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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."

2 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:the only explanation by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, it's true, statistically women put a lot more dings in the vehicle than guys, but I'm afraid the guys blow them up a lot more.

    And it's a cheap shot against women to make fun of them for it. Their notorious inability to judge distances is all the fault of the guys in the first place.

    They keep telling them that this:

    _________________________________________

    . . .is twelve inches.

    KFG

  2. Re:no liner? by Jboost · · Score: 5, Informative

    The heat shields are shaped so the hot regions of the gas are kept away from the shield.

    The problem isn't the heat, but the pressure (that causes this heat as a side effect).
    During re-entry, the shuttle travels supersonic thereby preventing the air to get out of the way fast enough.