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Fewer Heat Shield Dings on Shuttle Discovery
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."
"amazing"? NASA was promising this level of launches over 20 years ago.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Where's the data on all flights prior to that one? What are the maxima/minima and standard deviation? A 33 or 50% variation might be expected.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Thinking of fixing, there was a famous incident in WW2 where a supposedly ruined American aircraft carrier was repaired to battle-worthiness in three days. Its presence in a subsequent engagement created enough confusion among the Japanese commanders to cost them the battle. And you know, America really did once have a reputation for precisely this kind of engineering awesomeness, which helped build America into the industrial giant it is. Could America ever regain this prestige? Maybe... if they'd ditch their hero worship of illiterate business school and start celebrating their genius Scientists and Engineers again, if they tried to be the kind of Country that Einstein immigrated to, rather than the kind of country he emigrated from, if the very idea of someone having a degree other than an MBA didn't make the average American vomit with an intense anti-illectualist rage.
Agreed. And in 1985, they had 9 launches in 12 months. Then they had the Challenger Accident and shut things down from about mid 1986 to late 1988. From 1989-2002, they averaged a little over one every two months. Then they had the Columbia Accident that shut things down from early 2003 to mid 2005.
So I'd say that, barring accidents, NASA has managed to launch one every two months.