Slashdot Mirror
Final Space Shuttle External Tank Ready For Its Closeup
tedlistens writes "The last Space Shuttle's external tank was recently lifted into a 'checkout cell' in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the largest buildings in the world. The completion of the last tank meant the shut down of the assembly line – and the 800 remaining people who worked on it – at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. The tank contains the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen that, along with the solid rocket boosters, powers the Shuttle into orbit. Though they are not typically reused — ten seconds after the engines cut off, the tank falls away to break up over the Indian Ocean, away from known shipping lanes — one new plan imagines using old shuttle parts, including pieces of the tank, to build a new moon rocket. There's a beautiful video of the lifting of the tank at Motherboard."
I'm ready for my close up now Mr. DeMil
I felt the same way when the last Members Only jacket rolled off the line.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There's a beautiful video of the lifting of the tank at Motherboard.
Or, if you're like me and tired of sites embedding a YouTube video and calling it "content", you can go directly to the video source.
Besides, with embedded videos you miss out on the best part of YouTube -- all the great and insightful comments! :)
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Meanwhile, it takes 800 people just to build a fuel tank for the shuttle, much less the folks needed to move it, assemble it to the stack, etc. Yeah yeah, I know, apples to oranges, but damn that's a lot of people to make a couple of tanks a year.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
In some ways I'm sad because we've seen the last of these magnificent vehicles in their space faring roles.
In other ways I'm sad because we have no future plan to go to space, travel to another planet, send a man to somewhere man hasn't been before.
We look at the changes going on here on Earth, glaciers melting, oceans rising, magnets, how the fuck do they work? And it is just so obvious that we need to get off this goddamned planet and out into the universe and start staking our claims.
It feels like we're in the late Middle Ages and we just need a Christopher Columbus to usher in a new age of exploration and colonization. But everyone looks inward to see what they can affect here when that is ultimately just a losing battle. Looking outward, upward, always twirling, this is how we will outlive this planet.
Saw this the other day on NASA TV - which has an HD feed full time now... launches are awesome.
one new plan imagines using old shuttle parts, including pieces of the tank, to build a new moon rocket.
This seems to be taken from Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars in which the interplanetary spacecraft is composed of used shuttle fuel tanks.
While it may seem like a great idea to re-use and re-purpose old Shuttle designs for a new heavy-lift vehicle (HLV) on the surface, in fact, it's something that is not being done for its technical merit. Instead, this design is one that's mandated by Congress. The 535 meddlers instructed NASA not to design and implement the best design or the most practical and capable craft, instead, it told themk in it's latest funding bill that it must use 'elements of other programs "to the extent practicable."
The congress-people of course want the jobs and prestige that comes from having the companies that build new spacecraft and their parts in their districts.
Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama said in a prepared statement that:
“The NASA Authorization bill rejects the Administration’s reckless cancellation of NASA’s human space flight program and provides a framework to continue NASA’s exploration program.
“I am encouraged that the bill outlines a NASA-designed heavy lift rocket capability and continues Huntsville’s leadership role in NASA’s human exploration efforts. Given the ongoing struggles of up-and-coming space companies to keep their contracted schedules, the bill provides some level of accountability and a defined threshold for safety. With the passage of the NASA Authorization bill, it is clear Congress understands that bravado does not necessarily make a rocket company viable.
It may come as a surprise to Shelby that SpaceX is preparing its second launch of the Falcon9 rocket, this time with its Dragon capsule on top. It is currently schedule for no earlier than 10/23 of this month. The test launch is to once again test the Falcon9's operations and give information they can use to further refine them, and it is to test the Dragon in orbit. Dragon will eventually be used to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, as well as deliver cargo to it in an unmanned configuration. In other words, Senator Shelby, human space flight atop American rockets is far from dead. Not only that, private concerns have orbited a test flight and is on the verge of another while NASA awaits the whims of Congress.
With folks like Shelby around, protecting their interests rather than doing the right thing, it will be surprising if any NASA-designed craft orbits humans after the last shuttle lands next year.
and who to say what's being worked at area51 like places?
I remember watching shuttle launches in Elementary school. Its sorta sad that they're almost gone for good. Even more so without a clear replacement!
And it is just so obvious that we need to get off this goddamned planet and out into the universe and start staking our claims.
And planets that can support us will more than likely have indigenous life forms. Are we to repeat what has been done on this planet with regards to indigenous populations?
The only reason we have to leave is because we're destructive, wasteful, and this irrational belief that everything around us is for us to exploit.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I was unaware of the existence of the secret launch site on Diego Garcia!
While much of what TFA states is true, it deliberately avoids mention of a very important fact: NASA won't need to run its own launch program if it can buy flights from the private commercial sector. Which is, in fact, the plan.
SpaceX, Boeing, and others are developing rockets and vehicles for just this market. They're very likely going to get these birds in the air well before any new NASA rocket system, and they're surely going to do it cheaper.
