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."

Comments

Re:One sparrow does not make a spring

[awehttam]

It looks to me that the Asian countries are going to take over real space exploration. That's both good and bad. China isn't exactly known for sharing information, but at least they are doing it.

No, China is known for sharing information with allies.

Companies from the United States are not well known for sharing their technology. .

In fact, the United States is known to be susceptible to private interests affecting their "foreign policy".

No offense, but every Country in the world deserves to be on equal footing. Military might be damned, and don't be surprised if you see some "competition" as a result.

New Foam? Not.

[LooseChanj]

This would seem to indicate that the new foam is working better.

The foam itself hasn't changed at all, so that comment is misleading. What's been changed is where the foam is applied.

Oh, and there's two types of foam btw. There's the stuff that gets sprayed on the acreage areas of the tank (which is applied by machine), and there's the foam that's hand applied to stuff that needs a bit more precision. The acreage foam is the new environmentally friendly stuff you hear blamed for the Columbia accident. Which is ironic, because it's the other foam, the hand applied variety, they've had so much trouble with. And guess what? It's the older, non "evironment friendly" type, and it's also the type that caused Columbia's disaster.