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Discovery's Dangling Gapfiller Removed by Hand
Cyclotron_Boy writes "According to the New Scientist and NASA TV, Discovery's gap-fillers were removed successfully by hand by astronaut Steve Robinson earlier today during the eva. They didn't even have to use the forceps or the makeshift hacksaw-blade tool."
Transcript of conversation between Discovery and ground control:
Discovery: OK, Houston...I'm in position..I see the dangling gap-filler now.
Houston: OK, Discovery...just grasp the gap-filler and pull.
Discovery: OK, Houston...I'm pulling now...it's coming out...it's coming out rather easily.
Houston: Just keep pulling gently and firmly...you're doing well.
Discovery: It's still coming, Houston...there's a lot more here than I thought...
Houston: Say again, Discovery?
Discovery: I said there's quite a lot of gap-filler here...about twenty yards so far...
Houston: STOP PULLING, Discovery...it seems you're unravelling the whole belly of the ship!
Discovery: I'm what, Houston? Say again, ple...OH SHIT! THE GODDAMNED TILES ARE ALL FALLING OFF!
Houston: Don't panic, Discovery.
Discovery: DON'T PANIC, YOU ASSHOLE? WHAT SHOULD I DO? WE NEED THOSE TILES!
Houston: Stand by, Discovery...we're working on a solution.
Discovery: SCREW YOU, HOUSTON! We're going to the ISS now...send up another shuttle to carry our asses back home!
Houston: Um...yeah...about the other shuttles, Discovery...
Discovery: What NOW?
Houston: Yeah...the shuttle fleet has been permanently grounded...too many people freaked about the foam thing...
Discovery:Nobody up here CARES, Houston...you get us a flight outta here NOW, or we start smashing satellites!
Houston: OK, OK, Discovery...no need to get violent...I'll make some calls.
Discovery: Yeah...you do that...and just so you know we're serious...
Houston: What do you mean?
Discovery: When we hear some good news from you, you'll get CNN back. Not before.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
"What's Bond doing?"
"I think he's attempting reentry, sir."
I'm just finishing reading "Comm Check," a book on the Columbia accident by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood. I've read a lot about the shuttle ever since its first flight 24 years ago, and if there's one thing that's abundantly clear, it is this: the shuttle is a lemon.
What's so tragically funny here is that, in the book, a NASA rep is quoted as saying "the shuttle isn't a lemon" right after the CAIB report pretty much said NASA was flying a platform that was not only unreasonable unsafe, but also one having such serious design flaws as to be much less safe than necessary. Spaceflight may never be as safe as an airplane ride, but the level of risk associated with the shuttle is just much more than it could've been with a better design.
Disocover magazine had a lengthy article about twenty years ago on how the shuttle was developed, and it was an amazing insight into how so many compromises can add up to a vehicle that is not only hugely different than what was originally invented, but also one that just doesn't do anything really well. The cargo capacity was too small. It can't achieve high orbits. It lands as an unpowered glider with a glide ratio of a brick wall. It has solid boosters that can't be throttled, trimmed, or turned off. There is no practical escape or abort manuver during the most dangerous parts of the flight (launch & re-entry). Worst of all, it's designed in such a fashion that there are an amazing number of "criticality-1" items. If a crit-1 item fails, it will result in "loss of mission, crew, and vehicle." The shuttle system has several thousand crit-1 items. To the average I.T. geek, that's like running a few thousand servers, each holding billions of dollars worth of data, and not having any redundant hard drives, power supplies, or UPS's. In other words, madness.
There isn't a single solitary thing the shuttle does better than the Apollo-era capsules it was supposed to replace. Launch costs for the shuttle were supposed to be 1/10th those of the throwaway boosters, but instead they are more than ten times what the Saturn V cost in adjusted dollars.
So, to sum it up, the shuttle is more expensive, less reliable, less capable, and more dangerous than its predecessor. Yeah, gimme more of that.
The ISS is also a boondoggle for many of the same reasons. Why do we have a shuttle fleet? To build the space station, of course! Why are we building a space station? To give the shuttles somewhere to go, of course! It's a circular argument. No shuttle equals no station, and no station equals no shuttle. No wonder NASA has its head so far up its exhaust nozzles it can't see the shuttle is an amazing failure. To admit failure would be to kill off the two biggest projects the organization has.
As has been said elsewhere here, our technology is just not yet at the point where something like the shuttle is practical. We just don't have the propulsion and materials to do it just yet. What we should be doing instead is using the best practical technologies out there, namely BDB's (Big Dumb Boosters). The aren't sexy, but they work, and they can haul a cubic buttload of cargo into orbit -- or beyond.
Unfortunately, I have the sinking feeling NASA is going to have to kill another seven astronauts before they finally, regrettably put the shuttle to bed. It was a good try, but you have to be able to admit when you are wrong. Build us a modern version of the Saturn V. With modern materials and modern computers, it could be made more cheaply and even more reliable than before, probably with more lift capacity as well. Make it so it does one thing very well. We don't need a Swiss Army knife of a shuttle to get into space, not when you've got much better proven technologies that are already available. NASA can get this right. The big question is, will they?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky