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Katrina Delays Shuttle
guildsolutions writes "The scoop on MSNBC has it that NASA will not fly again until next fall. With NASA's reluctance to get back into space, and Hubble dying, We just wonder when private industry will put NASA out of the game."
I know Ring TFA is passe on /., but one big part of the problem is that, as they processed the data from the last flight, they found out that the computer models and wind tunnel testing did not match up with the actual data. Computational fluid dynamics is a tough thing to understand, and now they have found out that they've got to go back to the model and try to understand how it is wrong (and even more, figure out why the wind tunnel tests were wrong). This is like basing your models and testing on 1+1=2 and then finding out that 1+1=3; you've got to step back and figure out where you went wrong before you can figure out how to fix it.
Ask Burt Rutan how hard CFD and modeling is; SpaceShipOne had some serious stability problems. They just ignored them (even when their flight rules said they'd abort) and went on. If NASA did that, they'd be grounded and have Congressional investigations, but everybody thinks it is great that Scaled Composites did it.
but when you've barely done any work so far on fixing the problem (that I'm aware; I haven't seen any test summaries beyond "we got a few tanks to work on now"
Since when does lack of public news releases work done mean there's been no work done? Do you seriously think they're all sitting on their hands over at Nasa because you haven't read an article about what's going on?
AccountKiller
Private industry hasn't even come close to being able to reach the orbits that NASA does routinely (remembering that NASA's vehicles are built by private industry contractors).
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
For what feels like the millionth time, say it with me - NEW ORLEANS WAS NOT BUILT UNDER SEA LEVEL. The land is a bayou; the city sank in the between the 40's and 60's as result of the 'modern' levee/pump system & shipping lanes dyring up the land & preventing incoming silt from the Mississsippi. In your own words - educate yourself before you make a stupid post.
cheers, ben
cheers, ben
Never miss a good chance to shut up -- Will Rogers
http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
Friday, August 26
GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: [Office of the Governor]
GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]
Saturday, August 27
5AM KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. [Office of the Governor]
FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. [White House]
Sunday, August 28
2AM KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]
7AM KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]
MORNING LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE: Forecasters Fear Levees Wont Hold Katrina: Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow. [Lafayette Daily Advertiser]
9:30 AM MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: Were facing the storm most of us have feared, said Nagin. This is going to be an unprecedented event. [Times-Picayune]
4PM NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. Power outages will last for weeks. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards. [National Weather Service]
AFTERNOON BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: We were briefing them way before landfall. Its not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped. [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]
LATE PM REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer. [Times-Picayune]
APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]
Monday, August 29
7AM KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]
8AM MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: Ive gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, weve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much. [NBCs Today Show]
MORNING BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: I spoke to Mike Chertoff today hes the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are. [White House]
MORNING BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]
10AM BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: This new bill I signed says, if youre a senior and you like the way things are today, youre in good shape, dont
Private insurance companies do not, I repeat DO NOT, write flood insurance policies, at least not at affordable rates
Technically, private insurers do write the policies, they just don't pay the claims for FEMA flood insurance. Insurers handle the paperwork (which they're notoriously good at), but the risk is "underwritten" by the federales. [In the early 90s I worked on an project for a major insurance company that combined street maps of the kind you see on Mapquest along with digitized USGS flood zone survey maps to do high-speed accurate flood zone determination of properties based on street address]
However, did you notice all those cars, trucks, boats, cows and whatnot blown all to hell and back in N.O. by Katrina? Private insurance companies will be writing the checks on those claims. If the major insurers (State Farm, Nationwide et al) aren't setting up command posts in the stricken areas already, they soon will be.
I stand by my original post.
Actually, I agree with you that in the future is when the real actions will be able to be judged. I always said the same of the past presidents.
/., I doubt that too many really understand what is going on. In addition, few here seem to understand what happened
The problem is that GWB is doing his best to hide every single thing that goes on, and yet, it keeps showing how corrupt his admin really is.
Up till Xmas(for a 1.5 year), I was working on equipment that is to be used for patriot act and commercially. On the commercial side, we could read, copy and modify all unencrypted packets up to OC-48 speeds without any detection what so ever; We generated stats, as well as did other things. And that is the commercial system; it was F***ing FUN, but scarey in what it can do. Have you read the patriot act, or had any idea of what it is? Based on responses that I have seen in
Too carry this further, I have my first degree in Microbio/genetic engineering. I used to work at the CDC 25 years ago. Later, I worked on interesting DARPA projects. Part of all that worked enabled me to view the Anthrax stuff with a wary eye. One the interesting things about it, is that it was obvious that this was no less than 2 people and probably closer to 3 people doing this. And yet this admin points it finger at one person. Impossible.
In addition, this admin blocks Sibel Edmunds from speaking. She has nothing that deals directly with terrorists. But she has a lot of info that supposedly will kill this admin. And yet, we illegally block her.
This admin was called down for giving several unbided contracts to halliburton/kbr. That was illegal. And yet it was done.
Now we have a traitor in the white house who outed a CIA agent. GWB said that he would prosecute him/them if found. Now, that we have found them (rove and libby), he is backtracking. (BTW, I seriously doubt that the 2 chief of staffs would independently do this, and I seriously doubt that they would do this with out higher authorization).
These are just the small things. The deficit that we run will kill this nation. Poppa Bush and Clinton spent 10 years balancing reagan's outragous deficit. And in under 2 year, GWB was making reagan and ismeraldo marcos look like a amatuers.
In addition, O'Keefe was one of the worse admins in NASA history. He was responsible for blocking outside assistance in NASA.
Now, for the good news. GWB brought in Griffin. He is probably the best choice since James Webb. In fact, I think that it will take a bit of time, but NASA will right itself. Griffin has a lot of work to reverse what O'Keefe did to this agency. NASA needs to be out of this low orbit, no means of getting to space crap, and moving to places that others will not/can not afford to go. In addition, it should enable technologies. A good example is that Bigelows space station was developed by NASA. Sadly, it was killed because they were scared of competition to the space station (BIG MISTAKE). Bigelow saw the chance and got the rights to it. Way cool. Griffin will almost certainly get 1 billion spent on T/Space just to make sure that we never get into this situation again.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.