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Shuttles Grounded Once Again
PipianJ writes "After discovering that the piece of the shuttle that fell off mysteriously, not actually striking it, (as reported earlier) was a piece of foam insulation not unlike the piece that ended up in the destruction of Columbia, Yahoo News reports that NASA has once again grounded the shuttle fleet."
So how are they going to ground the one in orbit?
The point is, now that we're looking intensely for problems in this area, we're going to find them. We're looking with eyes, cameras, satellites, lasers, sensors, robotic arms - all with unprecedented scrutiny. What do we expect to find? The shuttles are the most complicated pieces of machinery ever built, designed to launch into space with a controlled explosion, and then return to earth. Regardless of whether some here think the shuttle is junk, whether it's unnecessary, whether Air Force jocks doomed the program for the beginning, whether manned spaceflight is sentimental tripe, etc., the fact remains that flying something like the shuttle is a risky endeavor.
It's all about smart management of risk. Eliminating risk, especially for something like the shuttle, is impossible. This focus on debris falling from the shuttle is nothing more than a reactionary CYA tactic in the midst of a media circus in case something else like this were to happen again. Doing get me wrong: it's wise to consider the problem, to attempt to prevent it, and to ensure there is not undue exposure. But that exposure cannot be eliminated, and this intense focus on debris in particular beyond anything else, even in light of Columbia, is unwarranted.
NASA is operating in panic mode: one more catastrophic shuttle failure, and that's the end of the shuttle program, and essentially the practical end of the ISS and a lot of scientific research to boot. If you're paralyzed with fear, you're, well...paralyzed.
This New York Times article, which I posted in the previous article on this, sums up the situation quite nicely, for those who may have missed it.
Notable:
"How do you distinguish - discriminate - between damage which is critical and damage which is inconsequential?" asked Dr. David Wolf, an astronaut who spent four months aboard the Russian space station Mir. "We could be faced with very difficult decisions, in part because of all this additional information that we will be presented with."
"...the harder they look, they'll find more things."
"There is risk in anything you do."
July 27, 2005
Intense Hunt for Signs of Damage Could Raise Problems of Its Own
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 26 - Now that the Discovery is in orbit, the examination begins. Its 12½-day mission will be the most photographed in the history of the shuttle program, with all eyes on the craft to see if it suffered the kind of damage from blastoff debris that brought down the Columbia in February 2003.
There were cameras on the launching pad, cameras aloft on planes monitoring the ascent, cameras on the shuttle checking for missing foam on the external fuel tank, and a camera on the tank itself. One camera caught a mysterious object falling from the shuttle at liftoff; radar detected another, about two minutes into the flight. Cameras aboard the shuttle and the International Space Station will monitor the Discovery until the end of its mission.
But all this inspection may be a mixed blessing. The more NASA looks for damage, engineers an
...to wake up to, if you're on the Shuttle in orbit! That has just GOT to be a major morale booster for the people currently in space.
"Uh, yeah. Remember Columbia? Well, to make sure it doesn't happen again, none of the Shuttles are going to fly. Oh, except you guys. You're cool. Trust us."
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This sounds like the death of US space travel, but maybe this will speed along a space shuttle replacement.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
NASA needs to re-adopt the paint on the external tank. At least on the shuttle side of the tank, the foam insulation needs a coat of paint to eliminate the porosity of the foam. That will lock the ice out of the foam and prevent it from tearing it off the tank.
The paint probably ought to be non-stick coated to inhibit excess ice formation too. Then put heaters in critical locations to break up the ice while the shuttle stack is sitting on the ground, or still moving at slow speeds. That way, supersonic chunks of ice won't go zinging into the shuttle body and we don't have to wonder if we've launched another one way mission to space.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Except Discovery is not "seriously damaged".
(And another shuttle would hardly be "scrambled".)
And the fact that the over 15,000 pieces of debris that hit the shuttle on the previous 113 flights didn't cause any problems 112 of those 113 times. You might say once is too many, but we're only finding issues here because we're looking so hard.
