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New Sensor Finds Leaks in Spacecraft
Roland Piquepaille writes "With financial support from NASA, Iowa State University (ISU) engineers have developed a sensor to quickly find leaks in a spacecraft. This sensor locates an air leak by listening to the noise generated by the air rushing out of the leak and includes an array of 64 elements that detects vibrations as they radiate along the spacecraft. Because astronauts cannot hear the noise caused by escaping air, NASA needed to design a system to help them. As one ISU researcher said, 'NASA wants to be able to find these leaks. Fixing them is easy. But the question is, "Where is the leak?"' Now that this sensor has successfully been tested on the ground, NASA is evaluating a proposal to build a prototype of the leak detection system for future missions.
Yep, Robert Heinlein had those in his novels many a year ago. Seems like they could work. If they don't work due to the weight of the sealant then they could at least be used without sealant and they would still show where the leak is.
As big as the shuttle is? It's built for negative pressure, not positive pressure. I mean, the orbiter is 56' tall on the runway. Remove some height for the tail and the landing gear, that's still a good 20' deep to submerge the entire thing, which makes the outside pressure somewhere around 1.6 atmospheres. But I'm guessing you meant this as a joke. I just wanted to throw some random facts out to make myself look relevant, even though I'm not ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Oh, come on, you don't get an opportunity like this every day!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?