Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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
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.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
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