Slashdot Mirror
NASA's Michael Griffin Interviewed
richvan writes "NASA administrator Michael Griffin was recently interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel about his first nine months on the job. He covers topics such as foam, Challenger, Mars, the budget, the astronaut corps and intelligent design. Describing the reasons for the foam loss, he states 'Cycling of the tanks with cryogenic propellants - in fact, [super-cold] liquid hydrogen, because we don't see this problem with liquid oxygen - causes or exacerbates voids in the bond between the foam insulation and the tank and produces cracks in the foam. If and when those cracks propagate to the surface, with a crack connecting a void to the surface, then you have a mechanism for cryopumping. When the tank is cold, air is ingested. It liquefies and goes into the voids. Then as the tank empties and the [air] warms up and evaporates, the resulting pressure blows the foam off.'"
How, exactly, to you go from discussing the technical aspect of space fuel tank construction, to starting a debate on friggin intelligent design?
Orlando Sentinel = troll.
...in the case of the shuttle.
From my perspective, this is possibly the best news here. Hubble actually generates science whereas the ISS seems to do less interesting things.
- AlanH
Q: What about the foam.
A: We'll see how the changes work.
Q: But what if there's more foam.
A: That would be bad and we'll have to figure it out.
Q: But what if the foam destroys the space program!
A: I don't want to talk about it.
Q: But what about THE FOAM?!
A: NNNNgggghhhh....
Q: What if the foam makes another Challenger happen?
A: The Challenger was a sad accident.
Q: How do you think you've changed things? (Like with the foam?)
A: NNNNnnnnnggghhh!
Q: Do you think foam is intelligently designed?
That pretty much sums it up.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Well, if you see ID for what it really is, a front for religion, mightn't finding intelligent life well outside the scope of religion (which talks about man on earth as being God's little LEGO guys) pull a bit of the rug out from the ID folks?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Maybe they should use Tempurpedic mattress foam. Instead of damaging the shuttle, it would just conform to the shape of the portion it struck, resulting in a night of wonderful sleep for all of Mission Command.
How about this idea... DUCT TAPE! It might also solve that so-called heat tile problem...
I followed the documentary some time ago as they outlined the new procedures in applying the foam since the Columbia disaster in 2003. I witnessed as they applied new layering techniques for the foam and implemented space walk tile recovery and repair technologies. Quite frankly, I wasn't convinced then and am even more skeptical now with foam separations occurring from recent launches.
Has anyone heard or read of any new technologies to replace the current foam application completely? Does anyone have any percentage or statistical data illustrating the success to failure ratio of past Shuttle deployments to (say) Saturn rockets (or past similar systems)? It would be a nice graph comparing the ~20 years of shuttle incident vs. ~20 years of Saturn incidents (or similar). Surely, those studies have occurred somewhere.
I propose giving the EPA the finger and using the really old un-PC foam process until a suitable replacement has been built and tested.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A micro crack occurs.
Atmosphere fills the voids.
The atmosphere liquifies inside the voids.
When the LH is removed, the liquified atmospheric gases are returned to gaseous form.
The change in pressure blows out the foam from the inside, because the liquid air is gasified within the foam crack and has nowhere to go.
Result: sporatic delamination.
Where I come from we have to deal with this all the time. They are called pot-holes!
----------
Any problem can be made unsolvable if there are enough meetings made to discuss it.
Hey, I know, put the foam insulation on the inside.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
It wasn't mentioned, but does the cycling of propellants due to aborted launch attempts add significant additional strain to the foam?
Were there any launch aborts before the final Columbia mission?
Letter To Iran
http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/griffin_bio.h tml
He's not only the author of the book I'm currently using for my undergraduate Spacecraft Systems course, but he's also got way more degrees than anyone should have. From the bio:
"Griffin received a bachelor's degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Aerospace Science from Catholic University of America; a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland; a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California; a master's degree in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master's degree in Business Administration from Loyola College; and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from George Washington University."
I still wouldn't say he's overqualified for the job. The NASA admin -should- be one of the country's smart people.
Recently, he said that the shuttle and ISS were mistakes, and that the trick will be to re-make the space program without causing too much damage (like irritating the ISS partner nations).
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
You're too dumb to understand. fsck off.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Seems to me one wway to prevent the foam from faling off in chunks is to embed a net over the foam. Make a fishnet out of Kevlar or Spectra fiber. Put the net over the foam. These fibers are strong. in the worst case the foam still comes off but not after being forced through the holes in the net and in the process being cut into many very small pieces. These fibers are stronger then stainless steel of the same size and much lighter. Of couse the other option is to re-design the tank so that the insilation is _inside_ the aluminum skin but then that adds weight
Specifically Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James E. Hansen's allegations of censorship by NASA's public affairs staff. According to him commisars upset with his stand on global warming have been denying journalists official access to him and censoring his lectures, papers and postings on the Goddard Web site.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
wow, that was about as interesting as a core dump. thanks slashdot!
ConsultingFair.com
Just Wrap the whole thing in shrink wrap, and keep out nearly all the air and moisture.
The latest Slashdot meme.
C'mon NASA! If you designed it, might as well give it a try!
Griffin: We think now that we understand in substantial technical detail the mechanism by which the foam is and was liberated.
::rolleyes::
It wasn't a liberation, it was an occupation, I tell you!!! That foam never even wanted to be liberated!
Seriously, why not just say "detached", "stripped", or some other, more relevant word?
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
There's a guy who is required to do whatever the president wants, no matter how rediculous, and given no money to do it. Not suprising those NASA representatives turn over almost as fast as software managers.
