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Fewer Heat Shield Dings on Shuttle Discovery

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the excellent-driving-record dept.

According to NASA, the amount of damage to thermal tiles noted on Discovery was significantly lower after the latest mission. According to the report, there was a 33% reduction in the number of dings on the belly of the orbiter and an almost 50% reduction in the number of hits greater than one inch. This would seem to indicate that the new foam is working better. "The vehicle looked very good," Thomas Ford, a member of NASA's ice-debris inspection team at Kennedy Space Center, said Wednesday. "It's definitely gratifying."

3 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Yippee! by zestymonkey · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Let's keep throwing money at band-aids for an antiquated space program. After all, we have a station that needs a shuttle and a shuttle that needs a station. We can't just ignore the obscene amounts of money already spent at creating this uncorruptible symbiosis.

    What's wrong with this country? Why do spending budgets have such inertia?

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    return;
  2. Re:A flight every 6 weeks by grozzie2 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The US is already teetering past the edge of bankruptcy. Launching a shuttle every 6 weeks would seal the deal in a few months, and send the country the rest of the way down the tube into the world 'third world debttor countries'.

  3. Re:Generalization by jafac · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    And now, the salafists are free to run amok, and kill barbers and torch their shops because the koran forbids hair cutting.

    Yeah.

    Iraq is so much better off now.

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    These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.