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Shuttle To Fly Without Safety Revisions
HaloZero writes "In the face of safety concerns, NASA has decided to proceed with launching the Space Shuttle Discovery in July without changes to the external fuel tank. The article states that even though Discovery's last launch shed a huge 1-pound chunk of potentially devastating foam, they're willing to wait to change the spec on the disposable tank. The changes would modify the Ice/Frost Ramp assemblies, which prevent a buildup of ice on fuel lines and cables (as a side effect, they also have a tendency to dislodge large chunks of insulation)."
I think Nasa should coat the entire shuttle and tanks with materials cold enough to not freeze during take off and with a hard enough shell to survive the heat of re-entry.
Yes folks, I believe we should coat the tanks and shuttle body with politicians and lawyers.
Before you deride my concept as mere rambling, consider that they are now running the show anyway so we might as well make them useful.
I did a quick survey amongst the remaining engineers and technical folks at Nasa and they all consider my proposal double plus good.
liqbase
"Mejor muerto que tarde"
What?
The summary is possibly a little misleading. Several safety changes have been made to the foam so far, but there are further changes they'd like to make. It's not like they're flying without any changes whatsoever. That's not to say that I completely agree with the decision, but it's an important point.
I dont' think you should start throwing around statements like that lightly. The bottom line is that the astronauts are volunteers , and they fully know the risks involved (i.e. that ~ 2/150 shuttles get destroyed.) They have a military mentality and are willing to risk their lives for a very special opportunity which they have worked for years to achieve. They assume that the engineers are working their hardest, which they probably are.
I just can't stand all that smoke that the shuttle produces! Can't they use smokeless fuel?!? An the fact that they're using salmon to fuel those things! Yes its true! They use LOX to power it! See, they take Salmons and cream cheese to send the shuttle into space! It burns up soooooo many Salmon, that one day, they'll be extinct!
Furthermore, foam loss was experienced long before the switch, including incidents which caused serious damage. Quoting from the above.
The new foam did initially suffer from more loss and popcorning, however, it was the old foam that destroyed Columbia.I'll bite...
My older cars from the 1970s didn't have nearly as many problems as newer cars do with their advanced computer systems and emission control systems.
This sounds like old-wives-tale-ism. New cars require less maintenence and are much safer. A 1980 Chevrolet Caprice required annual tune ups and took up more space / weighed more than today's Toyota Corolla, which needs a tune up every 100,000 miles.
The difference is computer controlled cars that are smaller, lighter and more efficient don't affect the safety of the occupants, versus using an 'environmentally friendly' solution to the foam application DID affect the safety of the shuttle occupants.
How good was it to the environment to have those astronauts perish? do you think that the Shuttle breaking up was better for the environment? I think what the parent poster is saying is, There is a time and a place to apply standards. On a supercomplex system like the shuttle, an exemption probably would have made sense.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
What those cars had was that they were ***easy to fix*** - easy to diagnose, easy to get the parts out and in, easy to obtain the parts, in fact. These days, the simple diagnostic tests do not work or cannot be performed, and as a result, you can't fix your own car. But cars today break down far less than they did back then, at least that's my recollection of it.
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
but why is the FOAM on the OUTSIDE when it can be on the INSIDE in a cavity then no more problems with falling foam?
Off topic I know, but it would've been impressive if you could've gotten the user ID number 818284. :)
I have a better Idea, what if NASA put the foam on the inside of the tank, or had it layered. If it was inside or put in as wall, insulation, wall; it would then not be able to fly off as it is inside the tank.
sudo mod me up
Spray the external fuel tank with a thick coat of EZ-Cheez. The incredibly high fat content should insulate the tank nicely, and any debris will just leaving cheeZ-ee marks on the side of the shuttle That way, it will really look like it has been around geeks. Some soda stains might help.
Ok, but how many cars from the 1970s were around in the 1970s?
now, how many shuttles have we ever had?
A teaspoonfull of salt will not kill you, but if you eat an entire cylinder of morton's, you're gonna have some health problems.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
oh okay
This isn't so much due to modernization or computerization, but due to the fact that the auto manufacturers nowadays try to design in a certain "allowable" percentage of failures, so as to cause the car to require work, which generates income for them. (Unless you go to an independent mechanic, which is why they're trying to get legislation to keep independent shops from working on your car.)
So you're an asshole who likes to call people names and doesn't want even the minor conscience pang that would come from having a serious, well-reasoned reply explaining what you're doing? Figures
I am trolling
Why?
What's even more interesting is the blatant fact that the old foam is actually more safe than the new foam that failed. That's right, the foam that failed was a new EPA regulation applied to NASA [newsmax.com]. From that article:
But instead of returning the much safer, politically incorrect, Freon-based foam for Discovery's launch, the space agency tinkered with the application process, changing "the way the foam was applied to reduce the size and number of air pockets," according to Newsday.
