Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Optimistic About Fuel Tank Repairs

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the good-to-go dept.

DarkNemesis618 writes "NASA is now optimistic Atlantis' fuel tank will be able to be repaired in Florida. Due to a freak hail storm February 26 that had golf-sized hail chunks raining down on the launchpad put several thousand dings in the foam covering the external fuel tank as well as damaging 28 tiles on Atlantis' wing. 20 of the 28 tiles have been repaired and workers have started sanding down the damaged area of the tank itself. After it was decided that Atlantis needed to return to the VAB, NASA was unsure as to whether or not the tank could be repaired. But after bringing it back and doing more extensive inspections, the tank appeared to be in good enough shape that repairs could be done on the spot and a replacement was not necessary. This will allow for Atlantis to be launched late April for its construction mission to the ISS as well as not interfering with the remaining 4 launches planned this year. If the tank needed to be replaced, Atlantis would not have launched until June at the earliest."

104 comments

  1. Just curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Why would it take less time to repair, rather than replace the tank?

    1. Re:Just curious by jusdisgi · · Score: 2, Funny

      Why would it take less time to repair, rather than replace the tank?

      Well, they got it from NewEgg, they're out-of-stock, so the RMA is backordered. They could go and do a manufacturer replacement, but that could take forever.

      --
      Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
    2. Re:Just curious by regularstranger · · Score: 0

      They don't have extra tanks sitting around. The next one is supposed to be completed in June for the next mission.

    3. Re:Just curious by DarkNemesis618 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Like they said, Endeavour's (STS-118) tank would have been used if repair wasn't an option. This tank is scheduled to be completed and arriving at KSC April 12th. By replacing the tank, the remaining 4 launches this year would be pushed back. That's obviously not the preferred option as it would add more complications, but it would have been done should the damage have warranted it. Something else to note is that if they would have needed to replace Atlantis' tank, the tank would have been sent back to the manufacturer, completely repaired there and sent back for use on a later mission. The biggest issue really was whether the VAB and KSC had the ability to repair it on site or not. Luckily for NASA, it can be repaired in the VAB. This is not the first time a shuttle's tank has been damaged by hail, and let's not forget the woodpeckers who somehow thought the fuel tank woulda made a good home. (Both times the stack had been rolled back, repaired, and eventually successfully launched) Now NASA can launch Atlantis late April rather than having to wait til June if replacement was deemed neccessary.

      --
      What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
    4. Re:Just curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what happened to the woodpeckers?

      I bet Nasa left them homeless , destitute and on the streets.

  2. The last time. . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    NASA judged that the Shuttle was ready to fly after freak weather, astronauts lost their lives. I don't care how certain they are that this tank can fly, I think it should be replaced anyway. I just hope that I'm wrong and nothing horrible happens.

    1. Re:The last time. . by User+956 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The last time NASA judged that the Shuttle was ready to fly after freak weather, astronauts lost their lives.

      Yeah, but that was back in the day when space travel was really booming.

      --
      The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    2. Re:The last time. . by maxume · · Score: 1

      They knew the risks when they strapped in. Space flight is not something that is going to be safe for hundreds of years. The sooner we stop pretending, the sooner we start doing interesting things.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    3. Re:The last time. . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course they knew the risks. That however avoids the issue. NASA has the responsibility to make every effort to keep those astronauts safe. Given the complexity of the STS and the history it has had, I believe NASA is taking an unnecessary risk by qualifying that tank for flight after it was damaged the way it was.

      About the safety of spaceflight, you are wrong. Aircraft have been in use for more than a century, yet crashes are still a common occurance. I personally do not expect any method of transportation to be completely safe, but it seems as if NASA is more concerned with keeping a schedule, and THAT is what seems wrong.

    4. Re:The last time. . by maxume · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would argue that they have a mandate to convince people to strap in. How safe do they need to be? Safe enough to get a (well trained) crew for the next flight.

      I don't really care if they keep the ISS schedule(I would rather they spend the money on imaging sats), but if they were doing interesting things, there is certainly a place for increased risk.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    5. Re:The last time. . by NeoThermic · · Score: 1

      Except the "last time" was due to frozen o-ring seals around the SRBs. However, this isn't the first time hail has golf-balled the ET. STS-96 had a freak hail attack while on the pad, it was repaired and flew successfully. Freak weather != loss of the shuttle.

      NeoThermic

      --
      Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
    6. Re:The last time. . by ddig83 · · Score: 1

      When speaking to the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) last year, Mike Griffen was asked about his decision to launch Discovery (July 2006) against the advice of Bryan O'Connor (NASA Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer.) Please keep in mind that contrary to popular belief, test pilots are notoriously anal. They will refuse to fly an aircraft for the smallest inconsistencies or defects. Griffen's response (to a highly skeptical audience) was something to the effect of, "Without trying to sound arrogant, I believe I am now a world class authority on the Space Shuttle's external tank foam. After Columbia, I was well aware that the next launch decision could come down to my two top deputies giving me different recommendations. I've studied the foam so intensively that I felt confident approving the launch against O'Connor's advice."

    7. Re:The last time. . by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      They knew the risks when they strapped in.

      "I say, let them crash"

      --
      What?
    8. Re:The last time. . by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Wasn't STS-96 the mission where Discovery got hit by flying thermal insulation and they nearly lost the bird due to tile damage? No, wait, that was almost every shuttle mission.... That said, STS-96 was #15 in terms of number of impacts among the flights that made it home in one piece, and in terms of major impacts, it was #5. I wonder if there's a temperature correlation in this data. Anybody have a table of shuttle launch temperatures?

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    9. Re:The last time. . by maxume · · Score: 1

      No. That isn't even remotely what I said. The astronauts that get in the shuttle are easily among the 10,000 people on the planet who best understand the damn thing, so I am perfectly happy deferring the go/no go question to them; I am sure that they also prefer it that way.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    10. Re:The last time. . by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      It's a line from a movie. Can't remember right, but I think it was one of the Airplane movies. Talking heads are debating the developing news and one of them says they knew the risks when they bought their tickets, so I say Let them Crash.