And, no, it's not "hard to do" with one shuttle on orbit. The fleet is grounded. Discovery is on orbit. Once it returns, no further shuttles will be launched until further notice. Quite simple.
I think that Atlantis is in need of a new Zero Point Module before it can be used for any rescue missions.
(*Damn* I hate that show.)
Maybe they should start painting the foam again, as called for in the initial design spec. I know if was heavy and expensive, but it might stick together better.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I see it! I see it! http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/TECH/space/07/27/space .shuttle/top.shuttle.debris.jpg
See that red arrow? THAT'S what hit the shuttle!
I guess you've never heard of an embedded system.
Those can't ship with bugs. Try applying a patch to several hundred 512 byte micros that are controlling the charging systems on the shock paddles in hospitals.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Jokes about the shuttle fleet being grounded while one is on orbit aside But I ... was just about to .. then you ... and I ...
You preempted my clever +5 Funny -- which I was all about to post with a high degree of self satisfaction -- in the first CLAUSE of your comment, DAMN YOU DAVE SCHROEDER, DAMN YOUUU!
Give the rest of us a chance at some karma, wouldja? ... I told them not to touch the red stapler ... then on Slashdot ... said to put the joke aside ... aside, I tell you ... going to burn down the server ...
Need A Shuttle Alternative
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I wonder how risky was the cross atlantic sailing were in the mid 1500's. I am sure mortality was a lot higher then 1% then it is with the shuttle program. If you are going to ground the fleet when a takeoff was near perfect and inspection did not show any problems, but there was a bit of derby that the experts expected anyways, just seems like the politicians are in control and have no courage, because there are a few winers about it (Which would consist of probably the same percentage of people that the morality rate of the shuttle). Yes compared to Airplain, Boats of this era, and even cars, The shuttle is dangerous, that is why highly skilled pilots are on board, because it is dangerous.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Moore's law works on the shuttle too. if only NASA, and the government goons, would open the development and research funding to the public market."
No it doesn't. Aerodynamics is a pretty mature science. Look at cars, aircraft, and ships. They do not double in performance every 18 months.
1 Moore's law IS NOT law of physics like the speed of light is a constant.
2. Moore's law is based on observation of one specific technology integrated circuits.
3. Moore's law even for integrated circuits will have a limit.
The only way to improve the design drastically would be to build NEW shuttles. There is a limit to how much you can improve a design without building a new design.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Not true.
Certain computing systems absolutely must operate reliably. Unfortunately, modern engineering does not offer a solution to the problem due to a number of constraints.
Essentially, teams setting out to write flawless systems will be practically incapable of doing so in reasonably complex instances.
Because of this, we use redundancy. It is of note, however, that people have been killed by buggy software, and that this is something that we can control with proper practices (by which I don't mean any of the more asinine things that the industry has come up with).
Instances of software both behaving well, and killing people because of malfunctions, can be found in domains such as health care and the military.
So a piece of foam that was like the one that hit Columbia fell off - the key difference being, that this one DIDN'T hit the shuttle.
On one hand, I can understand NASA's safety concerns - but, at the same time, it seems that they didn't do a lot to change the external fuel tank - its construction, etc. In fact, you could even say that this is why the shuttle was grounded from a July 13 launch - the sensor that was faulty was built in 1989.... they considered it to be in 'good condition', but, I mean, if it's a 16 year old piece of equipment, how good of condition is that? (I'm not exactly sure how this could be true - external tanks aren't reused, and so unless NASA stockpiled them in the late 80's, the tank would be newer; did the article just mean that it was a 1989 design?)
On the other hand - we know that pieces of foam have fallen off twice in the past 2 launches - once with devastating effects, and once without. I don't know if anyone at NASA saw fit to review old launch tapes and look for falling insulation à la the stuff that struck Columbia, but it seems possible that, given the construction of the external tank, it might be relatively common - and thus, nothing THAT BIG to worry about since its only been a problem 1/115 times. (Its still an inherent design flaw).
