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.'"

Comments

Hubble mission still a possiblity!

[alanh]

Orlando Sentinel: Whats the status of a Hubble [Space Telescope] servicing mission on the shuttle?

Griffin: If the shuttle performs as we expect in May, we will have the data that we need to go forward now with completion of the station. And as Ive said, if all that turns out positively, we will do a Hubble mission.

From my perspective, this is possibly the best news here. Hubble actually generates science whereas the ISS seems to do less interesting things.

Now that's hostile

[AKAImBatman]

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.

Tempurpedic Foam?

[dotslashdot]

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.

What about Propellant Cycling ?

[DumbSwede]

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?

Look at his credentials

[chickenmonger]

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.

No shit.

[s20451]

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).

Re:What the hell is this

[vertinox]

Believe it or not, some people like to talk about God, err, Intelligent Design, whatever you wanna call it.

Apparently, Griffin does not.

FTFA:

Griffin: NASA as an agency and I as its administrator should be mindful of the specific instructions we receive from the president and the Congress. That is what we do. If I obey my instructions from the Congress and follow the law, then I've done my job. When I was very young, I was told that a gentleman never engages in public discussions of politics, sex and religion. And I think I'll stay with that advice and not go beyond where I was, which is: my objective as administrator is to carry out the instructions I'm given by our elected representatives on behalf of the American people. The American people have very diverse views on politics, sex and religion and I believe I should leave them to it.

Re:Fix foam again? Start anew?

[cyclone96]

Engineers salaries:management salaries is probably higher on NASA programs than about anywhere.

While working level engineers who work directly for NASA are paid fairly competitively, government rules cap salaries of management. Everything is defined by the federal payscales, available here

An engineer with 10 years of experience is typically a GS-13. In Houston, for example, he's making somewhere around $90,000/year. His immediate manager is probably a GS-14 making around $105k, and that guy's boss is probably a GS-15 who makes around $130k. The numbers vary depending on years in service. Most astronauts are falling into these ranges as well.

Griffin, as the head of NASA, is paid on the SES (Senior Executive Service) scale, which caps out at $162,000. That's here.

Contractor management is a little better (the CEOs of the likes of Boeing and Lockheed can pull in over $10 million annually with bonuses and stock), but it's very unusual to run into a NASA contractor (manager or otherwise) making more than $200,000/year.

What about using a net?

[ChrisA90278]

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

Re:New Foam Idea

[Syberghost]

Insulation on the inside means you have to make the tank larger to hold more fuel.

Larger tank means more metal. More metal means more weight. More weight means more fuel. More fuel means more cold. Tricky balance there. Remember, this is the tank where they stopped painting the foam because the paint added too much weight.

Also, it'll be hard to find a porous material that doesn't absorb hydrogen, the smallest atoms in existence.