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Small Object Hit Space Shuttle Last Month
UglyTool writes "A small object, possibly a micrometeoroid, hit a radiator panel on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in September. The impact also damaged a one-inch (2.5-centimeter) area in the radiator's honeycomb-like aluminum mesh, but did not sever any of the panel's 26 vital coolant tubes as it passed through the half-inch wide panel.
This brings up some interesting questions. Is there a better way to protect the shuttle in orbit? Will a serious mishap in space be the end of our manned space program?"
From the article: "The impact left a hole about one-tenth of an inch in diameter, NASA reported Thursday on its Web site. The damage 'didn't endanger the spacecraft or the crew, nor did it affect mission operations,' NASA said. The radiators were brought inside the bay before the shuttle's landing last month, so the damaged area did not encounter searing heat during re-entry through Earth's atmosphere."
It just goes to show you that going into space is a very dangerous prospect. All of the astronauts in the space program know and understand this, and accept the level of risk it entails. Sometimes when we do thing like send civilian teachers into space or read about how the latest millionaire hitched a ride on a Soyuz, we forget just how risky it really is, but that doesn't make it any less so.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I really respect the bravery of our astronauts, if given a chance, I'd go up on the next shuttle. The public just needs to understand that it's not a joyride, it's hard, dangerous work.
Oh, and the good news is that thanks to these pioneers, hopefully, going outside the protective shell that is our atmosphere will become safe, and perhaps even common. If we're lucky, maybe even within our lifetimes. After all, it wasn't very long ago at all that riding in an airplane was a relatively risky proposition, and today, thousands of people do it every day without giving it a second thought.
Shit hits our spacecraft all the time! This is why there are basically enough parts to build 1 or 2 new shuttles. They have to replace things all the time. Satellites go dead because of this.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I think it's important to remember that with space exploration, it doesn't have to be a serious mishap but it could be any mishap at all. Fuel tank O-rings not being tested down to low enough temperatures, insulation breaking off the shuttle, pea-sized particles piercing the shuttle--these are the things that pose risk to our space program.
My work here is dung.
Call me uninformed, but it seems to me that these sorts of things have been quite common and are only receiving scrutiny since the Columbia disaster. That leads me to ask whether or not foam or other debris has struck the shuttle before hand and caused little or negligable damage to the orbiter, and if the fact that these impacts are causing more and more damage is due to the age of the craft itself. Perhaps, if it is related to the age, it is time to retire these current orbiters, sell them to some private investor/collector, and use the money from the sale to build a new generation of orbiter.
Put them in glass cases and on display.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
The likelihood of a sattelite being hit by a micrometeor decreases with smaller scale sattelites.
The only problem is manned missions. Low mass, unmanned nano sattelites are the future.
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How about some sort of shortwave radar system that tracks inbound threats, combined with a fast-firing gatling gun that shoots thousands of projectiles per second at the incoming material in order to deflect or destroy it.
Ok, it might not seem like a good idea at first, but after each mission, it'll become more and more necessary. The perfect money-making idea for that special aerospace contractor in your life.
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Whilst I agree with you about the shuttle in some respects, a rocket based ship won't save you from the kind of impact we are discussing.
I personally think the radiator was the best place for an impact to occur.
The multiple honeycomb layers absorb impact better than a solid single plate (this is the same reason they used aerogel to capture space dust).
A single THWACK on a hard shell could send a shockwave through the craft moving the damage zone elsewhere, better to coat the entire surface in shock absorbing material.
liqbase
"Sssssssssssssssssssssssss. . ."
What?
In other words,
(1) The shuttle is inspected with magnifiers after every flight for such hits. Most are tiny, but the windows are the most common part in need of replacement from these hits / pits. This is not the first time, it's not the last. Impacts by micrometeorites make up about half the critical things that could end a flight. They always have. They've known the risk for some time now. The astronauts all understand it. The shuttle flies tail-first in order to minimize the risk to reentry-critical parts. It's mostly news now because of the hype and drama about the return to flight.
And (b) the other previous US and Russian major mishaps didn't end the manned program, the next one won't either.
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It seems that this is a rather larger problem than they consider.
Is there a better way to protect the shuttle in orbit? Will a serious mishap in space be the end of our manned space program?
If whoever going into space doesn't have a plan for coping with the amount of litter in the immediate neighborhood of the earth, then they are stupid and probably WILL suffer catastrophe.