You're quoting Newsmax as an authoritative source?!? Why not the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News, they're just about as authoritative. Are you aware that Newsmax, along with WorldNetDaily, CyberCast News Service (formerly Conservative News Service), and freerepublic.com are playgrounds where far-right conspiracy whackos trade theories? Friend, these are people who would abolish the EPA if they had their way! Small wonder why they spin this story as "EPA kills astronauts."
When their exemption was denied, the National Astronaut Scattering Administration had the option of not launching. But, just like with Challenger and Columbia, they're going to launch it anyway, safety be damned.
ahahaa shut up fattie
Have the guy responsible for shuttle safety fly with 'em. I hold any bets that those shuttles will be safer than driving through downtown NY rush hour... bad example.
But I guess you get the idea.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As the shuttle was landing, it startled one of the many eagles that live at the space center. The eagle dropped a salmon on the runway. The shuttle ran over the salmon.
You might argue the salmon was probably dead from the eagle or the impact, but...
I don't know about salmon, but there actually are lots of bald eagles at the space center. They build whopping huge big-ass fortress-like nests in the trees.
I would like to second that comment - as someone who genuinely intends to become an astronaut I can tell you now that I would happily risk going up in a current model shuttle rather than waiting years for safety revisions that may not happen. I'd choose to risk my life to for the chance to fulfill the greatest dream in my life in a heartbeat. The fact is, if NASA are to be called irresponsible for this launch (which I do not believe they are, but hypothetically speaking) it should be on financial grounds; shuttles are not cheap or easy to replace, if they lose another then it could severly dent their public image having a few more deaths on the cards (despite the fact that, as stated, there are people like me happy to take that risk) making it even more difficult to get equipment or authorisation for further manned missions.
A tune up was not a problem. It was just normal care, which you could do yourself. Grab some standard (non-metric) tools and swap out the points, etc.
Sure, a modern care won't need that. When the modern car starts to fail though, you need to go to the dealer. Only the dealer has all the secret electronic codes needed to deal with the car.
I am in awe of your towering wit
I am trolling
Look, if you really want to link to someone with credibility, link to the Karl Rove Institute for Social Justice or something.
This space available.
National Astronaut Scattering Administration
Priceless. Not particularly politically correct, but priceless nevertheless.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Thanks for providing accurate info. Infortunately, in the case of the parent he won;t listen. He's heard what newsmax told him to think, and that's that. He even AID so - said he would not read any replies. He flat out admits he's not letting facts get in the way of his opinions.
This space available.
I've got a better idea: Forget the damned foam. Put the Shuttles on flatbed trucks and tow them straight to the Smithsonian. Then pledge to never design or fly another rocket where chunks of loose ice are perched high above critical components.
It'll save the US taxpayers countless billions, and we'll finally get this 35-year episode of kludges, budget overruns and broken promises behind us.
I can't believe people actually make an issue of some freon foam on the space shuttle and dare to take unnesseary risks by changing the foam. Although the XPrize tried to suggest that space is safe and open for tourists, I don't believe that.
Amazing that after 40 years we still struggle to get people in orbit safely. Yes Nasa is stupid and all that but I believe that the problems associated with space travel are not that easy to solve.
Why whine about some foam while the rocket engines put piles of pollutants in the atmosphere anyway. So what! We are still taking wobbly babysteps into space and can do without the environmental baggage at this point. Besides whats one shuttle flight compared to millions of cars and dumb fat consumers buring up energy faster than they can lay their hands on it.
Of course the whole thing changes when we all have a space shuttle in our back yard.
That's all fine and dandy, but if the engineers aren't being listened to, that's where the problem lies. The engineers are the ones that possess the most knowledge about the risks involved. If they are being overruled by upper managers then the astronauts are being put at additional risk that they shouldn't be subjected to. Nothing will ever be made 100% failproof, but there is a difference between sending astronauts up in space when the issue is fully known, and between some disaster happening as a result of some unforseen consequence.
Didn't anyone learn anything from the Challenger disaster? There was a known issue with the o-rings at low temperature that eventually failed. The engineer(s) at that time (particularly Robert Boisjoly) were vocal about there being more testing needed before they could be confident that a suitable safety factor was met at the launch conditions. The politcal pressure led to the go ahead being given. If the engineers aren't comfortable with launch, then everyone involved should seriously give it more thought.
It's easy to armchair quarterback NASA at this point, but it's probably safe to assume that there is overwhelming pressure to make the right decision and that the decision to postpone further tweaking has not been made lightly. Fundamentally this is coming down to pressure to get on with the show and determine if this risk is a showstopper or not. They've decided that they can take the risk, and in all likelihood it is just one of many risks that have probably kept both engineers and managers in overdrive discussion for months.
