anything could've damaged the tiles. At the very least, they should be placed on the more critical tiles, such as those that lead to the Columbia disaster. If we concentrated on those tiles, we could put multiple tags all over them and know for sure if any part of the tiles were damaged.

You don't necessarily have to choose to be a contrarian all the time.

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[ediron2]

So, at 26 miles up, moving 17,000 miles per hour, if the RFID dies, is that due to gamma, vibration, tile failure, sudden temp changes, or what?

And how exactly is a communications tool (rfid) a solution for nondestructive testing needs (detecting tile failure)? Oh, you mean that'll be done by some other thing embedded into the tiles?

How will embedding devices in the tiles change their performance? Could the small imperfections introduced by the addition of an RFID component create pinholes paths, cavitation or other modes of failure?

Rocket Science is tough. So tough that I have this grim expectation that within a decade we'll have seen at least one cheap orbiter full of dead Chinese 'nauts.

Re:RFID tags on tiles

[shadowbearer]

We could keep track of all the tags before it enters space, and determine if anything could've damaged the tiles.

RFID tags have a very, VERY short range. To "keep track of them" we'd have to have the sensors, sensors leads, computer time and communications for them aboard the shuttle.

More weight, lots more expense.

It's not actually a bad idea, it's just that it's adding a lot more complexity than they can build in right now. The shuttle already has about as sophisticated internal sensor network as we can make reliable under the conditions of flight at this point.

Maybe the next-gen craft, if it's built, will have something better, perhaps even based on something similar to RFID technology.

One thought; during reentry it's likely that any wireless "echoes" at low power - like RFID - will likely fall under the EM noise of the plasma sheath that the shuttle is generating moving thru the atmosphere. So they'd probably have to be hardwired - like the sensors are now. :)

Cheers,
SB

Shuttle Man - The Musical

[Bad to the Ben]

With apologies to Elton John's Rocket Man:

They slashed the funds last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And something else will fall off by then
I miss the earth so much I risk my life
The tech is out of date
On such a priceless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till NASA comes around again to find
They don't have funds to get my back to home
Oh no no no I'm a shuttle man
Shuttle man, 107 cameras but no rescue mode

ISS ain't the kind of place to sit for weeks
In fact it's cold as hell
And Atlantis might not work if you did
And all this budget I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A shuttle man, a shuttle man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time...

Re:Shuttle Man - The Musical

[TrippTDF]

That was hilarious. Very well done, my good man. I had to email that around this morning.

Re:Shuttle Man - The Musical

[Bad to the Ben]

Why, thankyou good sir :) .

What color was it?

[buckhead_buddy]

What I want to know is what color these protective covers are. It could give a whole new meaning to the term Windows Blue Screen of Death.

Is it just me or...

[Lithgon]

Launch: July 13, 2005 @ 3:51 p.m. EDT (1951 GMT)

7:51 GMT

Isn't GMT +5 from EDT or am I just hillucinating things again?

Re:Is it just me or...

[chawly]

Ah, these hills - you've just got to stop lucinating on them.

+1 Funny isn't specific enough.

[Wilson_6500]

Like I've always said, Slashdot DOES need +1 Redundant.

The Saturn 555

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

We need a new Saturn-type launch platform, a new Disposable Launch Vehicle.

The Saturn DLV!

It's about timer!

Re:The Saturn 555

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Why, yes, it is.

He did

[svzurich]

Bring back the Saturn V rockets and Apollo Lunar Modules. Those things WORKED!

How Convenient

[Ranger]

Maybe someone knows better and doesn't want the shuttle to launch and made sure that window cover accidentally fell of to postpone the mission. I'm not supersticious, but NASA should have waited until it was a Friday the 13th. Not Wednesday the 13th to launch.

And I'm not sorry if someone else wrote same speculation earlier. I'm too lazy and tired to check all the other posts. So there!

Falling Window Cover Damages Discovery

[Mathiasdm]

Did anyone else read this as 'Failing Windows causes damage to Discovery'?

Re:Falling Window Cover Damages Discovery

[chawly]

I'm sure that you are absolutely right - you are in a better position to know than am I. I know also that "what goes up, must come down" is an axiom which is not to be denied - even in this context. Let us just hope that what goes up this time will come down at the correct speed, the correct temperature, and that it will come to rest at the place foreseen. Have fun folks, as you do your thing.

Re:Falling Window Cover Damages Discovery

[chawly]

I must admit that, yes, I did. Please notice that I'm ashamed to admit it, though.