-Styopa
As you said, space is dangerous, it is inherently dangerous, there's no way to really end the danger. The astronauts know this, I respect them completely. Like you, I'd go up in an instant if ever given the opportunity. With that, I don't think any disaster caused by such space debris would end the manned space program. Rather, like what happened with Apollo 1, Challenger, & Columbia, NASA would probably do a thorough review and try to find a solution to further protect the spacecraft and/or backup plans should something go wrong. NASA and any other space program can only plan for so much. Think about Apollo 13 and everything they had to do to get Lovell and his crew home. It all comes back to the danger. Unlike say the military, no astronaut is forced to go up so by entering whatever space vehicle they go up on, they accept that risk.
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
"If you can't take a little bloody nose -- maybe you had better go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous -- with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross -- but it is not for the timid."
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This is exactly what i was thinking - they can come up with deflector shields for tanks these days, why not apply this to space-based craft? while they aren't technically 'shields' - at least they would suffice for protecting a craft from objects large enough to potentially damage them...if they can pick out rpg's, why not a piece of space debris...
mind you, space debris is typically flying a LOT faster than an rpg...
Gekido's Lair
qv: Whipple Shields
The idea behind whipple shields is that you put several thin barriers in front of a hypervelocity threat, and the shock waves induced inside the moving body (from rapidly loading and unloading it with compressive forces) tears it apart. What emerges from the other side of the whipple shield is a cloud of dust rather than a rock (or steel bolt, or whatever), and this cloud of dust is incapable of penetrating the side of your spacecraft.
The document linked above describes research which demonstrates that the strength and thickness of the individual barriers is much less important than the number of barriers, and the ratio of barrier thickness vs space between the barriers. Thus whipple shields can have extremely high mass efficiency against hypervelocity threats, equivalent to 0.6 of the same thickness of hardened steel. A foamed polystyrene solution (where the cell foam wall thicknesses are tuned to the correct ratio of foam cells' widths) could therefore provide the same level of protection as ~135 times its weight in hardened steel plate.
This technology is being actively developed for protecting battletanks from shaped charges (which generate explosively-formed penetrators moving at high hypervelocity speeds of 8,000m/s and more), but its relatively low thickness efficiency (0.6x, as opposed to ~3x-4x for some modern composite armor systems) limits its usefulness in this role, as battletanks have limited space to play with. Spacecraft are much less limited in this respect.
Other so-called "Active Defenses" developed for battletanks might also be applicable.
-- TTK
There isn't any one way to protect the shuttle or astronauts. As time goes one, there will be an increasing amount of space junk. To the extent it has a high velocity relative to something we care about, the junk will punch holes through that thing.
At best, we have a whole list of things we can do to minimize impacts:
1. minimize the junk new satelites spew out. This has been in work for quite a while now.
2. track the paths of known junk, or old junk producers. Again, being done.
3. toughen critical structures on spacecraft, especially pressurized habitats. Also, provide retreat areas that are secure.
4. plan flights around the worst of the known debris clouds. Again, they already do this, but it is increasingly impossible.
5. provide advanced warning of impending collisions. This could come from ground based and vehicle based radars. But frankly, at best you are only going to get a few seconds warning for the smaller stuff. Maybe enough time to say "Duck and cover!"
6. rest assured in the knowledge that, if it isn't big enough to kill you, chances are you can ignore it. And if it does kill you, your problems are all solved.
By the way, the note about the shuttle radiators being pulled in before the shuttle returned to Earth? They HAVE to be pulled in. The Radiators are inside the cargo bay doors. The only way to not pull them in and get the doors closed would be to jettison them, which I doubt the crew could do on orbit, even if they wanted to.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Earth's radius is about 4000 miles. Besides orbits are measured from the surface not the center of the Earth. Hubble's orbit is 353 miles and orbits once every 97 minutes at about 17,500 mph.
:q! Oh crap, not again...
That's their design for the shuttles successor.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Why is NASA/the Government/the Public so quick to shut down the space program every time something bad/fatal happens?
I respect the hell out of anyone who has a job that takes them into harm's way. I also think it's amazing that the US has yet to lose one astronaut IN SPACE. However, how many test pilots have been killed jockeying experimental aircraft for NASA and private companies? Should we not build new aircraft because someone might get killed flying it?
We do need to take a serious look at shuttle safety (or the safety of any system used by someone on a dangerous job), but we also need to understand that shit happens, and sometimes people die when it does. That's not a very consoling thing to tell the family, but it's a necessary evil of the business.
Not only would it be a terrible thing to science to lose the manned space program, but it would also mean that all the people related to space exploration who HAVE been killed in accidents related to space exploration died in vain.
Think about where civilization would be today had not men put out to sea without knowledge of whay lie beyond the horizon.
Space tourists aside, most of the astronauts were/are military personnel. They're not unaccustomed to the fact that their jobs might kill them.
There be monsters beyond the edge of the map, and I'm pretty sure the astronauts know it, accept it and would give their lives for it, so that others could return safely.
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