NASA Debates Second Discovery Repair

An anonymous reader writes "NASA is debating today whether or not they should attempt a second repair attempt of the Space Shuttle Discovery to repair a possible problem with the thermal blanket. On Wednesday, an astronaut removed two protruding cloth fillers from between the ceramic tiles on the space shuttle's heat shield. "I think in the old days we would not have worried about this so much," said shuttle programme deputy manager Wayne Hale The astronaut extended his gloved hand and quickly removed the first fiber strip, which was sticking up from Discovery's smooth, tiled underside. "It's coming out very easily," the astronaut said. Arm operator Jim Kelly then maneuvered the arm about three meters to the second protruding strip, known as a gap filler, and Robinson gently pulled that piece out as well. The concern now is whether or not a damaged thermal blanket under one of the cockpit windows would tear apart during re-entry and strike the orbiter."

Comments

Overclockers.com?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this truly the best source to quote for this type of story? I can think of several much better ones off the top of my head....
space.com
spaceflightnow.com
nasa.gov
flatoday.com
chron.com

This is the end of the road

[Otter]

This mission is it for the shuttles. There's no way they're going to go through this process again and again. The program has passed the point of rehabilitation, from a political and PR point of view, if not necessarily from a technical one.

I'll leave it to the space buffs to argue about whether that's a good or a bad thing -- I just pay my taxes and enjoy the pretty pictures.

Re:This is the end of the road

[Buran]

Actually ... can't be farther from the truth.

There has never been a 100% nominal sortie and there has never been a sortie without risk. The public has this idea that spaceflight is or should be risk-free, or at least as much as driving to work or flying commercially. Well, when you're in a mach 25 orbiter at 300 nm AGL in an environment where only 9 humans out of 6 billion are currently living, there's not much that's risk free. All in all, STS-114 is going well. It's doing exactly what it set out to do. It's delivered it's ISS module and completed replacement of a CMG. It's validated the new quality control photography. It is currently ops testing unprecedented inflight repair procedures. While we're talking about a few glitches, this is NOT something that compromises the survivability of the orbiter. If anything, this is something that increasing the engineering data on the TPS and can be used to improve TPS integrity on future flights, not to mention bettering the crew capacity for repair. As of flight day 9, STS-114 is a great flight.

Re:You know what they say...

[ptbarnett]

Plus its not like its costing us any extra money or anything.

Preparing for, and performing a spacewalk requires that the astronauts skip other tasks that have already been planned.

Safety first and all that.

A spacewalk is not without risk. That risk has to be weighed against the risk of not repairing the thermal blanket.

America's Obsession With Safety

[$RANDOMLUSER]

In the current climate of "safety at all costs", it's a wonder any of us leave the house. How many product commercials and local newscasts contain that dreaded solemnly intoned phrase "How you can keep your fmily safe". My god, the last presidential election was all about safety at all costs, and little else. We've lost fewer men in Iraq than an average day during World War II. Cars are marketed about safety, efficiency be damned. Does anybody remember when being blasted into space on the tip of a rocket was a brave and noble thing to do because it was fucking dangerous? Remember Gordo Cooper? Chuck Yeager? Anybody rember White, Grissom and Chaffee? How about the Russians who died? Can we please stop obsessing about Crista damn McAuliffe and go back to exploring space? Jesus Christ, America TAKE A CHANCE!
</RANT>

Re:America's Obsession With Safety

[prisoner-of-enigma]

esus Christ, America TAKE A CHANCE!

While I agree with you that this country has become far too risk-averse for its own good, you're not getting the whole point here.

Risk in and of itself is a vice, not a virtue. Risk is something to always be avoided wherever and whenever possible...unless the rewards from taking such a risk are deemed worth the danger, and so long as there is no better way to accomplish the goal.

In the case of the shuttle, exactly what are those seven astronauts risking their lives for? So we can study space? They could've done that in an Apollo capsule much more safely. Or, for that matter, in Skylab, launched not by the shuttle by by a stripped-down version of the Saturn V. Most of the experiments being performed on board the shuttle right now could be performed without the need for humans to interact with them. Indeed, some experiments would benefit from being on something other than a shuttle full of oxygen/nitrogen, rattling around from astronauts bouncing off the walls/floors, and shooting hydrazine thrusters all over the place.

In short, these astronauts are risking their invaluable lives, along with a billion dollars worth of hardware, to do some marginally-useful science that could be done much cheaper and more easily via other means. That, my friend, is the very definition of a stupid risk.

Now, if the astronauts were risking their lives to found a colony on the moon, or to go to Mars, that'd be something entirely different. But to keep going to LEO for the 115th time? What's the point? No wonder the public is disenchanted with the shuttle! It doesn't do anything grand, like land a man on the moon or go to Mars, and it still is very risky. More risk and less reward? Sure, gimme more of that any day. Not.

Re:You know what they say...

[Rei]

There is ALWAYS a cost for anything if you're prepared to look for it

Yeah, because when you factor in the salaries, benefits, and office resources used by those looking for the cost...

Re:You know what they say...

[Rei]

Why do people around here like to pretend that NASA hasn't been/isn't working on shuttle replacements? Do the projects "NASP", "X-33", "OSP", and "CEV" not ring any bells?

The reason NASP and X-33 don't exist is because they called for technology that doesn't exist - congress, the white house, and top NASA brass tried to schedule innovation. OSP was rolled into CEV, and CEV doesn't exist because the project was just started.

CEV, being rather unambitious, probably *will* come to exist (at least the LEO CEV, which is looking more and more to be different from the lunar CEV, which will in turn be different from the Mars CEV), but I hope that they don't stop research on the "enabling" technologies that were needed for NASP and X-33 that weren't ready yet.