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NASA Probes Shuttle Oxygen Leak

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the getting-started-with-a-bang-not-necessarily-a-good-thing dept.

Cherita Chen writes "NASA is investigating the possibility of a gaseous oxygen leak, posing a serious fire risk, during the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in July. From the article: 'Engineers uncovered possible evidence of high concentrations of the gas in the rear engine compartment about two minutes after lift-off. A leak could lead to a fire or even an explosion in flight.'"

16 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Oh no! by mrRay720 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They'd better not let all of that dangerous oxygen escape into the atmosphere!!

    1. Re:Oh no! by JourneyExpertApe · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oxygen isn't dangerous per se, but it becomes deadly when it reacts with hydrogen to form dihydrogen monoxide.

      --
      If you can read this sig, you're too close.
  2. Gas in the rear engine compartment... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...can really make you unpopular with the rest of the crew.

  3. 500 parts per million? by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What is the significance of the 500 parts per million figure in the article? What is the rest of the gas made up of? As a reminder, normal air is 20% oxygen, or 200,000 parts per million.

    1. Re:500 parts per million? by RayBender · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The engine compartments are filled with pure N2 to prevent the possibility of fires. 500 ppm of O2 is quite small, but it shouldn't be there at all - clearly something is not right...

      By the way, the inert-gas fill of the engine spaces has caused problems - I think a couple ground crew were killed some years back when they entered the spaces before they had been properly vented.

      --
      Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
    2. Re:500 parts per million? by greensasquatch · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Isn't ppm a percentage, shouldn't 200ppm at sea level be the same percentage of oxygen as 200ppm at altitude (just fewer molecules). Or is this not how the sensors are calibrated.

  4. Re:Say what? by boarder8925 · · Score: 4, Funny
    I think something smells fishy.
    Really? I thought it smelled like a Taco Bell burrito....

    =P
    --
    Keep your eyes to the sky.
  5. It's True! by andyb2083 · · Score: 5, Informative

    See DHMO.org for more info.

    1. Re:It's True! by darkmeridian · · Score: 4, Informative

      I cannot believe that the parent post got modded up as "Informative". It's a JOKE! Read the bottom of the site: "Note: content veracity not implied ". Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is water (H2O). Di (two) hydrogen (H) Mono (One) Oxide (O).

      Fine.

      --
      A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
    2. Re:It's True! by TWX · · Score: 3, Funny

      "I hope you realize that an `Informative' mod can also, like grandparent, be a joke. He did, after all, provide information about this deadly substance."

      And vice versa. I find that half of time the hard-found information that I post to slashdot is somehow considered Funny...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  6. some comments on your comments by JourneyExpertApe · · Score: 5, Informative

    High concentrations of oxygen won't combust, it's the lower-middle concentrations (especially mixed with certain other chemicals) you have to watch for.

    I believe you're confusing oxygen with a fuel. Oxygen won't combust at all. But putting a solid or liquid fuel in contact with pure oxygen and an ignition source is a recipe for disaster. It's true that if the oxygen concentration were to reach such a high level that all other flammable gasses present were below their LFL the mixture wouldn't burn, but that wouldn't make the situation safe because a more concentrated fuel source could be introduced and you'd have a huge fireball on your hands.

    --
    If you can read this sig, you're too close.
  7. Scuttle the Shuttle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The shuttle program has run its course, it's too complicated to maintain and operate, unreliable and countless times, astronauts, engineers have said it that it would have been more cost effective and safer to just use re-usable expendable rockets. The irony is Nasa probably had hints about this back in the 80's and only now 20+ year's later are the heading to the drawing board to come up with a replacemnet. NASA lost it's forward thinking ability after the moon landings... We need maybe one or two smaller versions with forward thinking individuals..

    1. Re:Scuttle the Shuttle by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Dude, they knew all this before they even fucking built it. The Shuttle was a decent (if suboptimal) design before the military got at the specifications. It had to carry and be able to deploy cargoes of a certain size to get the write-off from the military.

      The shuttle was supposed to be a prototype and we were supposed to move on. Instead, we got the shuttle, and it was "good enough" so we hung on to it. The fact that we A> discard the main tank, B> have to totally rebuild the SRBs, and C> have to rebuild the main engines, and all of this for each flight makes it just as cheap (if not cheaper) to use rockets as compared to the shuttle. The only thing the shuttle has that rockets don't is that it can be used to bring things back from space. Well, if those things are the right size and shape for the cargo bay, anyway.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  8. And it makes me wonder... by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Historically, there have been many space flights with very few fatal malfunctions (Challenger and Columbia). There were even more test flights of the shuttle craft. Out of curiosity, has it always been a possibility that an "explosion could happen during flight" but with probability on their side, it didn't?

    What I'm trying to say is that you're trying to put a rocket into space with (almost) a piece of the sun on its backside. Aren't there always possibilities of explosions when what's powering you is, essentially, a controlled explosion?

    --
    My work here is dung.
  9. Spark + high O2 concentration = disaster by Robert+Heinich · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am surprised that no one has mentioned that we have had astronauts killed from this combination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1

  10. Atmospheric oxygen is actually very balanced by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Informative
    In a very interesting book called "Oxygen: The molecule that made the world", Nick Lane explains a lot of things, including why our atmospheric oxygen level is what it is. Even a small increase (a few %) can increase the likelihood of combustion of plant materials and other natural oxygen absorbing reactions. If oxygen gets too low, then carbon depositing reactions, amongst others, increase to release more.

    If you mess with oxygen levels the chances of fire go up quite a bit, one of the reasons why people are paranoid about static electricity some high oxygen environments like operating theatres and decompression chambers.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.