The overall context is the station: shuttle is essentially a bottleneck. If shuttles can't get back to multiple flights per year, then we've got a problem. Soyuz and the Russian space program have literally saved NASA's ass in the past couple of years getting supplies up. For reasons most likely political, ESA has not been part of a solution, which is unfortunate and a separate topic. So given an unreliable shuttle program depending heavily on Soyuz, the painful decision to stop station construction and maintenance needs to happen. This makes the July launch akin to a make or break demonstration. If there is a serious problem, or another disaster, then NASA really can't look Congress in the face and make an argument for the station. Personally I haven't been able to make an argument for the station at all and would love to see a bare bones report of any sci/tech knowledge we've truly gained. As a long term reader of several NASA news listservs I see way too many fluff stories that are self congratulatory ("aren't we special? little joey dreamed of the space program his whole life and now he does X for NASA, let's all give him an internet pat on the back"), and not nearly enough along the lines of interesting experimental results or technology developments.
as others have said, that would be much more difficult, but more importantly, it would increase the weight immensely. Remember the first two flights, where the tank was white and not orange? That was because they painted them. The stopped painting the foam because the paint alone weighed THOUSANDS of pounds.
This space available.
"Better dead than late"
****
The Babel fish is small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
I'd bet there would be no shortage of volunteers for a one-way mission to Mars.
Isn't the shuttle program already teetering on the brink? I can't imagine they'd fly again if there were another accident.
there is a difference between sending astronauts up in space when the issue is fully known, and between some disaster happening as a result of some unforseen consequence
Yes, the issue is known. But the "fix" might be worse than the known issue. The only way to make sure that fix is "safer" is to test, and by that I mean lots of test. This particular foam has cause failures in a percentage that might be considered statistical noise.
There was a known issue with the o-rings at low temperature that eventually failed
I'm sure that there were, and probably still are, a lot more of known issues. None have failed in such great ways as the o-rings and the foam. Again, each failed only once. Believe me, it's easier to point out a critical issue when it fails, than before it fails. A lot of things can go wrong with the shuttle, only two of those have done so with the tragic lose of life. Space travel is dangerous. Riding a car is dangerous. People have died while riding a car, but you don't see everybody wearing five point seat belts and helmets like race car drivers. It's an issue of risk management. I'm sure that if they send a shuttle up with the potential of foam damage, the foam will work ok. It something happens (and I sure hope it won't) it will be something completly different.
please excuse my apathy
After reading these two articles, it's clear that *nothing* has changed at NASA since the Columbia disaster. The engineers still say, "We're a little worried about X," while NASA management says, "We've noted your concerns, but were going to push ahead and do it anyway." Great, just great. It's just so obvious now that NASA managers took the CAIB report to heart. Way to go guys.
According to the article, NASA's own safety chief doesn't want the next shuttle to fly without additional changes to the external tank foam. Apparently, the head of shuttle safety doesn't get a veto vote on when or if the shuttle goes up. Think about that. We lost seven astronauts in the Challenger accident because NASA managers refused to listen to the engineers, and we lost seven more again in Columbia for the same reasons. How long will it take, how many more astronauts must die before NASA's top management realizes that aeronautical engineering isn't some kind of political game?
Once upon a time, I believed in what NASA accomplished. The early team of pioneers at NASA clearly had 'the Right Stuff'. They pushed the envelope of national achievement and they expanded the boundaries of human endeavor. They did grand and amazing things, many of which quite literally changed the world. Nowadays, the early pioneers at NASA are gone, passed away or retired, and we're left with bureaucrats running a manned space program that looks more like a gigantic roulette wheel of risk than a program which achieves results. Nowadays, the best that NASA can say after a launch is, "Gee, we didn't kill anyone this time." But where are the tangible rewards for taking these risks? Why are we asking more men and women to put their lives on the line? What do we gain when an astronaut goes into orbit for the umpteenth time?
Over the past 25 years, the shuttle has proven to be a death trap for any astronaut brave enough or foolish enough to jump in the cockpit. It was a bad design from the beginning, a compromise engineered to gain dollars and support from military sources which later abandoned the program entirely. The space shuttle never lived up to any of the promises NASA managers made in the 1970s. It's killed 14 men and women since then. Space travel has become more expensive than it was in the Apollo days, it occurs less frequently then before and the shuttle breaks no new ground when it goes into space. Tying the future of manned spaceflight to a single piece of overly-complex hardware like the space shuttle was an obvious mistake. Since its inception, the space shuttle has probably done more to retard human progress in space than to advance the final frontier.
Considering all this, I have just three words -- fuck you NASA. Fuck you NASA, for turning American manned space travel into a deadly joke. Fuck you NASA, for playing politics with astronauts' lives. Fuck you NASA, for wasting billions of dollars building a spacecraft which lists, among its most notable accomplishments, the first American fatalities in space. Fuck you NASA, for destroying my dreams of manned lunar settlements and a trip to Mars. Fuck you NASA, for turning over responsibility of space shuttle safety to a bunch of gutless managers more concerned about their careers and NASA PR than solid aeronautical engineering. Fuck you NASA, for creating a manned space agency that couldn't seemingly engineer itself out of a paper bag.