So, now the shuttle fleet is grounded again - will it be another 2 1/2 years? Making it early 2008 before the shuttle flies again? I mean, if it seems like foam just flies off of external tanks, the only way to REALLY solve this problem would be either encasing existing tanks in a new (heavy, expensive) "exo-tank," or just designing new tanks, right? I mean, this isn't some minor design consideration.
All this makes me think... with NASA already pressing for a new manned vehicle by 2010, are the powers that be in NASA just saying, "We don't want to fly the shuttle anymore, its a $2bn death trap, doesn't get us cool places and is damned inefficient at lifting cargo" and asking instead to concentrate on a new vehicle, just forgetting about the shuttle? I mean, if NASA spends $500m and 30 months modifying the shuttle fleet just to retire it 24 months after that, that seems dumb, right? Even by government standards?
Anyone?
Tim
Since the reason for the foam insulation on the tank is to prevent condensation from forming on the ground between the time the tank is filled with liquid fuel, and the time of launch, and is not needed past T-0, how about this?:
Jettison the foam at T-0, during engine ignition.
Velocity at that point in time is low enough that no foam strikes will have any chance of damaging orbiter tiles.
The foam and ice stay on the ground. The orbiter, and tank, go up. Probably a few thousand pounds lighter, as well.
Sure, there's the problem of getting all of the foam off in a few seconds, leaving none behind. Maybe by forming the foam around a fine, mesh netting, and attaching that netting to the ground via cables, it all slips right off at T-0.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Not really.
The X-33 was over-budget, late, and suffering major development problems. The performance was getting worse and worse. And then you would have had to hope that Lockheed-Martin was willing to put up their portion of the funds to build the production booster.....
And, at the same time, Iridium was bankrupt, "Dark Fiber" was eating into comsat requirements, etc.
And worst of all the Skunk Works had said, "Hey, we've been building all kinds of classified stuff all these years. I know that nobody in the public field can make a multi-lobed composite hydrogen tank, but we can pull one off, winkwinknudgenudge" So when it was shown that they couldn't, people lost faith. Especially because the only actually novel, testable parts of it was that multi-lobed composite hydrogen tank and the linear aerospike... everything else wasn't going to be getting a proper workout because it wasn't going to have enough speed to really properly test the metal skinned TPS or much else.
The problem was the X-33 was the riskiest design of the three contenders. So it was mostly doomed from the start....
No, they'll probably figure out how to dust off the shuttle yet again and fly it. Remember, it's just the PAL ramp that's the problem, so they might just be able to change it to using a metal cover.
Gentoo Sucks
Close, but not quite.
The shuttle-as-the-second-stage-of-a-Apollo V was an alternative to the SRBs later in the design.
I liked that idea signifigantly better, because the Saturn V stage would have been useful for other things...
The shuttle was initially supposed to be all-reusable. Two shuttle-vehicles would launch together and one would go all the way to orbit and the other would go back to the ground. They could do it, but not in the budget given with the performance required. They could have made it smaller but fully reusable and in budget, or use a drop tank and make it bigger and stay in budget.
Gentoo Sucks
Was there any/much foam shedding prior to the removal of paint from the external tank?
Just wondering what the adhesive effects of all that white paint were.
Dont know about you guys but a 1 in 113 chance of a massive catastrophy sounds pretty high to me.
And that's why they pay astronauts the big bucks.
The fact is space travel is still in its infancy. The space shuttle was supposed to transition us to the point where space travel was routine, but for a variety of reasons that never happened. We thought it was happening, in the early 1980's, but then the Challenger brought us back to reality (I actually wrote "back down to earth" before realizing what a bad metaphor that would be). Anyway, even if the shuttle was as successful at everything it was supposed to be, a transition is still a transition. The shuttle was to help us learn how to make space travel routine.