      It's funny.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    11. Re:The last time. . by maxume · · Score: 1

      Yeah, whoosh then.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    12. Re:The last time. . by Rei · · Score: 1

      NASA has grown more and more afraid of accidents as time has gone on. It used to be about budget and schedule. Now, it's about not screwing up. Remember Apollo 12? They launched what was basically a gigantic lightning rod full of explosives, shooting ionized gas out the back, *in the middle of a thunderstorm*. And needless to say, it got struck and nearly caused an abort. NASA's changed.

      There are hidden (and often not-so-hidden) costs associated with applying pressure to NASA, or any space agency, to reduce the failure rate of rockets. I'm of the school of thought that safety should be a design/testing phase issue. If there are trivial modifications after the fact that you can make to provide a great deal of safety, good, do them, but otherwise, live with the craft that you built. And learn from it for next time. Otherwise, you're blowing money and wasting time that could be spent making your next craft better or fulfilling other missions.

      --
      Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
    13. Re:The last time. . by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      It's funny.

      What are you sayin'?

      --
      What?
  3. Question about foam by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

    Isn't the foam there for insulation of the tank before launch? Would it be possible to blow the foam off just before launch or at the time of ignition? Then they wouldn't have to worry about the quality of the foam or if pieces are going to fall off and cause damage. I'm just asking. I know making it fall apart completely might be nearly as hard as making it stay together, but it seems worth asking.

    1. Re:Question about foam by Radon360 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps I'm mistaken on this, but I think the foam also helps prevent heating of the tank while the shuttle reaches the necessary escape velocity (High Speed + Atmospheric Drag/Friction = Heat). The last thing you want to happen is for the tank to heat up as it starts to get close to empty. When there's less fuel, there's less mass to heat, so it can heat even faster. The result could possibly be a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE), not too much different in principle from when a compromised liquid propane tank/vessel catches fire and heats itself from the flames.

    2. Re:Question about foam by XdevXnull · · Score: 1

      >The result could possibly be a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE)
      Which we all know means 'to bluff'...

      --
      "I'm a Laver, not a Phyto[plankton]"
    3. Re:Question about foam by johnpaul191 · · Score: 1

      iirc the foam is frozen solid, and not anything like styrofoam used to make cheap coolers. remember that pieces of this foam falling at launch broke the heat tiles that caused the last disaster. yes, they were moving at a high rate of speed, but they had to have enough mass to them that they could still do that damage and not just reach a terminal velocity.
      as other people said, it's also possible that the foam is needed during the launch. there has to be a reason that they do not just skin the tank in something to keep the foam intact. granted the weight is an issue, but so is losing a ship. remember the tank was not always orange, but they stopped painting the external tank because the weight of the paint was significant enough that it was deemed a waste. that is a HUGE tank with a lot of surface area.

  4. so by mastershake_phd · · Score: 1

    Maybe they should store the shuttle and tanks indoors.

    --
    Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
    1. Re:so by DustyShadow · · Score: 1

      I believe it was outside in preparation for launch...

    2. Re:so by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...maybe they should launch it from indoors?

    3. Re:so by Tokimasa · · Score: 0

      Why don't they store the shuttle under some kind of solid covering that, on launch day, will open like a dome on a sport field? Or from some form of underground "silo"? It would help protect the shuttle, or, in the future, whatever they are using to go to space.

      --
      --Thomas J. Owens
    4. Re:so by sonicleads · · Score: 1

      Why don't they store the shuttle under some kind of solid covering that, on launch day, will open like a dome on a sport field? Or from some form of underground "silo"? It would help protect the shuttle, or, in the future, whatever they are using to go to space. They could keep it under a swimming pool! And when they want to launch it, the pool could just slide out of the way!
    5. Re:so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From what I remember of a Slashdot post a while ago (so you know this is going to be reliable information), the vibrations during launch are too much for such a structure to bear, particularly when you want to reuse the structure for every launch. The cost of recovering from freak weather incidents is presumably not high enough to justify the cost and complexity of adding protection.

    6. Re:so by regularstranger · · Score: 0

      The launch tower and that big crawler thing seem to hold up pretty well to the vibrations. In any case, putting a roof on it that could roll half a mile away or so probably wouldn't hurt anything.

    7. Re:so by solitas · · Score: 1
      Why don't they store the shuttle under some kind of solid covering that, on launch day, will open like a dome on a sport field? Or from some form of underground "silo"? It would help protect the shuttle, or, in the future, whatever they are using to go to space.

      Thunderbirds are go! :D

      (in case you're not old/geeky enough: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_%28TV_series%29 )
      (just copy/paste that: /. doesn't resolve the link properly if I put http: in front of it)

      --
      "It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
    8. Re:so by CalSolt · · Score: 1

      I've been saying this for years, they need to move the shuttle to California! A launch facility near San Diego would be well supported by the local tech economy AND the weather would be beyond perfect. No more weather delays! So what if it's a little extra fuel. The cost of a slightly bigger rocket would be more than recovered by preventing delays like this.

    9. Re:so by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I presume you're joking but just in case you're not - you are aware of at least 2 reasons they launch from Florida?

      1: About as far south as you can easily get on the continental US, to get speed benefit out of the Earth's rotation. None at the poles, about 1000mph at the equator, IIRC about 800mph at KSC. That's why the French and British launch at the north end of South America, and why HG Wells launched from Stone Hill in Florida, not that far from KSC, in "From Earth to the Moon." It's also part of why Russian rockets tend to be such workhorses - they're equatorially disadvantaged, and even at that Baikanaur isn't in Russia, I believe it's in one of the 'stans.

      2: Before it was KSC, they were having a lot of bad days trying to launch unmanned rockets. It was really handy having lots of ocean downrange, rather than risk having their problems fall on populated areas. Maybe they are reliable enough to launch from the west today, but that's not where they started and grew.

      As an aside to both points, it's worth noting that Vandenberg, the former second Shuttle launch site is rather in the middle of nowhere. The fact that Vandenberg is further north than KSC also drove the design of the Shuttle into bad directions, according to some. I once read that the possibility of Vandenberg operation is what drove the large delta wings, rather than something simpler and lighter that could have been used for Florida/Edwards. In that context, there were some NASA types really upset that the Air Force drove the Shuttle design in a direction that they didn't want, where it is today. THEN the Air Force turned around and decided they didn't like it, after having (according to some) sabotaged its design.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  5. NASA Engineers by Seumas · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apparently, being a NASA engineer is a tankless job.