I'd take that trip. It's funny seeing people worry so much about the lives of others and what they choose to devote them to. Exploration in the face of great danger is human nature. It's how we covered the face of the globe. It's what will scatter our species among the stars one day. When a crew is lost it is a shame that we lose their skills and their bravery, but they're all aware of the risks. I think people are more concerned about the appearance of weakness in public failure than really care about the lives of the crews.
Ah, the 'they don't make cars like they used to' fallacy.
I've owned older cars. They need a lot of TLC to keep running reliably - my old Mini needed new points/condenser every 6 months (with the oil change), frequent spark plug/HT cable replacements, and I had to have the cylinder head off twice in the time I owned it. Although it was a fun car to drive (and had lots of character), it needed a LOT of maintenance to have any hope of reliability. There was actually a very noticable performance difference after each 6 monthly maintenance - those old cars really did deteriorate that fast. It also suffered from rust.
My next car was a 1984 Sierra. Not much in the way of computer control, but unlike the Mini, I *never ever* had ignition problems with it, and only broke down a couple of times (the clutch cables were very bad and had a tendency to suddenly go). I had much fewer reliability problems with the Sierra. I still had them though. It could be hard starting on a cold damp morning, and would run a bit rough until it was warmed up (automatic chokes were never a good idea). It also rusted.
My current car, a 1995 Audi A4, just runs consistently, day in, day out. It always starts easily whether it's hot or cold, damp or dry. It is galvanized, so despite living on a small windswept island with a very salty atmosphere, it doesn't rust. After I've cleaned it, it looks just as good as the day it came out of the factory - the paint is so much better on it than older cars (most 1970s cars, when 11 years old would be unreliable, faded and rusty). It also drives just as well today as when it came from the factory - it still performs like the book says it should. It never needs tune-ups like carburetted cars like the Sierra or Mini did because the computer keeps it tuned all the time.
Sure, older cars are much easier to work on - but the point is, I don't have to work on my Audi like I had to work on my Sierra (or even more so, the Mini). And my Audi doesn't rust.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
It seems the only people who are really in a position to either complain or approve of these changes (morally) are the astronauts themselves. If they think the risk is worth the benefit of getting to fly earlier well who are we to say that they aren't making the right deciscion?
I mean given how many safe flights the shuttle has made without the foam causing a problem, and given the extra in fight safety measures (cameras and stuff) that have been implemented it isn't clear that the foam is the biggest risk the astronauts face. Flying into space is a very risky, unsafe buisness especially on old equitment like the space shuttle. It would be a shame if the publicity of the previous disastor meant that we spent tons of money fixing the foam problem when the total risk could have been reduced more for the same money/time by fixing other safety issues.
It is a general problem that things we have seen cause disastors seem more dangerous than those that have yet to cause any problems. However, we should not let that emotional effect get in the way of making the best safety choices. If the next shuttle blows up because we insisted on reducing the foam risk to 0 rather than doing a cost benefit analysis then the blood of the astronauts is on the hands of everyone who flipped out about the foam but wasn't going to care about other safety issues. On the other hand if fixing the foam really does decrease the risk the most per unit of money/time we than we bad better focus on that. However, as laymen the only thing we can do is trust the experts and second guessing them risks doing more harm than good.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Then pledge to never design or fly another rocket where chunks of loose ice are perched high above critical components.
Well gee, Dr. Von Braun, you do realize how liquid fueled rockets work right? Or do you propose abandoning liquid fuel rockets for solid fuel rockets? Or perhaps you are just ignorant.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
quick question How long did it take people to travel from europe to the americas saftly?
Both accidents have happened when it was cold out outside. Instead of spending a lot of money on redesigning this and that, just don't launch the stupid things when it's cold outside!
Mike
People commit suicide every day. There is no shortage of people looking for someone to help them kill themselves. We could also use condemned criminals to pilot the Mars shuttle if there are moral objections to helping people commit suicide.
There was a repair in the same location (and shape) as the peice that fell off. Many engineers at NASA feel that as long as that foam is undamaged/repaired it will behave as it should. Obviously the safest thing to do is to remove the foam, but they must ensure that it will not affect the aerodynamics adversly. Its a trade off. They know how the PAL ramp behaves, and have good reason to think that it won't shed.
No, dimwit. I'm just proposing that they don't strap the friggin payload onto the side of a 200-foot popsicle. Mounting it on top will do the trick. That does seem to be the lesson that they've learned from the shuttle program, and the shuttle replacement will do it that way. I'm just saying that they should kibosh the shuttle now and wait for the replacement. It's not like NASA is doing anything vital with manned missions right now.
