NASA Decides No Fix Needed for Endeavor's Tiles

bhmit1 writes "It looks like NASA is reporting that no repairs are needed for Endeavor. 'After meeting for five hours, mission managers opted Thursday night against any risky spacewalk repairs, after receiving the results of one final thermal test. The massive amount of data indicated Endeavor would suffer no serious structural damage during next week's re-entry. Their worry was not that Endeavor might be destroyed and its seven astronauts killed in a replay of the Columbia disaster — the gouge is too small to be catastrophic. They were concerned that the heat of re-entry could weaken the shuttle's aluminum frame at the damaged spot and result in lengthy post-flight repairs.'"

Comments

A chance for testing lost

[Chairboy]

It's unfortunate, this could have been a good test case to see how the repair materials/procedures work under realistic conditions.

Having firm, experimental data about:

* The process of applying the patch
* How well the patch stands up to re-entry
* How well the patch protects underlying systems

and more. Better to get this data on a 'non-critical' bit of damage than waiting until something is REALLY busted before finding the inadequecy.

They've done extensive testing on the ground, I'm sure, but a real-world test scenario can trump ten lab extrapolations. That's why we do external betas of software, the real world always has something up it's sleeve.

Hey, NASA, here's an idea...

[WED Fan]

As a former USAF avionics specialist and later crew chief, one thing was always true:

The decision about air-worthiness, mission-worthiness was the pilot's, the aircraft commander.

It didn't matter if I told him that sure, the plane will fly, if he didn't like it, the plane didn't fly.

So, NASA, provide all the information to the commander, pilot, and crew, and let THEM make the call. If you don't like what they decide, it can be taken up AFTER the mission.