  6. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why can't they just use duct tape ?

  7. How big is it? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1, Insightful

    [...] golf-sized hail chunks [...] How big is a golf?

    Volkswagen Golf's are about 5.5, 13 feet long, and about 4.5 feet tall. That's a pretty big hunk of hail.
    1. Re:How big is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How big is a golf?
      Volkswagen Golf's are about 5.5, 13 feet long, and about 4.5 feet tall. That's a pretty big hunk of hail.

      How big is "feet"?

      Like, small baby feet, teen feet, woman-in-her-20s-feet or a basketball superstar feet?

    2. Re:How big is it? by Dr.+Cody · · Score: 1

      It's part of a NASA-wide phase out of obselete units such as the ft-lb and the Beetle.

    3. Re:How big is it? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      "How big is a golf?"

      What does your common sense tell you?

      I know it's fun to correct silly little flaws in stories, but you do realize you're stooping down into Forrest Gump terroritory in this case, right?

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    4. Re:How big is it? by fuego451 · · Score: 1

      Just a little larger than a ping pong but smaller than a tennis.

    5. Re:How big is it? by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      awwww, common sense is no fun, mommy!

      Normally I tell people to grow up (or at least think it at them). In this case though, you should grow back down a little bit. This was not a correction to the story, but a (successful) attempt at a little bit of humor. Perhaps your particular sense of humor doesn't veer this direction, but there are a lot of us who find things like "how big is a golf?" after a minor typo like that in the summary to be moderately humorous. Sorry if you think that's dumb. Deal with it.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    6. Re:How big is it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ooooooh! I get it now! HAW HAW HAW HAW haw haw ha ha ha.. HEEE heee heee heee hee... ahhhhhhh.... Oops, commercial's on. I'll post more when Full House is over.

  8. guess what i found on ebay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    NASA is selling the old tank. I'm going to make a sweet ass bong out of it.

  9. Uhh, you know what, guys? by bensafrickingenius · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm feeling a little under the weather. Why don't you all just go on without me, and I'll catch the next shuttle, mkay?

    --
    I am not left-handed, either!
  10. The greatest run-on sentence ever written by Quarters · · Score: 1
    Let's all bask in its glory for a few moments, shall we?


    Due to a freak hail storm February 26 that had golf-sized hail chunks raining down on the launchpad put several thousand dings in the foam covering the external fuel tank as well as damaging 28 tiles on Atlantis' wing.

    1. Re:The greatest run-on sentence ever written by Bob54321 · · Score: 1

      Basking under that removed what little tan I had and returned me back to my pale geeky goodness.

      --
      :(){ :|:& };:
    2. Re:The greatest run-on sentence ever written by Fnordulicious · · Score: 1

      Here, I'll give it a half-assed parsing for you.

      [[Due [to
                  [[a [freak [hail storm]]]_i
                    [[!!!] February 26]]
                    that []_i
                    [had [[golf-sized [hail chunks]]
                                [[raining down]
                                  [on the launchpad]]]]]],
        [[???]_j
          [put
            [several thousand [dings]]
            [in [the foam
                        [covering [the [external [fuel tank]]]]]]]
          [as well as
                  [[]_j
                    [damaging [28 tiles] [on Atlantis's wing]]]]]]

      []_i is an empty noun phrase which agrees with the determiner phrase [a [freak [hail storm]]_i above.

      [!!!] is an empty head for a prepositional phrase that would normally contain "on". It's grammatical to leave this empty (or delete it, if you believe in transformational grammar) in some dialects of English, but not in others.

      [???]_j is where there's a noun phrase missing which the empty noun phrase []_j wants to agree with. This is the only real ungrammatical error in the sentence.

      There are two punctuation errors which I've corrected, but which have nothing to do with the grammaticality of the sentence. The first is inserting a comma after "launchpad", the second is adding an "s" after "Atlantis'", since it's not a plural possessive but a noun ending in /s/.

      I'd draw you a tree but this is text only, sorry.

      If I were rewriting this, I'd throw the whole thing out and start again. It looks like someone edited it to death.

      Share and Enjoy!

  11. Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the tank is half-full, or half-empty....

  12. Free parking? by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

    Is it just me or is it about fucking time that NASA builds a carport for this multi-billion dollar equipment? Every time they keep something in Florida, it gets hurricaned, hailed on, attacked by gators, or assaulted by old people with canes and walkers.

    Just park the damn thing under a roof for once.

    1. Re:Free parking? by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Just park the damn thing under a roof for once."

      Is this a joke or does this person not know not know about the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)?

      Of course they keep it indoors. But of course they take it outside before they light off the big rockets and launch it into space. Makes a mess of the building if you try doing the inside. What happened was they chaecked the weather, it looked good so they took the think outdoors and then unexpectedly they got hailed on.

      The VAB is quite famous. It was built in the 1960's and was and still is the largest enclosed space in the world. It was designed to house a fully assembled Appolo era moon rockets, (A Saturn V with all the upper stages)

      See here for more info on the VAB
      http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/facilities/vab.html

    2. Re:Free parking? by fastgood · · Score: 1

      Maybe they can sell a couple extra units to the public to defray the cost of repairs? I know that every time it hails here, Crazy Bob's Ford sells dozens more vehicles to people just waiting for such an act of God. So what if it's a little beat up, and of course it is still 10% over invoice sticker, and you gotta sign a waiver, and the insurance company makes sure you never file a silver paint claim ... but your neighbors will be so jealous when you're the first on your block.

    3. Re:Free parking? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but you're wrong. The worlds largest enclosed space is a Boing factory. The VAB is 129 million cubic feet, while the Boing plant is 200 million.

    4. Re:Free parking? by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 1

      "Just park the damn thing under a roof for once." Is this a joke or does this person not know not know about the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)?

      It takes five or more hours to move the shuttle one-way from the VAB to the pad. This is not a practical trip to make every time a thunderstorm appears in the Florida sky.