I'm generally pretty supportive of environmental concerns..
But it seems really silly to be worried about what chemicals are used to make foam when you are burning a massive amount of fuel to get into orbit.
Or, fucktard, the re-entry vehicle could sit on top of the tanks that pick up the ice during launch? y'know, the way the russians with their immensely better safety record do?
This latest thing just deepens my existing concern. 2010 is an ARTIFICIAL date set by the CAIB that NASA is treating like it came down from the mountain on stone. It takes X more shuttle flight to finish ISS plus one to fix Hubble one more time. As things stand with this mindset, X has to be achieved by the middle of 2010. A safety delay must not push it into 2011. No schedule pressure? Ha!! This artificial deadline INCREASES schedule pressure. So the next shuttle disaster is caused by schedule pressure in turn caused by one recommendation made by the board investigating the last one??
That is not the bottom line. The bottom line is that America, The Good Ol' USofA, does not have manned access to space. We have a system that is broken beyond usefulness, that is bringing the rest of our government space program down. The astronauts being volunteers has little to do with our strategic requirements. We can't get up there even if we want to.
We need to have a frank national discussion. If we are going to stop being spacefaring, stop. If we are going to develop cislunar space and beyond, we need to start with reliable (ie. commercial) flights to LEO for human beings. There is a new aerospace industry growing out there, and doing quite well, see Space Adventures recent PR. NASA may have to leverage these new businesses to survive. Does America need a "Space Shuttle" or be able to purchase tickets to LEO? Capabilities are more important than hardware.
The current price for a six-month stay in space via Russia, including Soyuz up and down: $44million. That and the mythical "Tito" of $20million are commercially available. That is the going rate, and American aerospace is going to need to be able to match it for the market to expand.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
It's like a car race. If there's no chance for disaster, it's "ho-hum". Now I'm intrigued.
Oh yeah, like the New York Times, CNN,ABC,CBS,NBC are more reliable sources of news.....LOL....They are just as "far left" as the others are "far right". It depends on your point of view. You're quoting Newsmax as an authoritative source?!? Why not the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News, they're just about as authoritative. Are you aware that Newsmax, along with WorldNetDaily, CyberCast News Service (formerly Conservative News Service), and freerepublic.com are playgrounds where far-right conspiracy whackos trade theories?
I smell a Challenger. Oh dont get pissed.. the rule is you can joke about it 20 years later.. its been 20 years and like 3 months.
The fuel tank is flying without the PAL ramp. The decision was not to continue removing sections other than the PAL ramp. They have to do as little as possible and test each change in a real flight to know what works.
'take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat'
I don't think there are any salmon in florida, except in the fish market, flown in on ice. The eagles are there, but I would believe a mango snapper or a real small tarpon or something like that before a salmon with this tale.
Second, where did you and so many others get the hooked on the delusion that space travel is or can be made completely safe? Or that astronauts/cosmonauts expect it to be completely safe? None who climb into the shuttle or a Soyuz capsule are under the delusion that they are climbing into the car for a jaunt down to the corner store. Getting up and moving at 17,500 miles per hour is dangerous, pure and simple, and for you to call any machine a "death trap" for tackling this hugely complex task is to ignore reality.
Can the shuttle be safer? Yes. Can the shuttle be made safer with the tiny budget NASA is being given and the critical ISS supply timeline and the "we must be absolutely 100% safe" political attitude being imposed? I propose that it cannot be. And if it cannot be, I concur with the others who have pointed out that we have to get this vehicle flying again so that we can "get back on the horse" and continue with the progress of our society into space.
And yes, I would fly on the shuttle today. No, it's not 100% safe. It can't be. Yes, I could well die. But I would still fly on it. And you can damn well rest assured those flying on it know they could die too and are adult enough to have made that choice consciously and willingly. It is not up to you to think you know better than they who have been training for decades for their missions.
-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Heh.
In the neither-new-nor-old category we have the Chevy Celebrity. From the top, you could just barely see the oil filter. You couldn't touch it. From the bottom, you could just barely touch the oil filter. You couldn't see it. An oil filter wrench could just barely go on, even in theory. From the bottom, you'd have no leverage to move the wrench. (in any case, it'd only rotate a few degrees before hitting an obstruction) You could pull on the wrench from above if you attached a cord to the handle, but of course you couldn't attach such a handle from above and you couldn't reposition the wrench from above.
What, are you supposed to lift out the whole engine to do this? Maybe go through the interior of the car somehow? Perhaps you need a trained boa constricter?
Paint the foam black, it gets warmer faster in the suns shine
Also have some giant IR radiators spot lights to warm it up any way.
use some genetic bio paint that doesnt freeze
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I don't know where you've been but...
