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)."

Comments

Proposal

[LiquidCoooled]

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.

Adopting the credo of Mexican bus companies

[iminplaya]

"Mejor muerto que tarde"

Re:Murderers!! - Hold on

[2.7182]

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.

That's not the half of it!

[dietrollemdefender]

I know there are "love the whales" slashdotters out there...

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!

Re:Go Back to the Old Foam?

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

You are incorrect. Please read the CAIB report (see chapter 3, part two here http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/PDFS/VOL1/PART01 .PDF). The foam that destroyed Columbia was the old foam. The 'new foam' was only used on machine sprayed areas, while hand formed areas used the old foam.

Furthermore, foam loss was experienced long before the switch, including incidents which caused serious damage. Quoting from the above.

F3.27 Foam loss occurred on more than 80 percent of the 79 missions for which imagery was available to confirm or rule out foam loss. F3.28 Thirty percent of all missions lacked sufficient imagery to determine if foam had been lost.

The new foam did initially suffer from more loss and popcorning, however, it was the old foam that destroyed Columbia.

Re:Flying without some of the safety changes

[iamlucky13]

Correct. Foam pieces falling from the area in question (the ice ramp) have been observed to be too small to cause major concern, based on their calculations and testing, or will safely clear the orbiter (I forget which). They had been considering replacing the foam in this area with heaters. There has to be some sort of protection or else ice might build up. Ice hitting something at 500 mph is a lot worse than foam. I assume the combination of not wanting to add another active system (which can fail) and needing extra power supplied while sitting on the pad were contributors to this decision.

After the loss of Columbia, NASA removed a foam ramp from the tripod area that holds the external tank in place. This is where the piece that caused the damage came from. In Discovery's last flight (and I believe in some older launch videos), foam was also observed to come off the proturbence air load (PAL) ramp, which is another aerodynamic feature. This was also eliminated. Additionally, NASA is going to be flying a gentler flight profile on remaining missions (listed as "Low Q"). They lose a little bit of load capacity doing this, but the acceleration is lower and their speed is slower in the denser levels of the atmosphere.

I'd Simply Like to Point Out...

[dthx1138]

... 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.