      --
      But then again, I could be wrong.
    5. Re:Free parking? by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      Install a rail system instead of using those crazy tractor things.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    6. Re:Free parking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you done any of your homework?!?!?! NASA has a gigantic garage with seperate locations for all 4 (now 3) shuttles. Inside the garage, they are able to lift/tilt the shuttle and mount it to the refueling tank. Repairs and upgrades are conducted indoors. However, once ready for launch, the shuttle is driven (in a vertical position) to the launch pad. Considering the speed of the tranportation (about 1 mile per hour) it is hard to move the shuttle back indoors during *freak* storms.

    7. Re:Free parking? by rivetgeek · · Score: 1

      "and was and still is the largest enclosed space in the world."

      No matter how you define "largest", it's still wrong.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_build ings_in_the_world

    8. Re:Free parking? by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      I see someone that's about to get a job with...anyone but NASA. :)

    9. Re:Free parking? by justins98 · · Score: 1

      I don't understand why they can't do something like this:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre/

      It only takes 20 minutes to retract the roof, so it could be left closed until just before launch.

    10. Re:Free parking? by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 1

      No, I'm right. My point was that the guy must have been either joking or grossly ignorant not to know about the VAB.

      That I left off the world "one of the" does not matter to the overall point. The building is so well known that people here are able to site specifications on it and it has it's own wikipedia page.

    11. Re:Free parking? by Paulrothrock · · Score: 1

      I think the problem here is less with the parking and more with Florida. Too many people, too many alligators, and too much weather. Why don't we launch from the Arizona desert or something? The couple degrees of latitude couldn't make that much difference.

      --
      I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
    12. Re:Free parking? by everphilski · · Score: 1

      Dropping SRB's over inhabited land, however, would be.

    13. Re:Free parking? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      A simple "whoops!" would have been sufficient.

  13. Speed Tape by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The funny thing about that is that the Air Force uses something they call "speed tape" to repair minor body damage on their transports, the C-5 / C-17 / C-130's (and before it was retired, the C-141). Speed Tape is just macho duct tape.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  14. Apostrophes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're asking about Volkswagen Golf's what?

    Balls? :-)

  15. Flying lemon by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 1

    The shuttle is a 20-something year old POS. A car manufacturer would have recalled and cancelled anything this bad long ago. Screwing up this badly requires government input. Twenty years back (yes I remember the first shuttle launch), there was a promise of a brave new age with space trips being as simple as regular airline flights (ence the name Shuttle - something like a shuttle bus which just takes you for an easy casual ride from one place to another). Roll forward 20+ years and we're just stuck in a 1980s time warp. If airlines were as unsafe as the shuttle, every day there'd be 4 plane crashes at LAX before breakfast.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Flying lemon by GreggBz · · Score: 4, Informative

      The shuttle is a 20-something year old POS


      compared to what?

      A car manufacturer would have recalled and cancelled anything this bad long ago.


      Oh.. an 86 Ford Econoline van I guess.

      If airlines were as unsafe as the shuttle, every day there'd be 4 plane crashes at LAX before breakfast.


      Good thing those 30 year old 747's and DC-10's don't have to carry large fragile payloads into low Earth orbit. Funny though, they are built by the same companies that build the shuttle. And the shuttle was probably constructed with a lot more care attention and diligence the the jumbo jet they built in march of 1993. Maybe the application is just slightly different.

      Yea, the shuttle is far from perfect. It is expensive and more complex then it should be. It's also constrained to a small very un-glamorous space application. But it's the first vehicle of it's type humans built. And it's the only vehicle we have that can do what it does. The fact that it's still in service after 25 years doing amazing things is a testament to it's design. And I have confidence that NASA could do a whole lot better given more funding and a vision they are allowed to follow through with.

      Enough with the bandwagon, whiney, pessimistic idiotic shuttle bashing. Do some research, and post objectively. Yes, it's time to move on and yes I'd like to see a new space vehicle. Really though, these let's slam the POS shuttle trolls are wearing me the hell out.

    2. Re:Flying lemon by DarkNemesis618 · · Score: 1

      The Space Shuttle has been dubbed "The Most Complex Machine Ever Built" and that title fits. When you think of how many millions of parts are used to make the shuttle, it's awe-inspiring that they did what they did and in my opinion successfully. Yes, it didn't quite live up to its original expectations, but that doesn't make it a failure. Looking at everything the shuttle HAS done, it's a pretty big list. Not to sound uncaring or callous, but 2 tragedies in 100+ flights is not a failure, (especially considering the risks of spacetravel to begin with...it was dangerous back in Mercury, Gemini & Apollo too...Apollo 1 or 13 ring a bell?). All 3 losses of life was a horrible thing to happen but you can't judge any piece of technology on 2 accidents, no one would drive or fly anymore. Remember that NASA grounded the Apollo program after the Apollo 1 fire, and the shuttle fleet after both Challenger and Columbia investigate what happened and fix it. When Discovery (STS-114) lifted off in July 2005, foam again fell off the tank. Did NASA dismiss it as an isolated incident? No, they re-grounded the fleet and made more modifications to the tank, bringing about the one currently in use. NASA never considered each tragedy and dismiss it, they did an extensive review and did their best to fix the problems, come up with more fall-back plans, and in my opinion made the shuttle program safer and better.
      And finally, when you build something as robust as the shuttle, and better, then you have room to talk.

      --
      What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
  16. They also think hail storms are "freaks" in FL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess they don't live there...

  17. Wrong. by loganrapp · · Score: 1

    It's the opposite of a run-on: a fragmented sentence.

    A run-on is a complete sentence that has another sentence (or fragment) added without any punctuation separating the two.

    A run-on: I love run-on sentences do you love run on sentences?

    A fragment: Because I love fragments.

    This opening sentence is just an incredibly long fragment.

    Due to a freak hail storm February 26 that had golf-sized hail chunks raining down on the launchpad put several thousand dings in the foam covering the external fuel tank as well as damaging 28 tiles on Atlantis' wing.

    Essentially, the dependent clause is "due to a freak hail storm" - cutting or adding the rest of the fragment does not change the grammar. It could be "Due to a freak hail storm, I stubbed my toe," or it could be "Due to a freak hail storm... [everything] wing, I stubbed my toe," and grammatically, they are sound and structurally the same.

