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Stuck Knob Causes Serious Window Damage To Atlantis
FTL writes "While in orbit a metal knob floated between a window and the dashboard of Atlantis. Once back on Earth, the shuttle contracted, wedging the knob firmly in place and damaging the window. Initial attempts to free the knob have failed and engineers may need six months to disassemble that section of the orbiter. Given that the shuttle program will probably end next year anyway, such a delay might mean scrapping Atlantis early rather than repairing it. Efforts to remove the knob using less invasive techniques continue."
The article neglects to mention the extreme disappointment of John M. Grunsfeld who spent the majority of Mission STS-125 photographing a strange phenomenon he could witness through his window but could not detect on radar. A large knob-shaped object would move about above the atmosphere with an almost supernatural fluidity and change of speeds relative to the Earth. He neglected to mention it to his crewmates hoping that he had stumbled upon either the first contact with alien life or observed a new phenomenon he dubbed in his journal "Grunsfeld's Effect." Unfortunately the engineers at NASA have immortalized his name by calling the stuck debris "Grunsfeld's Knob" or "Grunsfeld's God." The engineers have also started referring to being duped as "being grunsfelded." Example: "I called up to order some of those damn Video Professor instructional DVDs and ended up with 8 of the stupid things. Man did I get Grunsfelded!"
My work here is dung.
they can borrow mine. I never use it.
Absolute statements are never true
Title suggestion: "Shuttle has a Wedgie"
Table-ized A.I.
Throw a bucket of cold water on it and the knob should slip right out.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
and is underfunded and ending soon anyways, give atlantis the same proper ghetto treatment a contemporary of its time would receive, like 25 year old plymouth horizon: plastic sheeting and duct tape
also knock out a back tail light and finger daub "wash me" in the cosmic dust on its hood
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it's knobody's fault. Sorry.
They need to call one of those chip-and-crack auto glass replacement people that I hear on the radio all the time. They come out to your workplace to do the job, and best of all, you only pay the insurance deductible!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I know how they feel: Toyota's quoting me $400 to fix a loose sun visor because they have to take the entire @&%#! side of the car apart to get to it.
Table-ized A.I.
The guys at NASA are pretty clever.
Oh come on - it's not like they're rocket scientists or anything! :) :) :)
Don't you think dissolving the space shuttle is overkill?
Knobs do not belong in vacuum cleaners. And once it warms up, there's no pulling it out of anything. There was one bad evening I did get my knob suck it something. Don't mix up lube and super glue.
If this condition lasts for more than 4 hours, call a doctor.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I used to do tech support at Honeywell. Had real rocket scientists there. Called them my brilliant idiots.
I drank what? -- Socrates
...you read that as "Stuck Know Causes Serious Windows Damage To Atlantis", and think "How the hell do they know what OS they were using on that sunken island?"
I just know realized, that even my question does not make any sense...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Why any car is made with other than LED lights (perhaps cold-cathode is good enough, or for some reason that I don't know even better) rather than little incandescent bulbs is beyond me. "Here's an important part we know will fail, that's about 18" from the driver. Let's make it very, very difficult to remove, so when the important dashlights fail, he'll need to pay someone with more tools a lot of money to fix the 10-cent lightbulb."
Headlights, the same way, at least the ones on a) a 1998 Subaru Outback and b) a 2003 (?) Mazda Protege5. I have no yet had the courage to well investigate on my current car, but since it's also a Subaru, I bet it will lead to much cursing. Ooh, how I hate those little bendy-pins, straight of our Rube Goldberg, and the awkward angles / hand positioning needed to do a repair that's to be easily expected.
And it's not even a space shuttle!
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I for one am completely comfortable with calling in a local contractor and installing some new money-saving vinyl windows which will be the only thing between me and seventeen thousand mile per hour wind.
... the engineers working on this ... have thought of just about anything ... Drill/cut? ... Pressurize orbiter? ... Apply cold to the knob to shrink it?
How about tying a string to the knob (so it doesn't get away), reheating the orbiter, and pressurizing it - recreating the situation (except for zero G) that let it float in in the first place?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
They are easy to replace FOR A SPACE SHIP.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Look, do you want the knob back or not?
<Slaps Head> Of course! The answer is in the article. Phone NASA and tell them to read it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Other ideas that probably won't work:
-- Thaw out one of the aliens from Hangar 18 to spit on the knob and dissolve it.
-- Beam the knob out of there using NASA's experimental teleportation device.
-- Eliminate the space between the atoms in the knob, causing it to shrink to the size of an amoeba.
-- Use the sun's gravity to travel back in time to before the knob got stuck.
-- WD40.
-- Have the holographic doctor reach through the windshield and poke the knob out.
-- Talk to the knob. Teach it Phenomenology.
-- Wait until the knob's warranty expires, then it will fall to pieces on its own.
How many rocket scientists does it take to get a stuck knob unstuck?
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Yeah, why didn't those rocket scientists think of using a magnet to clean up aluminum dust - what losers!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.