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Space Shuttle Atlantis Delayed Again
eldavojohn writes "An electrical short cause the space shuttle Atlantis to be delayed since a lightning strike to the pad and Tropical Storm Ernesto caused delays. From the article:
'Liftoff was only hours away Wednesday morning when engineers reported a short in one of three fuel cells that supplies electricity for all the on-board systems, including the crew compartment.' It also points out that 'The faulty cell is currently operational even with the short. But after the 2003 Columbia disaster, which killed all seven astronauts, NASA says it has adopted an aggressive, safety-conscious approach to launching.' It causes one to wonder whether pre-Columbia-disaster NASA would have just replaced the fuel cell on the fly without telling anyone — and whether or not that is an ethically sound choice."
Unfortunately the article is a day old... Countdown is continuuing for a launch this morning (Friday morning).
CBC radio is saying it's on for today. This is in spite of the fact that the chief safety officer objects. They say they can go with only two fuel cells and don't need the third one. The spokesman I heard said that replacing the fuel cell had its own risks. Could this thing be so complicated that they can never get the whole thing working at the same time?
This article is a little late wouldn't you say, the shuttle launches this morning baring any further delays. Also I believe they are choosing to fly with the damaged fuel cell as it is not a threat to the safety of the crew.d ex.html
Good Update: http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/3484
Countdown ticker: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/in
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You save a huge amount of money if you launch from a geographic location that is near the equator, heading east (so you get the benefit of the Earth's rotation, which saves fuel and allows for an increased payload), and is far enough away from people that you don't get bits of rocket landing in residential areas if it all goes wrong. Being near the equator also puts you in a good position for a geostationary orbit.
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It's just the total complexity of the system. Most successful systems are simple enought hat, at some level, one person (such as Woz) can understand the whole system; and the purts on which that system are well understood and well characterised. In the se of the Shuttle, there too many parts, and too many of the parts are designed for that system alone, for anyone to understand the whole thing.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
It's not that it's a "shaky" piece of hardware, per se. It's just there are SO MANY points of failure, and after a few really bad problems, they've learned to be almost overly cautious with every failure.
An electrical supply on the ground goes down, you're fine. You just wait for a new one. An electical supply goes down in space, it's likely you're going to face serious challenges just staying alive.
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The shuttle Atlantis is set for liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 11:41 a.m. EDT this morning. This "news post" is a little delayed. See NASA Launch Blog and NASA Online TV for up-to-date info.
It's not a short in the fuel cell. Its a short in 1 phase of a 3 phase pump motor that supplies coolant to the fuel cell. The pump is currently limping along on 2 phases. If this pump looses another phase, it will be unable to pump and the fuel cell must be shutdown within 9 minutes. With the loss of 1 fuel cell, the mission must be aborted, and shuttle return to earth.
Nasa has said in the past that it would be unsafe to retreve the hubble and bring it back to earth because of its weight causing problems during landing. The truss that is currently in the shuttle weighs much more than the hubble. If they had to abort the mission before they can get to ISS to atleast offload the truss, they would probably have to ditch it in order to land safely. This would be a major setback for the ISS.