  18. Can't they build a tougher shuttle? by pwizard2 · · Score: 1

    I've often wondered if there is any possible explanation for the shuttle being so damage-prone that a chunk of foam would damage it.

    --
    "It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
    1. Re:Can't they build a tougher shuttle? by regularstranger · · Score: 1, Informative

      Wonder no more, there is a possible explanation. Adding armour to a shuttle would make it heavier, and heavier things have a hard time flying, especially into space. It's not the foam by itself that is so damaging, it is the foam moving at high velocity that is so damaging. If you have better solutions, (and a demonstation of your solution) I'm sure NASA would like to hear you out. They do, after all, need some fresh new ideas when it comes to human spaceflight.

    2. Re:Can't they build a tougher shuttle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A chunk of foam, used to insulate a tank of cryogenic rocket fuel. Probably gets cold enough to make water ice form on it. Engineering the whole shuttle to survive big chunks of ice falling from considerable height would make it too heavy to lift off.

    3. Re:Can't they build a tougher shuttle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A one pound chunk of foam travelling at 500 mph is not like a nerf football you had chucked at your head by your cousin Ralph. Placed in a 700mph slipstream though and each, due to lack of density will rapidly decelerate. Impacting on Carbon-Carbon, one pound is one pound equals one great big pounding.

  19. The plan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There was a plan. It was called the we-should-move-everything-to-texas-where-it-should -have-been-built-in-the-first-place plan.

    1. Re:The plan by NeoThermic · · Score: 1

      Not really. The current place is basically perfect. There's three reasons why where it is now is good.
      The first is the fact that you're close to the equator. This helps by reducing the required escape velocity since you're ever-so-slightly further away from the centre of the earth.
      The second is that you're closer to the TAL landing points. This is critical if you really need to TAL, as it only takes about 20 mins from the time of a TAL call to landing.
      The third is quite simply that you're launching over water, and thus anything you wish to drop (be it SSRBs, ETs or the whole shuttle if you needed to do a bail out after an RTLS), you're not doing it on someone's house.

      NeoThermic

      --
      Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
  20. ahem by skogs · · Score: 1

    Seriously. The stiff, insulation foam....it is dented.

    Is this really going to cause the liquid fuel inside to change one bit? nope.

    Is it going to cause big, ice covered, hunks to fall off? nope.

    Is it going to save a dozen or two people's butts if something freakish did happen? Yup.

    There you go. CYA.

    No matter what, the government workers will ALWAYS cover their behinds.

    CYA gentlemen.

    --
    Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
    1. Re:ahem by feronti · · Score: 1

      And of course, a private engineer would never CYA. No matter if there's a failure, he'd be legally liable, he sure as well wouldn't CYA. If you're not sure what the effect is, it's better to err on the side of caution, especially when lives are at stake. Now, stop being a dumbass; this is a good engineering decision... they've assessed the risk, and they don't have to replace the tank.

    2. Re:ahem by DarkNemesis618 · · Score: 1

      It was a good engineering decision. They didn't just look at the tank at the pad and make the decision. They brought it back to the VAB and gave it a much more thorough inspection up close to see what the full impact of the damage was. Sure they said at the pad that the tank should be repairable pending a closer look, but the key word and phrase there was "should" and "pending a closer look". Never once have they ever ruled out replacement. They always kept replacement as a backup option.

      --
      What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
    3. Re:ahem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're probably right. The damage to the foam is not in a spot that has historically been a concern, but you know NASA isn't taking chances with the foam any more. It is feasible that the holes have weakened the foam, even created stress concentrations, that will cause foam to be shed from that location in flight. There may also be concerns about affects on the insulating value of the damaged foam.

      This is not without precendent. Hail damage has happened a couple times before, once causing a roll-back to the VAB for repairs. There was also another, more amusing incident where a woodpecker damaged the foam and prompted a rollback. Remember, these were both pre-Columbia accident.

  21. That Depends by malia8888 · · Score: 1

    If I were an astronaut and I found out that there were damaged tiles, a possibly failing tank, I might drive 900 miles cross country strapped into a diaper just so I wouldn't have to report to work.

    --
    Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
  22. Golf? by evilviper · · Score: 1

    golf-sized hail

    I'm sorry, but I'm confused...

    How big is a "golf" exactly?

    Is it about the size of a "jog"?
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    1. Re:Golf? by NevarMore · · Score: 1

      Its a small-medium sized German car. I for one am more concerned about the hail that size than I am about the shuttle.

  23. MOD PARENT UP!!! by feronti · · Score: 1

    Yes, I'm yelling, but damned, I'm tired of only hearing people bashing NASA here. What has any other agency private or public done that comes anywhere near the achievements of NASA? When someone is designing an aircraft, where do they go for data to calibrate their simulations? NASA. What agency has launched more successful missions out of Earth's gravity well? None, but NASA. Sure, they're a big, slow moving organization... but try to do what they've done with a smaller organization. It won't work.

    1. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let's see... ESA, RFSA... I'm sure there are others. I'm not saying NASA hasn't done a lot of good work. They have. They aren't by a long shot the only space agency that has done a lot of good work, though.

      The ISS was developed jointly by all of those organizations and others, and was built jointly as well. The shuttle's remote manipulator arm was built by the Canadian Space Sgency, IIRC. As for shuttles, the Russian (nay, Soviet) space agency studied the concept of building a reusable space plane, built one, and scrapped it after only a single flight. I suspect that they realized how poor the reusability of the design was, then concluded that it wasn't worth the trouble.

      The shuttle was a classic example of "too many cooks" syndrome. The military's insistence on carrying home satellites (AFAIK, never used during reentry for anything other than Spacelab, which, BTW, was designed by the ESA), coupled with NASA's insistence on maximum reusability resulted in a shuttle in which the orbiter main engines still require a complete tear down between launches, the heat tiles require massive service for every launch, and the external tank still burns up. If someone were designing the shuttle today, it would look very different. It would be at the top of the stack, the orbiter would have no main engines internally, and would be orders of magnitude safer as a result of either one of those changes.