It's done that, but it is a complicated machine, and as the saying goes, this is rocket science. It's not easy, and I remember reading a bit after the Columbia accident that despite the OV (Orbiter Vehicle) designation the shuttles carry, they are still considered experimental vehicles within NASA and are treated as such. Astronauts are by definition test pilots. The fact that they actually get real work done on most missions is pretty amazing, considering. But they go into it with an understanding that it is dangerous work - even knowing that, could you imagine a better, more honorable way to die if it came to that? Would you rather die working for your country, for humanity, doing important scientific work that will pave the way for future generations, or would you rather die of a heart attack while sitting on a toilet taking a crap one day? This is the thinking astronauts have.
Someday, we will reach the point where space travel is relatively safe. But the early shuttle days were a red herring - space travel has never been safe, and it is still not safe. This doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Since Columbia, there has been a rumbling that suggests if you can't make space flight as safe as atmospheric flight, that manned space flight should simply be abandoned until it can be. That's at least partly what's behind the decision to ground the fleet today - after all, nothing happened on Discovery's launch that hasn't happened on every other launch before. The issue is this is no longer considered an acceptable risk.
Maybe in the end this will be a good thing, and it will drive NASA to create more robust vehicles that genuinely are safer, and that will put us on a path towards commoditizing space travel. My fear is that it will simply scare us away from manned space travel altogether, which will be a shame.
The space shuttle fleet is definitely near the end of its useful life, though... which is kind of hard for me to acknowledge, as someone who watched the first experimental flights of the Enterprise live on TV in the 1970's. This was a huge event back then, filled with the promise of things to come. Well, like a lot of things in life, the shuttle program accomplished a whole lot of things but never quite did live up to its full potential. And now it's winding down, in a not very good way. Oh well, such is life, and hopefully NASA and the world will learn from the experience. I just really hope the recent shuttle problems don't scare this country away from space flight altogether. It is dangerous and we must accept that, even as we strive to make it safer.
The foam in question insulates the disposable fuel tank so ice doesn't form on it. It does not reach orbit and is not part of the shuttle. The problem with the previous shuttle was that the foam hit the shuttle tiles as it fell off. Since this foam did not hit the shuttle, there is no problem with it.
Infuriate left and right
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/05072 7palrampimages/
looks an awful lot like the unidentified chunk of debris that missed the starboard wing (scroll to bottom of link).
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/05072 6images/
If they cannot land the shuttle there's always the Space Station. This would mean up to seven new astronauts/cosmonauts in addition to the two already stationed there. In which case they'd run out of food and other resources pretty quick. The Russians would have to launch a Soyez to send provisions until they figure out how to get off that island.
"Now sit right back
and you'll hear a tale,
the tale of a fateful trip
That started from Cape Canaveral
abord this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailerman
the skipper brave and sure
five passengers set sail that day
on a nine day tour
***
The weather was impeccable
but the insulation foam was lost
if not for the courage of slash dot chat
the Discovery would be lost..."
***
The crew set foot on the ISS
a small galactic isle....
[...what comes next?!]
How about switching back to the older foam that shead less. NASA switched to an "envrionmentally friendly" foam a few years back, even though they have an exemption...
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Astronauts are on government pay scales GS-11 thru GS-14.
The lowest step of GS-11 is $45K per year, the highest step of GS-14 is $99K per year.
Another way to look at it is that they do it in spite of the middling bucks, because that's the sort of person they are.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I wonder how risky was the cross atlantic sailing were in the mid 1500's. I am sure mortality was a lot higher then 1% then it is with the shuttle program.
Although life was worth less then, at least there was an immediate economic incentive to making such a risky voyage. You could even frame it in terms of thousands of colonists that depend on those ships for trade. The only reason to send people into space currently is to send people into space. I personally think that's a decent reason, but I for my money's worth I'd rather put up a few new space telescope to find nearby planetary systems with or whatever, or send off a few robots to explore Mars or the moons of the gas giants.
The other problem with your argument is that no matter which century you live in, if given the choice between two transportation systems, all other things being about equal you should go with the more reliable one. Russia has a safer system, we should use it until we've built something comparable of our own.
Better yet, wrap a long continuous thread (carbon fiber, kevlar, nylon, rayon, something) around the foam in a tight spiral wrap from top to bottom to secure the foam against the tank in addition to the adhesive holding the foam to the tank. It would be much harder for chunks of the foam to come off out from under the spiral wrap thread, and it would be lightweight and cheap too.