... to deal with the problem.
1) as Billy the Mountain (225541) suggests, put the foam on the inside
2) after every fueling, inspect (xray, ultrasound, ?) the foam, looking for crack propagation through it, stripping and re-foaming as needed
3) change the foam to a series of interspersed layers of foam and a sealant layer
and others, all of which are designed to prevent the cryopumping action by disrupting crack propagation through the foam to the atmosphere. All that remains is to perform some tests and analyses to determine the intersection of the cost curve and the effectiveness curve to select the best method.
Other problems exist (tile damage from other sources (e.g., bird strike, lightning) springs to mind), but those would seem to be manageable.
While the shuttle is still an obsolete and expensive vehicle, it would appear that we can continue to get some mileage out of our investment in shuttle technology -- at least until the replacement is ready to launch.
the real kicker is, why in the hell would you need a mattress (foam or not) to sleep on in ZERO GRAVITY.
yeah yeah, I meant weightlessness
yours is a dumb idea, and here is why:
Insulation is there to protect the metal walls of the tank from burning off due to high heat generated by air friction. If you put foam on the inside, the tanks will burn off, and you got no walls, except the foam and liquid gases (at very high pressure, going 4+ miles/s) --> gg
Here is an analogy:
Your wife is using those oven mitts to handle baking trays... Now imagine you tell her that in order to preserve the glove, she should just hold the tray with her bare hands, while she has that oven glove on the "inside" (shove it up the ass, you know).
"Insightfull"
Michael Griffin continually claims that "no money is being taken out of science." He always says that exploration keeps its money, and science keeps its money.
But that's where the BS is: he's not talking about "exploration" and "science." He's talking about the "Exploration Directorate" and the "Science Directorate." So when "no money is leaving science," it actually means "no money is leaving the science directorate."
And here's the kicker: there was A LOT of science stuff going on in the Exploration Directorate... possibly more than half of NASA's science was actually in the Exploration Directorate. All of that science is being/has been cut without actually touching the Science Directorate "sub-line." I personally know ~30 people who were laid off because of these semantics. I know that about 1000 more were laid off.
Griffin may have an engineering degree, but he's a cold-hearted politician. And I despise him. You should too.
This guy is awesome, because he went to my high school, a lower level, poor-ass school in the hood. Good times.
My impression on the text is, that the shuttle (and thus the ISS) is bleeding NASA dry. They should logically cut and run as far as the shuttle goes, but then they lose the ISS which they have spent alot of money on.
This could of course happen anyway, if the economy crashes and there is more war and NASA gets slashed, but even so, science and the other stuff that is really very good and cost-effective, like space probes, hubble and satellites will get less money.
I still think exploring other ways of saving the ISS should be explored, though I'm not sure its possible. The Russians do have a heavy lift rocket, it might be possible to use that and would save money, for sure.
I say NASA has painted itself into a corner with the shuttle, the reason being lack of vision and the inability to stop using the shuttle when they should have.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Hate to break this to you but you just came off as being pompous and arrogant here, like the agency you claim to work for has become so famous for.
You also managed to be so vague that your post is pointless. Next time try to actually reply to and refute posts that you think are wrong and make a reasoned argument to support your case instead of just being a know it all pompous ass saying "you're all wrong" but I can't be bothered to actually say how, in what way or why.
@de_machina
It's a meme.
Actually it's a fark cliché
Wrong forum, dude! In Soviet Russia, Fark memes in Slashdot post YOU!
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
> When the tank is cold, air is ingested. It liquefies and goes into the voids. Then as the tank empties and the [air] warms up and evaporates, the resulting pressure blows the foam off.'"
If there were cracks where the air got in some cracks, why wouldn't the air escape from the same place? I can't imagine the tank goes from freezing cold to boiling hot before the frozen air thaws completely...
> the mechanism by which the foam is and was liberated
He must be a Bush supporter if he thinks liberation == complete destruction!
And finally, I heard someone on here whine about how I.D. was brought up, but I thought Griffin's answer was close to perfect.
And I agree whole-heartedly.
Sentinel: Care to piss on the third rail?
Griffin: No thank you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
As an engineer you look at many things, one of them is trends. The shuttle has been getting progressively worse with time. That is why it is being replaced with the CEV. The Soyuz on the other hand has been experiancing less failures with time - most of the failures you cite were early in the development cycle and have been resolved. The Soyuz has been so successful that (a) NASA is purchasing Soyuz flights and (b) China is implementing the Soyuz design for their own space program. Like it or not, the Soyuz design is proven, cost-effective and may very well prove to be the workhorse for the next 10 years while the CEV is being developed.
If we had spent half the money in robotic exploration as we have in manned exploration for political gains, then all of us today would have had a shot at driving a Mars Rover through virtual control from the leisure of our media rooms with a Big Mac in one hand and the mensroom just outside. The issue here is Space Travel is not for societies still bent on hoarding earthly resources. We are neither that noble or generous. We have spent more in Iraq in the last three years than on Space Travel the last twenty. Enough said.
Spray the foam on the inside surface of the tank, not the outside. This seems like a no brainer. Inside the tank, there are no aerodynamic forces to rip off pieces of cracked foam.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
oh dear!
so they can't put the foamy inside the tanky?
this is seriously getting a joke!
i mean this outdated technology sums up
to how to make a "gear wheel in a burning fishtank"
fly!
serious! think about it! might be a (*)conspiracy
of making a kilo of anything really expensive
in orbit?
(*)catagory two conspiracy, e.g. unconcious.