      A shuttle designed today would not be built using steel frames, but would instead be built using more modern materials like carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, polycarbonate, etc. except for the portions that get to extreme temperatures during reentry. A shuttle today would ideally not use liquid fuel. That stuff is a nightmare, both in terms of safety and in terms of the required facilities to maintain its temperature. Instead, it would solely use solid rockets (or a single solid rocket) with adjustable nozzles. This part would be disposable.

      A shuttle designed today, since it would not have to carry the weight of main engines during reentry, could safely handle the weight of an ablative heat shield under the thermal tiles to ensure a safe return. Fewer thermal tiles (say a fourth as many, but 4x as large) would be a big win in terms of complexity and propensity for failure. Use a more flexible binder so that they don't fall off so often, or better yet, hold them in place with a replaceable steel lattice with pins that stick into the edges of the tiles to anchor them even more securely than any glue (or run pins into them from the back or... fill in the blank.

      A shuttle designed today might even have a rear ablative shield and a switch wing design, falling back-end-first through the upper layers of atmosphere, using the ablative heat shield to handle the heat, then at some known altitude, would use the partially deployed wings to reverse its direction and use a chute to slow its descent. Once its descent slowed to a reasonable level, the chute would be detached (with the ablative shield in tow), and the shuttle would continue to fall nose down, at which point the switch wings would be deployed fully and the shuttle would glide in for a landing. You could even put in some small, in-air-safe engines under the heat shield, with a few minutes of fuel to make landing more manageable.

      Anyway, I could rant for hours about all the things NASA (and the military) did wrong in designing and maintaining the shuttle program, but I won't because I'm really glad to see that the current head of NASA doesn't share the rose colored glasses of previous administrators and sees the shuttle for what it is---a good first prototype, but a bad final design. I'm hopeful that eventually we will see something like the shuttle in concept, but radically improved in implementation, even if we do end up stuck with plain old rockets for a while in the interim.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    2. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by iamlucky13 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't get defensive. He wasn't trash talking the ESA or any other space agency. ESA in particular has performed well lately. He was trash talking the people who trash talk NASA without having a freaking clue what they're talking about.

      Part of the reason a shuttle designed today would look very different is because of what we learned from the shuttle. Of course, partially due to limited budgets, we're moving away from the shuttle concept (google CEV if you're unfamiliar).

      That said, I think there's some parts where you're flat out wrong. Rather than deal with the variety of architectures that are possible for a shuttle, I'm going to address them in the context of the shuttle we now have and why it is the way it is.

      The orbiter is not made from steel, it's made from aluminum and titanium. Of course, CF was just budding at the time it was built and was not a feasible technology. It's only now becoming mainstream in planes, but you can expect to see significant amounts of it on future spacecraft, I will grant you that. It will not, however, offer any magical advantages. Merely a little weight-savings.

      The shuttle main engines are liquid fueled because they are significantly more efficient than solid fueled boosters (ISP of about 420 compared to 250 for the SRB's). The solid rocket boosters are desirable because of their extremely high thrust for getting off the ground, but most of the delta V comes from the cryogenic liquid fuels. The wisdom of this choice is reflected in the fact that almost every commercial launcher uses liquid fuel for its core and upper stages, and I think most use LOX (but with kerosene instead of H2). Solid fuels are not without their faults. In addition to low efficiency, their throttling ability is fixed, they can't do a live abort (stop launch once ignition begins), and the fuel can be damaged by excess handling, meaning it needs replacing or the booster may fail.

      The engines are mounted on the orbiter instead of the external tank (as per the Russian Buran shuttle) because NASA was counting on reusing them. At $50 million dollars each x 3 engines (~2005 dollars), reusing them saves $150 million per flight (The Russian engines were cheaper, slightly less efficient).

      There's a lot of room for criticism of the heat shield, but for a winged re-entry vehicle, there wasn't much flexibility for achieving a light weight shield over such a large area. I believe quite a few alternative mounting methods were considered but found infeasible or higher risk, including mounting pins. The size of the tiles was largely affected by the need to flex in flight.

      The Russian space shuttle was scrapped due to lack of money. Given the state of the Soviet Union at the time of its completion and the direction of their space program, it wasn't even worth making do with it after all the money they spent developing it. I don't understand your proposal for a rearward entry or desire for the addition of engines. A rearward entry would not address any of the lessons learned from the shuttle and would only complicate aerodynamics and heat issues. The swing wing would increase mechanical complexity and be difficult to implement for a blunt body re-entry design. No landing attempt has ever come up short, and the size of engines required to enable a fly around would be a significant weight penalty.

      I maintain the view that others have offered. While the shuttle was overly ambitious, represented a needlessly challenging architecture, and did not fit the needs of the space program well as it developed (the shuttle was never meant to be our only manned vehicle), it is an astounding marvel of technology and a fine piece of engineering.

      We may someday see another vehicle like the shuttle, but probably smaller...designed for crew shuttling and maybe as a work platform only. Not for cargo. It will definitely not use the side stack configuration that places the re-entry vehicle at risk from launch damage. That's probably the biggest lesson of the shuttle program.

    3. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      All good points. To address a few of those points, I proposed the idea of a switch wing because it makes launch more efficient, turning it into something that approximates a capsule in terms of air flow around it, which would make it easier to have it on top of the stack. It would also mean that you could avoid the heat shielding on the wings almost entirely , as they would not be deployed until a parachute slowed their descent to something more reasonable.

      Fair enough about the liquid fuels versus solid fuels and throttle control, but the hydrogen has been a real nightmare. Maybe dropping liquid fuel is going too far, but at least use a different liquid fuel.... :-)

      The reuse of the engines might save money, but given the amount of service they require per flight, it seems like a cheaper design could have been reached which was less efficient but didn't require constant servicing. Either that or a cheaper, non-reusable design that could be replaced for less than the cost of ripping the engines out, tearing them down, and rebuilding them. Either way, the shuttle costs dramatically more to launch than non-reusable launch vehicles even though the non-reusable vehicles have to be built from scratch every time. It's hard to justify that, and every part that requires a tear down between flights is contributing to that cause, even if that part contributes less than it would if it were replaced outright.