NEWS FLASH: all but the most basic codes are proprietary
The public codes are just generic ones mandated by law.
In related news:
Saturn has/had a cute little trick involving the oil light. The reset procedure was proprietary. You could have anybody change your oil, but only the dealer could reset the indicator.
Stuff and nonsense. I had two vehicles from the very early sixties (a 62 falcon with a small six, and a valiant with the slant six) that were very reliable, both got around 25 MPG on the highway, both could haul six adults plus a ton of luggage and gear, and were a dream to work on compared to todays cars, and neither ever really needed much other than the occassional shock replacement or fan belt action, etc, said shocks being of the very cheap and easy to take off and put on kind, not requiring a strut spring compressor or anything weird like that. I still have a mid 70s van with a v-8 that finally lost time due to chain stretch at over 300,000 miles, no major repairs whatsoever, and that van got beat on soundly as a work truck. I am planning on just putting another full rebuild engine in it as long as I have to tear it down that far, like what the heck, 300 thou is cool.
Older cars were fine, and extremely easy to diagnose and repair compared to todays cost as much as houses used to cost "transportation".
New cars SUCK BAD when they break, and they do, and if you don't believe it, go to any brand local dealership and look at the service bays. full up aren't they? Right off the bat joe home mechanic might need a 50-100 buck analyser to *maybe* find out what is wrong with them. And then the fun with parts ensues, *very expensive parts*, that being electronic, they usually won't let you bring them back, so you are stuck if you guessed wrong. And wiring??? Excuse me, I want a car, not a baby nuclear reactor combined with a local substation.
I doubt my entire toolbox cost that much back then when I had those cars, and I could do every job on a car except push off parts inside a transmission that might have needed a hydraulic press with that box. Every-single-job-necessary for normal repairs to complete engine rebuilds, it was just loads easier and took a lot less tools.
We never needed all that pollution add on crap, we NEEDED to change to cleaner burning fuels a long time ago and ditch the petroleum stuff for like ethanol or methanol. Then you really don't need most of the modern computerised controls nonsense. I'll take a carb rebuild kit for 12$ and some new points for 2$, over changing out a set of injectors, new regulator, new ignition modules, etc, etc any day. Cheaper/faster/just as good or better. There are some aspects to modern cars I like, but given the gestalt of them, I would purchase an older car that was manufactured "new" today in a heartbeat over most any new design. Heck, you probably could whip out sub 10,000$ brand new cars if you didn't need all the add on crap and could live without power assist computer controlled everything. It's just not necessary.
My biggest beef is WHAT HAPPENED to vent windows?? Man I miss them.
The British automotive industry has a real knack for designing aquaphobic cars; the electricals would flood after a heavy dew, and just showing them a photo of the ocean would make them rust.
That doesn't make all older cars similarly flawed. Some engineers actually designed cars to be driven, not just to be looked at (though Morris' weren't even designed that well).
Blank until
I have an idea, a really novel one. No, really! Why can't they. . . no, wait, uh, let me think. Oh, I know! Apply the coating they used to use back when the tank was painted white, since that coating allowed for safer shedding of the condensation!
Sure, payload would be decreased by a few thousand pounds because of the mass of the paint, but at least the existing tank design was safer when painted with the coating it was originally designed and flown with.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Well erm can't fix it, fly 'er up agaiiiin
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
...at least according to the organizations (Including manufacturers themselves) who chart these things. The industry has achieved gradual but consistent drops in unscheduled repairs for the last couple of decades. Tune-up and oil change intervals excluded.
The reason, IMHO, is computers. Not the ones in the engine compartment, but the ones in the dealership that record all the warranty repairs. Manufacturers today have a much shorter turnaround to address defects. The Japanese will iron out the bugs in a new design within months; even the Americans can usually do it within the first model year. And on the production line, computers have completely or partially automated machining, welding, and finishing.
I'm not sure to what degree its done in automobile manufacturing, but in most manufacturing industries, CAD modeling has eliminated a lot of the last-minute "Stop the line, the whatsit doesn't have enough clearance!" mistakes.
The result is a much more consistent product. Your 2006 Impala is, statistically anyway, much more likely to get you to work tomorrow than your grandad's was in 1966. It may be much more expensive, and more challenging to work on, but it's nowhere near as problematic.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
If you lose another shuttle (+7 crew members) within the next 5 years, you are fucking done. D-U-N, done. You can take all your X-33, and Mars probes, and space elevators, and space stations, and Jupiter manned-missions and cram it all up your god damn ass. Because that's how much good it's going to do you (up your ass), if you lose another shuttle.
However, if you drop every god damn thing in your entire arsenal, not excepting the GPS, weather, and comm satellites, and just put all of your fucking MBA fucks to work lobbying for a new shuttle, then it is highly probable that you will get it done. That is, a new shuttle system.
It's called risk. And right now, you are willing to risk crew member lives, rather than risk your fucking budget. What you don't seem to understand is that you are risking your fucking budget, your entire fucking future, as well as your crew members.
Whereas, you could just be risking your budget. And in fact, if you took the risk and did a good job with the new shuttle system, you'd find more sons of bitches in Congress looking to increase your budget.
Why?
Because it's NEW! That's how fucking New York works. Instant gratification. Attention Deficit Disorder. Just have a bunch of flashy lights on the son of a bitch, and they'll eat that shit right up. Put a camera in the cockpit so as to catch the re-entry plasma flare, and you'll find that politicians are hanging their peckers out for you (I'm not exactly sure why, but to my understanding, if a politician hangs his pecker out for you, it's a sign of admiration).
So, to recapp:
1. Fucking ditch the Space Shuttle.
2. Build a new one where you don't drop the entire fucking external fuel-tank into the Indian Ocean as a "consumable".
3. ???
4. Look at the politicans hanging their peckers out (specifically, Ted Kennedy).
5. PROFIT!!
Amazing that after 40 years we still struggle to get people in orbit safely.
Amazing that we can get out of this deep gravity well at all with 300-450 ISP fuels.
"TAMS shouldn't be destroyed. They should just tag us before releasing us into the wild." -- Maeglin
If only we could get rid of it. They've got those pesky international obligations to finish the ISS in the way. Those modules (some russian ones, maybe some european ones, I know theres a Japanese module), had been designed specifically for the shuttle payload bay and we are simply unable to launch them in any other vehicle. I'm not sure on all the details on that, maybe the new shuttle-derived heavy lift vehicle would be capable, but I think if it were the shuttle would be cut now.
If most NASA engineers had their way, and certainly most students who are likely to be going to NASA our their contractors (I'm a Aerospace Engineering students), would prefer to scrap the shuttle now, accelerate the CEV, and keep more JPL projects on the table. Particularly since the ISS doesnt seem too useful, even if its finished. It's in a bad orbit for support of other missions (too high an inclination, in order to accomodate the high latitude of Baikonur), and it remains to be seen if its a valid scientific platform, since right now they only have enough people on board to keep it running.
This is simply not fair. I keep getting accused of trolling. It was a joke.. lunch, launch sound similar. I think the moderators are a bit slow.
But I think it's important to point out that in hundreds of ways the STS has been obsolete since at least the mid-90s. The computer systems aboard it are ancient, we can manufacture WAY better and truly reusable materials (the Shuttle has to be essentially taken apart and rebuilt between every launch), we understand much more about the dynamics of flying in space and the transition between space and atmosphere... in short, we can build a MUCH BETTER vehicle now than we could then, and vastly reduce the cost of access to space.
Here's an even crazier thought. Sell the Shuttles to whoever wants them (stripping off any classified technology, obviously) and divert the entire Shuttle operating budget into the development of the next-gen vehicle.
+++ATH0
Here's the thing, you're a fucking idiot... CNN,ABC,CBS and NBC certainly aren't free of bias, but to say they are to fox as ultraviolet is to infrared is completely fallacious. If they were they'd be out there falsifying stories about how George Bush can only orgasm if he kills a puppy or some shit. Seriously. All the people on the right wing wacko sites get chubbies for death because they can always find a way to blame it on the "eVuHUL LIEberals1oneshiftelventyoneoneshift1!!" You never see crap like that on CNN or ABC or any of those other networks. Certainly they'll criticize bush, but they're also often critical of liberals, and they will often praise bush. Beyond that, their criticisms usually make sense and factually check out when verified through independent sources. Which your little "EPA's FAULT, NUKE THE WHALES, BURN LEADED GAS, PISS ON SOME BABY SEALS!!!" argument has failed to do. Maybe you should consider suicide now and do the world a favor. Remember, it's up the highway, not across the street.
But my Sierra was made in Germany. I also owned a 1986 Dodge Ram when I lived in the United States - it also suffered from the same kind of reliability problems as the Sierra (hard cold+damp starting/needing frequent tune-ups). It also rusted, but because it was made out of an awful lot more metal, it would take longer to rust through. Most 1970s cars were junkers by the time they were 10 years old; most mid 90s cars are still perfectly good and ran like they did when they came out of the factory.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
... That many of you are assholes. I'm sure your physical science course at Ithaca Community College gives you the necessary qualifications to fix the entire shuttle program with a two sentence /. post.
Give us engineers some fucking credit please.
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
Now if only your post made sense. There is a hell of a difference between a 1980 Caprice and the Space Shuttle. I mean, do they even still make brand new external fuel tanks and solid rocket boosers for a 1980 Caprice?
"There is a time and a place to apply standards. "
Yes, such as when they are needed to keep things from exploding with people in them.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Very strange side topic.
I have been a slashdotter for around 8 years (I do have an ID in the 500,000s), and this is the first time in all that time that I have seen relatively insightful posts modded as "troll" or "overrated".
As an automobile fan, who owns a '51 Merc, a '73 Nova, an '87 Buick Grand National, and a '03 Suburu WRX...
YOU ARE ALL CAR IGNORANT!!
Cars of today cannot be compared to cars of 10, 30, or 50 years ago.
I have learned what I needed to know for each of my vehicles, and I find that all of my cars go years between "repairs", but, then, I have taken the time to learn how to take care of all of them.
Sometimes, I take the time to work on them myself, and sometimes a mechanic works on them. I find none of these autos to be more reliable than the others.
What if they made up a story about George Bush cheating his way through the national guard, complete with (poorly) forged documents? Would they be "ultraviolet" then? Hmm?
Ass.
The Saturn was a modular family of rocket stages and various rocket engines coming from those German ex-pat rocket scientists in Huntsville, Alabama. Their first rocket, the Redstone, was in some regards a hot-rodded V-2 in terms of its capabilities, and then they had a Jupiter rocket (not to be confused with the Redstone-derived Jupiter C) that used an engine from the Atlas, developed by an entirely different group. The Saturn I was a crash project to best the Russians in having a heavy-lift rocket, and it had a core tank from the Jupiter design surrounded by outside tanks that were Redstone-derived, and the whole works was powered by 8 uprated Rocketdyne engines of the sort from Navajo/Atlas/Thor/Jupiter. This hacked-together 8-engined multi-tanked first-stage booster was jokingly called "Cluster's Last Stand", but it worked without any launch failures.
The gov'mint paid Rocketdyne to develop the F1 engine -- 1.5 million pounds of thrust per engine -- as a parallel path to "beat the Russians to something" because its development was initiated long before there was a firm Moon program or even a rocket for the F1 to boost. There was a certain "if you will build it, they will come" approach, but the F1 was the modular building block for a variety of Nova super booster designs for "putting a man on the Moon." The F1 could just as well power an Advanced Saturn, Saturn being the work of those Alabama Germans, and while Nova was meant for a direct flight up and back to the Moon and Saturn was intended for a two-flight Earth orbit rendezvous scheme, the eventual Apollo used a lower-mass higher-risk lunar orbit rendezvous, but they had so many F1 engines on the Saturn V that it was larger than some of the earlier Nova concepts.
As to the Saturn V, that project was parceled out in every direction -- each stage was contracted out to a different aerospace company -- the first stage, S-IC was Boeing, the second stage, S-II was North American (later Rockwell, the Shuttle contractor), and the S-IVB third stage was Douglas. Those names kind of told a story of a modular design that went through a number of iterations -- the S-IC suggests the 3rd interation of the first stage while S-IVB suggested the second iteration of what was supposed to be a fourth stage but ended up as the third stage of the Saturn V and the second stage (with minor mods) of the Saturn IB.
The S-II, the Rockwell stage of course, had the foam outside the tank. The S-IVB, however, had the foam inside the tank.
The funny thing is that people say the Shuttle was underfunded from Day 1, but in the years from the mid 50's when Atlas got greenlighted to the early 70's, when Apollo last visited the Moon, compared with the years in the 70's when the Shuttle was initiated to today, the manned space program has probably gotten a comparable amount of money but spread over more years with never the crash-program aspect to Apollot. There is talk of Shuttle-derived stick-launchers and super boosters, but it is all talk, and the ability to make Lego-block rockets a reality seems to be gone.
Yes Lets put Our back stabbing congress men and women over the shuttle's wings to protect the RCC from foam. After trying stuff like this http://news.com.com/Congress+may+consider+mandator y+ISP+snooping/2100-1028_3-6066608.html?tag=nefd.t op
They have it comming.
The Falcon 1 addresses a related problem with a novel approach.
The related problem was the rapid boil-off of LOX in the tropical heat. So they covered the LOX section of the booster with a thermal blanket, designed to fall away at launch with cables. Apparently, the blanket did get hung-up on the ill-fated first launch. But perhaps thi principle would be okay for the Shuttle. There's no reason the Shuttle needs to drag all that foam up into space. The only need for the foam was to protect against ice formed by condensation on the cryogenic tank, while the Shuttle sat on the pad between fueling time and launch time. The post-fueling-pre-launch checks weren't intended to take as long originally, so they didn't count on ice build up. So now they band-aid the problem with the foam, which brings problems of it's own.
But a detachable thermal blanket might be just the ticket. As an added bonus, you get to remove the insulation at launch time, which reduces overall weight you need to drag with you up into space. Yeah, there are complications with the blanket possibly not detaching or getting hung up, but I bet those complications are less challenging to overcome than all the fluid-dynamics handwringing they're doing now over random chunks of foam.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Report from NASA (PDF)
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