Considering it's been 360 years since the last English Civil war and 140 years since the last American Civil war, I'd be inclined to say that the American system is fairly stable, but doesn't look set to be breaking any records quite yet. I come from Australia where the last thing that looked like it could have become a civil war (but didn't) happend in Ballarat 160 years ago and so even that beats America's current record.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Example: Airbus' fly-by-wire system, designed to override a pilot when a dangerous decision was made, erroniously concluded a forest was a runway after a very low pass was made over it. Deciding the speed was too high, it cut the engines. Both pilots and something like 18 journalists were killed. Airbus blamed the pilots - a safe decision as the pilots couldn't answer back, being dead and all, and the only one they could have made. Blaming the computer could have put them out of business.
That would be a good story if you hadn't made it up. The pilot had slowed to near stalling speed
and realised too late he didn't have enough high t to clear the trees, he pulled back hard on the stick and went down into the trees. The computer didn't change the outcome one bit.
>You're limited in how much and what size by doing that. In case you all haven't noticed. The orbiter plus the solid rocket boosters form a powered triangle. A more stable formation for carrying a big load, say a telescope.
You're kidding, right, AC? The Shuttles can carry at most 28 tons of cargo. Saturn V could lob 118 into LEO. Proton can boost almost as much as Shuttle, for far less money, including a series of integrated space station components (Zarya, Zvezda, Mir baseblock). Maybe the trunnion pins were great for launching Hubble, but that is the exception. Your "triangle" thing doesn't make sense, inline thrust structure is more efficient, less mechanically complex and makes trajectory calculation simpler.
>And siting on top of a roman candle is safe?
Yes, comparatively. For manned flight, a rocket under the crew is far safer than having components next to them. Launch escape towers are safe, accurate tools for keeping crews safe from an exploding "candle". There is footage online of a Soyuz capsule popping off the rocket right above the pad, the rocket failed but the crew lived. The same can't be said for low-altitude launch problems with Shuttle.
Capsules, rockets and tugs for station components make sense. Buck Rogers spaceplanes don't.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
The facts of the crash are not as cut and dried as either of you state and many are wrong. The pilot survived, along with most of the people on board, and was found guilty of manslaughter in the 3 fatalities connected to the crash. The funny thing is that two primary claims of the pilot in his defence were Operational Engineering Bulletins from Airbus Industrie regarding:
OEB 19/1 Engine Acceleration Deficiency at Low Altitude
OEB 06/2 Barometric Cross Setting Check
In a nutshell, the bulletins state that the engines didn't respond "normally" to throttle input and that barometric altitude indicator did not comply with airworthiness regulations. Air France chose not to share this information with the pilots. Naturally, this is the kind of thing that the data recorders could shine some light on. The data supported the claims that it was pilot error and the case was closed.
In 1998 it was determined that the data that was supposedly from the flight had been compromised. The flight data and cockpit voice recorders had been tampered with during a 10 day period when they were not in the hands of the magistrate's office. They were in the hands of the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC), contrary to their own regulations. The funniest thing is that one of the boxes presented as coming from the crashed A320 spontaneously changed its markings during the interim. An independent body from Switzerland determined that there had been a switch by comparing photos of the CVR being recovered from the crash site with the one presented as evidence.
While the "official" verdict was pilot error there is enough evidence to call that verdict into question. Who lost the least with the verdict? Airbus was introducing an advanced aircraft and attempting to challenge Boeing, and they were selling the "advanced" electronics of the 320 series: even admitting that there may be an issue with the system would have had devastating consequences.
The onboard computers did lead to a few incidents with the A320. In 93 a Lufthansa pilot made a landing with a very low sink rate, so low the flight computers would not allow the deployment of thrust reversers or brakes for a number of seconds. The plane ended up going off the runway. I guess you could make too soft a landing.
Admittedly they seem to have solved those problems, and I have no qualms flying in an Airbus but then again I flew Aeroflot a couple of times.