NASA-designed rockets were necessary Back In The Day when launching was about national prestige more than anything else. There were no other options. But in today's world, a government-owned and -operated rocket program is a funding sink, a political football, and a jobs program. NASA is not better off sinking billions into rocket development, when it could be spending that development money for programs that will bring us new capabilities such as on-orbit refueling and assembly. (Which are absolutely necessary prerequisites to long-term missions beyond low Earth orbit.)
Don't pine for NASA to look back to past glory. Instead, be glad they're being compelled to offload the relatively easy stuff and look forward. Ad astra, baby.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
The sad thing is that the fuel tanks could have been easily pushed into orbit. Imagine the cost savings of having 800+ fuel tanks to use for building a space station or orbital construction yards. When you consider the cost to put something into LEO is about $5K to $10K per kg the "value" of pushing these into orbit for future projects is massive.
The reality is that the tanks don't "fall" back to earth. They have enough velocity and altitude at the time they separate to achieve LEO. Two thrusters push the tank back to earth.
800 tanks... what a mindblowing waste of orbital construction material.
The completion of the last tank meant the shut down of the assembly line – and the 800 remaining people who worked on it
Don't shut down the people! Those poor powered-down, helpless people, just standing there, rusting. They're probably still good for something. Like painting my fence.
Oops that 136 tanks not 800.
Leaving 800 people who build the tanks in space would just be cruel.
The sad thing is that the fuel tanks could have been easily pushed into orbit. Imagine the cost savings of having 800+ fuel tanks to use for building a space station or orbital construction yards.
First you have to build a tank which can be reused for living space and not blow up on launch because a hatch in the side opened up by accident. Then you have to deal with the high drag and the insulation popping off in vacuum and creating clouds of orbital debris.
And those are just two of the problems that spring to mind; you're not just carrying a metal can up to orbit and then cutting into it with a can-opener in order to live inside.
Don't forget that they got a head start by stealing away former NASA employees with higher wages than the government would provide.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
The only problem with your plan is that then there would be 136 large, uncontrolled, massive pieces of space junk that are a risk to anything else up there until they are utilized. Not to mention the orbit probably wouldn't be stable and they would eventually come back down anyways, but not necessarily over uninhabited sections of the indian ocean. Better to have a controlled re-entry than either risk current LEO objects (like the ISS) or risk lives on the ground with falling space junk.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Why would they have to be uncontrolled?
I mean as is the ET would be uncontrolled but no reason they couldn't be collected, secured together and boosted to higher orbit. Periodically the tanks could be boosted via space shuttle to higher orbit (just like space shuttle routinely does w/ ISS to avoid re-entry).
I wasn't suggesting it was "Free" or that it could be done with no changes but rather we boosted 3 million kg to the edge of space only to crash them back into the earth. Seems highly wasteful.
Why would they have to be uncontrolled?
Because every STS mission has different launch parameters. Different inclination, different altitude, eccentricities and orbital velocity, not to mention that since the exact launch time is unpredictable you're never even going to be anywhere near the RA of any previous tank. You'll end up with a swarm of ETs in all kinds of different orbits, effectively completely un-collectible.
Now, because we're talking rocket scientists here it's not like it never occurred to them to think of ways to use the tanks, at least on a per-mission basis. See here for a list of ideas. Mostly it has to do with making use of the unused fuel and using tethering to steal momentum from the tank so as to increase the effective payload.
My guess is that they decided not to bother because the payload boost payoff would generally be too unpredictable, which means that if you estimated wrong you've blown pretty well the whole mission. So since you're never realistically going to want to rendezvous with an old tank ever again (since you're always bringing up a new one), the only sensible thing is to bring them out of harm's way.
It killed more people then the assault rifle I have in my closet. It's time the shuttle was put down. It's like an old rabid dog.
That would be 800 pieces of space junk, each one in different orbit - for the month that they'd last there anyway. Just because the ISS can keep its orbit through intensive stationkeeping, doesn't mean an inert fuel tank will be able to do the same.
nt
One thing that has always disappointed me about the program is that they liquid tanks were discarded. They seemed to me to have a lot of potential value in space. Those tanks were nearly in orbit when they were discarded and still contained a small amount of unused hydrogen and oxygen. It seems to me that at least some of those tanks could have been lifted into and parked in high, stable orbits, using residual fuel and oxygen and small satellite maneuvering engines.
Those tanks could easily handle one atmosphere and were insulated. They could have formed the cores of future space factories, for zero gravity manufacturing research and tourism, and whatever else turns out to be better done in space.
Eventually those things will probably happen, but if there were giant habitable tanks sitting in orbit unoccupied and vacant, it would likely happen sooner.
There's always the could-have-beens.
Maybe it's time that NASA listened to their engineers about rockets.
just for a change...
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I never understood why they never built some sort of system into these so that they could be reused and cost less in the long run....although I could some issues if the shuttle blows up because of reuse or degradation by reuse.
Hmm. My user account page is now broken. Was it the last comment?
Needless to say this is offtopic, please mod accordingly.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd