Slashdot Mirror
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.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!
Two definite factors I can think of are (1) - it's more difficult to apply and to inspect and (2) - The structural volume of the tank would have to be larger, increasing the overall weight.
Two possible factors (I don't know enough about this, but I suspect they would cause problems) are (3) - The foam is porous. If fuel seeped into the foam, it would significantly reduce the insulating value of the foam allowing the fuel to heat up and boil off or ice to form on the outside of the tank as well as reduce the amount of fuel that could be used. (4) - The foam may react with the fuel, causing the enginges to burn inefficiently or even allowing the foam to explode in the liquid oxygen tank (similar to what happened on Apollo 13).
WHY are you CAPITALIZING words that AREN'T even PRONOUNCED and are very MINUTE points but they are still in all CAPS.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Except that to make said cavity, you need to add more material to the tank, making it heavier, and causing the need for more fuel, which will cause the need for the design of a larger tank, which will need to be tested, which will take years. This isn's like insulating your house. Leave the rocket science to the rocket scientists.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Since apparently you hadn't heard, the space shuttle is being retired. Criticizing it changes nothing now. The future of manned spaceflight is not tied to the shuttle as you claim. For us Americans, it's currently tied to the CEV, which utilizes the best of both the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs with the best of and the lessons learned from the Space Shuttle program. Not to mention the space shuttle program had nothing to do with manned settlements on the moon or Mars. I think NASA envisioned continuing to have enough budget to operate extensive low orbit missions, in addition to manned exploration missions when the shuttle was conceived, which then is a failure of Congress and less directly us voters to provide them with the money needed.
Regarding costs, I've never seen a published comparison for operating the shuttle vs. launching Apollo missions in real dollars but according to Wikipedia, the Apollo program cost $25.4 billion ($135 billion in 2005 dollars) for 11 flights, including 6 landings. In comparison, the space shuttle program has used a total of $145 billion of NASA budget over the years, and has flown 114 missions. The average cost per mission then is $1.3 billion, but that includes R&D and construction of the shuttles and their facilities. Directly related costs per launch are quoted at only $55 million, meaning it would cost only that much to add another launch to the manifest, assuming no further problem mitigation needs to be performed. Yes, $1.3 billion is too much to justify the program, but when it was originally expected to launch 12-24 times per year (200-400 launches by now). I also want to point out that this "obvious mistake" was copied almost directly by the Russians with their Buran shuttle, which flew perfectly but was abandoned because of their limited resources, not because of the drawbacks (which we are now more keenly aware of) of a mixed cargo/crew vehicle in a side stack configuration.
My final point is that you incorrectly posit that the safety chief wanted to veto launching without the changes. He would've preferred the changes, but will apparently accept their omission since the major concern (the PAL ramp) was addressed. The decision to move forward was also endorsed by Griffin, who is a very accomplished engineer himself (a very different background than Keefe's, the former administrator). This is the way engineering works (in fact, life in general). You will never eliminate all the risks, so you figure out which ones can be addressed reasonably with your resources and you keep going.
Translation:
Conform to social norms and forget about your dreams.
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.
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
... 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].
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.