      As for the lack of in-air engines, the reason I suggested that is not because any shuttle landing has failed, but rather because maintaining three runways in the U.S. plus external sites around the world plus having to piggyback the shuttle on a 747 costs a lot of money. A LOT of money. Every time they have to divert to another landing site because the shuttle is so hard to land, that's costing money. If the shuttle had powered flight and switch wings that could maintain altitude at lower speeds, they could bring the shuttle down to a significantly slower speed before the landing, which would reduce the need for such drastic measures.

      Also, if the shuttle had powered flight and an alligator ran across the runway (KSC), you could take off again and come around for another pass. Right now, they land on a wing and a prayer, with Jeeps running up and down the runway continuously for several ours prior to landing to keep the 'gators away....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    4. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think hydrogen has been as much of a nightmare as you suspect. It is harder to handle, to be sure, but for high performance vehicles, engineers keep coming back to it, which I take as reflecting its merit. It's used on the Delta 4 and the Ares I and V. Yes it is tough to handle, which is why most smaller or lower performance rockets use kerosene, but they incur somewhere around a 25% mass penalty in extra fuel. That has to be accounted for in the engineering.

      I honestly don't know how much service the Space Shuttle Main Engines require between flights, but it's much less than the SRB's, which are the part that takes a disappointing amount of service. On this point, I will note that NASA originally wanted to use the SSME's on the Ares V, but they would not be recoverable on this vehicle, so they went with the Delta IV's engine. I think that suggests the value of recycling engines. SpaceX is also planning on engine reuse for their Falcon series of launchers.

      I should mention that the shuttle doesn't cost as much as you suspect compared to other launchers. While dividing all of the program costs from inception to now (including R&D and infrastructure) yields a cost per launch of over $1 billion, the fixed costs of launch have been cited at around only $60 million. More realistically, I believe the cost of adding extra missions to the manifest has been widely calculated to vary between $150 to $500 million, for up to 7 astronauts and 50,000 pounds of payload. In comparison, A Soyuz (3 astronauts, no appreciable cargo) is about $70 million. A Delta IV Heavy (58,000 pounds cargo) costs about $250 million.

    5. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by Rei · · Score: 1

      I agree with most of what you said, but I have a few nits to pick.

      A shuttle today would ideally not use liquid fuel. That stuff is a nightmare, both in terms of safety and in terms of the required facilities to maintain its temperature. Instead, it would solely use solid rockets (or a single solid rocket) with adjustable nozzles. This part would be disposable.

      What? Solids aren't restartable. I assume you're talking about replacing the OMS. Hopefully you're not talking about replacing the RCS ;) Or are you talking about replacing the ET with an SRB-based system?

      One shouldn't lump all liquid fuels together.

      Also, don't bash LOX/LH too badly. Yeah, it's a pain. It also has almost 100 more Isp than LOX/Kerosene and does even better vs. most solids. Isp may not be everything, but it sure is a darned big something ;)

      A shuttle designed today, since it would not have to carry the weight of main engines during reentry, could safely handle the weight of an ablative heat shield under the thermal tiles to ensure a safe return.

      That would be a nightmare. It's hard enough to bond tiles to the frame because of thermal expansion, and you're proposing to bond them to ablatives? Or are you proposing to be bonded to the frame, puncturing through the ablative layer, leaving a hole that would funnel in hot gasses in the event of a tile failure, and having the tiles slide over the frame like scales (that would be a pain to design, if it would work at all). Also, I hear a bunch of people complaining about tiles for their cost and fragility, and the usual answer is "ablatives". For those who don't know, applying an effective ablative coating is also very pricey, and the coating is prone to damage as well. Lastly, this statement seems to assume that the loss of a tile is problematic for the shuttle. Shuttle tile losses are not unusual. The loss of *too many* tiles, esp. those in critical areas, is problematic.

      Fewer thermal tiles (say a fourth as many, but 4x as large) would be a big win in terms of complexity and propensity for failure.

      Yes, it would be nice, but there are bonding and manufacture challenges, and a failure becomes a more significant issue.

      Use a more flexible binder so that they don't fall off so often, or better yet, hold them in place with a replaceable steel lattice with pins that stick into the edges of the tiles to anchor them even more securely than any glue (or run pins into them from the back or... fill in the blank.

      The tiles aren't simply "glued" on. Initially, they were bonded directly to the frame. This didn't work. The frame expands faster than the tiles. Rather, the tiles have to be bonded to a flexible intermediate layer, which is in turn bonded to the frame. Research is progressing for better tile bonding methods, though.

      A shuttle designed today might even have a rear ablative shield and a switch wing design

      Ack! Horrible complexity. Flight surfaces alone are a pain to work with on spacecraft; they leave holes for hypersonic gasses to enter, add extra cabling (and heating, and sensing, and hydraulic pumping...) requirements, and in general are problematic. You're proposing that they go so far as to use a switch wing design? With ablatives (which don't like moving parts) to boot?

      The KISS principle is important.

      falling back-end-first through the upper layers of atmosphere, using the ablative heat shield to handle the heat, then at some known altitude, would use the partially deployed wings to reverse its direction and use a chute to slow its descent. Once its descent slowed to a reasonable level, the chute would be detached (with the ablative shield in tow), and the shuttle would continue to fall nose down, at which point the switch wings would be deployed fully and the shuttle would glide in for a landing.

      Or, you could simply use a lifting body plus a good chute, parasail, or retrorockets. KISS.

      --
      Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
    6. Re:MOD PARENT UP!!! by khallow · · Score: 1

      None, but NASA. Sure, they're a big, slow moving organization... but try to do what they've done with a smaller organization. It won't work.

      A slightly smaller but faster moving organization could have done more. For example, one could have built five or so International Space Stations for the price of the one that was actually built. Space probes are still built using mostly original or "one off" designs. And are built only in singles or pairs so there are no economies of scale exploited. For example, if NASA had doubled the money spent on the two rovers, they probably could have placed another 4 rovers on the surface of Mars.