Failing Windows

[DavidD_CA]

Geezus.. is there ANYTHING that /. doesn't blame on Microsoft?

At least a patch was issued quickly.

Falling Window Cover ?

[rob_levine]

Window Cover ?

What?

Like a curtain?

WTF?

[vhogemann]

How many of you read "Failing Windows Covers Discovered Damage"?

It's too early in the morning, I going after another cup of cofee...

sheesh

[jpellino]

1. It's a joke - laugh.
2. this "simpliest" solution apparently didn't work
3. the story of the space pen is just that - an urban legend - and every time I hear it quoted, the price tag goes up - but congrats - you now hold the record at $60M. Everyone - US included - used a pencil until the pen was delivered. Everyone - Russians included - used the pen after that.

Speed of Shuttle

[DragonHawk]

"I might be wrong ( I probably am ) but once its moving doesn't the shuttle go faster than sound in order to achive escape velocity?"

Faster then sound? Just a bit.

Speed of sound = 760 MPH

Shuttle's orbital velocity = 17,000 MPH

If there's one thing space is good for, it's really impressive numbers. :-)

Granted, I don't know how fast the shuttle would be going while it was in the same altitude band that seagulls fly in.

(All figures are deliberate oversimplications.)

News?

[DragonHawk]

"news out of /. and the Reg."

News? Out of Slashdot and The Register? Come on. You might as well include The National Enquirer in that list. :-)

Two Words

[Sol_Web_Dude]

Duct Tape

Obligatory Armageddon Quote

[http101]

"Hey Harry."

"Yeah."

"Did you know we are sitting on 2 million gallons of fuel, a nuclear weapon and a thing with 270,000 loose parts that was built by the lowest bidder. Kinda makes you feel good dont it?"

JKXXMXN

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.

Re:So...

[3nd32]

Worst. Pun. Ever.

Yet, for some reason, I thought it was hilarious.

WMD claims hardly 'fabricated'

[mi]

The war was justified using fabricated claims of WMDs and terrorist strongholds, neither of which were true, it turns out.

If anyone did fabricate the claims, it was not the current administration. Here is my collection of quotes. But I think, most of the WMD claims were sincere -- it is illogical to think, "Bush Lied" (or Cheney did). Had they known (as we know do), Iraq was WMD-free, they wouldn't have said such things, knowing too, that the invasion is inevitable and the truth will soon come out.

No, they expected to see their words confirmed (the invading troops were training in chemical and bacteriological defence), and it was a very good guess on their part -- most in the Iraqi army believed in some super weapons too. And even the UN's top inspector (despite his annoyance with Americans) could not vouch for Iraq.

I may agree with you, that the WMD-aspect was, overstressed. Even if he had them, Saddam would, probably, never used them...

But such is today's world -- Saddam's overthrow was the greatest show of international aid of our times, but who is ever going to credit US for it? Maybe, the next generation of Iraqis will, if we find the guts to stay there long enough...

Back to the subject, the Shuttle was intended as a nationalist pride -- a show off even more ambitious (and even less practical) than Concorde, and ended up benefitting the science a little bit, but did significantly improve any lives...

Re:Funeral-on tasteless jokes [attn: The Wilschon]

[iamcf13]

Selfbain: Why don't they just hold the astronauts funerals before they launch so they can attend.

Tastefully tasteless 'gallows humour'. Well done I must say.

One I 'vaguely' remember from 1986 (regretfully).

Q: What kind of shampoo does Christa McAuliffe use?
A: Head & Shoulders.

Cheap, abrupt, and repugnant.

See the difference?

Violence and 'graphic imagery' is the key.

The same could be said of Maj. Kong's 'wild ride' from Dr. Strangelove but that was a cinematic work of brilliant satire and (thankfully so far) never happened.

Gallows humour is one way for people to deal/cope with tragedy in a comforting, somewhat uplifting fashion -- it is an outgrowth of the 'culture of death' purveyed by the USA media industry in the form of such things like gangsta rap, death metal, and corpse laden action movies.

Is it no wonder people watching '9/11' unfold on their TVs back on 2001-09-11 thought they were 'watching a movie'?...

That settles it then...

[6th time lucky]

LOL... quote.

Video also showed the fuel tank's nose cone hitting a bird about 2.5 seconds after liftoff, apparently without damage, he said.

from http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/26/space.shu ttle/index.html