      Besides much of what NASA has done has been quite counterproductive. My take is that manned space exploration has been taken back by the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. And there was a period in the 80's and 90's when NASA helped thwart competition in the launch industry. For example, there have been claims of anti-competitive actions against Beal Aerospace and E Prime Aerospace. When Beal Aerospace quit the business, the chairman, Andrew Beal cited NASA and US government subsidies to existing launch platforms as the main reason for ceasing operations. Keep in mind that Beal Aerospace would have competed directly with the heavy launch vehicles from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Ican't find similar documented complaints from E Prime Aerospace. Supposedly they experienced during their MX missile conversion program (converting these missiles to launch vehicles) bureaucratic obstructions sparked by NASA and the above prime contractors.

      Then there's the Launch Services Purchase Act and subsequent legislation that attempts to force NASA to use commercially available launch services instead of its own. This legislation wasn't inspired in a vacuum or by special interests, but comes from NASA's continuning anti-competitive behavior up to that point.

      Finally, keep in mind that most of the NASA-bashers used to be big fans of NASA. There is probably no organization on Earth (except for some religious organizations like the Roman Catholic Church) that has squandered as much firmly placed good will and trust as NASA did in the decades after the manned landings on the Moon. The current plague of NASA-bashing is directly a result of decades of short-sighted and often destructive behavior by NASA, by various favored prime contractors, and through political decisions by Congress and various US presidents. To be blunt, things have fallen to the point that NASA's existence is at stake.

  24. Re:Replacing the tank by gavink42 · · Score: 1

    They don't have another tank available until around June. Hurricane Katrina damaged the tank manufacturing facility at Michoud, LA (not to mention the homes of the workers there). Add to that, the upgrades to the tank that were mandated by the Columbia breakup.

    Flight schedule is already completely booked until shuttle retirement. If they used the next tank for this mission, the next mission launch date would be impacted even more. Best option for them is to repair if possible.

  25. Srsly, though... by Atario · · Score: 1

    I don't get why they don't coat that foam in some kind of plastic. Like a thick saran-wrap or something. Wouldn't that prevent 99% of these break-offs?

    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
  26. The Astronauts.... by blankoboy · · Score: 1

    I wonder if the folks that will be strapped into Atlantis share the same optimism.....

  27. Somehow... by rez_rat · · Score: 1

    The words "NASA confident that..." just don't make me feel all warm and fuzzy anymore.

    Unless of course, those words are followed by, "...they're not quite sure what's going to happen."

  28. Dimples == Good? by vtrac · · Score: 0

    Maybe they should have left the dimples in and see if it would help reduce atmospheric friction. Dimples help golf balls go further, right? :)

  29. Golf sized hail... by veeoh · · Score: 1

    Have you seen the size of the VW Golf? That's gotta make a mess of any fuel tank.

    Now if it was golf BALL sized hail...

    =V=

  30. Everything is fine says who - you? by fnj · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the astronauts would be oh so relieved to know that you can't see any reason why damage to their spacecraft won't endanger their lives. I'm sure you will put your livelihood on the line as proof of your earnestness. The engineers who bear actual responsibility for human lives in their decisions, on the other hand, aren't so sure there's no problem.

    You're not wrong that CYA is endemic in government work. You could have added, just as much, in private enterprise. But this has nothing to do with CYA.

  31. I'm not an engineer, but... by smchris · · Score: 1

    workers have started sanding down the damaged area of the tank itself.

    So sanding down the dings on a high pressure tank is a good idea?

  32. Tank damage - bullshit by whitroth · · Score: 1

    My wife, an engineer who worked at the Cape for 17 years, immediately cried "bullshit". She says that we get hailstorms like that every year or so, and it's happened enough times before. A friend who still works at KSC, as a tech, verifies this.

    The dithering is because KSC is now staffed overwhelmingly by mostly Republican and fundamentalist types who don't, in fact, know engineering, and *certainly* don't believe in the buck stopping at their desk.

    Then, of course, the GOP has *never* liked the space program, since it became associated with JFK (never mind that Ike started it), and are always looking to cut it, and shift money to the military programs, where their buddies can get big bucks from our tax dollars.

    Don't believe that? Then why are we still flying Shuttles whose *intended* lifespan was 20 years, and we have *nothing* new even in test?

          mark "bastards stole our future"

    1. Re:Tank damage - bullshit by everphilski · · Score: 1

      She says that we get hailstorms like that every year or so, and it's happened enough times before. A friend who still works at KSC, as a tech, verifies this.

      Not to the same order of magnitude, however. There are more than dings in the foam, there are actual cracks in the foam. Which is a much bigger problem in high-speed high-temperature flow.

      Then, of course, the GOP has *never* liked the space program

      Do what now? GW Bush asked for a bigger budget next year than NASA proposed, guess who shot it down? (Confirmation: here:

      WASHINGTON - The White House's $17.3 billion request for NASA in 2008 demonstrates U.S. President George W. Bush's commitment to replacing the space shuttle by 2014, but might not be enough to offset the impact of a lower-than-expected budget for this year, agency officials said.
      "This increase demonstrates the President's commitment to NASA and to maintaining our nation's leadership in space and aeronautics research," NASA chief Michael Griffin said in a Monday briefing.
      The request, which would give the space agency a raise of roughly $1 billion over this year's likely budget, keeps science and aeronautics spending relatively flat, but does include funds to begin purchasing a new series of data-relay spacecraft.
      The annual budget request tracks very closely with the spending plan the White House sent to Congress this time last year, which sought 3 percent increases for NASA in both 2007 and 2008. However, NASA is unlikely to get a raise this year due to a plan by the Democratic-led Congress to fund most U.S. domestic federal agencies at their 2006 levels.

      Who was it that came up with Star Wars? Reagan.

      Plenty more examples, the GOP likes space access.

      Don't believe that? Then why are we still flying Shuttles whose *intended* lifespan was 20 years, and we have *nothing* new even in test?

      The new test article is the Ares, which is due to complete its first test flight in April 2009. The second launch will commence six months later. The launchpad at KSC (39B) is being handed over to the Ares team at the end of this month for modifications.

      And the shuttles were never rated for a useful lifetime in years - they are rated in number of flights. Namely, 100.

  33. Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We were having an intelligent discussion and you just walked into the room and laid a giant turd on the rug, smelling up the whole room.

    May you slip on your own shit and fall face-forward into it.