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This scares me. I thought they'd try to do something!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/1 ... index.html

I saw this earlier today and am very surprised that after the effort to develop a repair procedure that they won't patch the hole. I will be thinking good thoughts and hope that we won't be second guessing that decision.

Skibo wrote:I saw this earlier today and am very surprised that after the effort to develop a repair procedure that they won't patch the hole. I will be thinking good thoughts and hope that we won't be second guessing that decision.

Indeed....a friend of a friend is on that mission.....she's really worried....

It scares me that we seem to be unable to prevent this problem from happening each and every time the shuttle goes up!

"Launching a Space Shuttle isn't like dusting crops!" - H. Solo

"Any landing short of the bay wall is a good one." - ibid

I guess they were more worried about making matters worse, causing more damage than they fixed, if they went ahead with the repairs.

Aren't they heading home early because of Hurricane Dean?

Skibo wrote:I saw this earlier today and am very surprised that after the effort to develop a repair procedure that they won't patch the hole. I will be thinking good thoughts and hope that we won't be second guessing that decision.

I think the danger, both to damaging more tiles, as well as to the astronaut chosen to do the work, is a higher risk than a return without a repair.

The good news is that the damage is in a place that isn't quite as sensitive to damage - the heat at that point isn't as high as on the leading edge of the wing where Columbia was compromised, and a small structural deformity there won't impact the aerodynamic profile of the vehicle.

What happened with Columbia, as best I understand, was the wing leading edge of the wing was compromised, and the high temps there melted the aluminum substructure, basicly destroying the wing. This caused the shuttle to tumble (imagine an airplane losing a wing) and at the hypersonic speed and temps of re-entry, the vehicle was subjected to stresses it couldn't handle.

This point of damage is near the rear landing gear, much further inboard and not in a position to do damage that could compromise the flight characteristics of the vehicle.

If an astronaut tried to do the repair, it would be alone, without good live camera feeds, and strapped to the robot arm of the shuttle. You could have the astronaut slam into the bottom of the shuttle and either seriously hurt him/herself or knock more tiles off, thereby opening enough of a thermal gap to make the heat a danger.

One thing to remember, in the 25+ years that NASA has been flying shuttles, foam and ice has been falling off the tank during virtually every launch, and many many times shuttles have come back with damaged or missing tiles. If Columbia hadn't taken a foam strike on the leading edge of a wing, the issue probably wouldn't have garnered much attention, and this wouldn't be a concern.

I don't have the 'smarts' like others have posted...... I just hope they make it home safely.

Bubbaphan wrote:This scares me. I thought they'd try to do something!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/1 ... index.html

me too!

Good thoughts and prayers for the astronauts for a safe trip home!

Phin power for a safe journey

We have a connection here

NASA is highly concerned with the movement of Dean. They are trying to land the shuttle in Houston.... however with Dean on the horizon, they move landing a day early or take a chance in landing it at Edwards AFB in Cali.

I hope they make it home safely, also. I was surpised also to hear no repairs, it does make sense that they could do more damage, just very scary for them. I heard they want to bring it home early, also.

Be safe!

pojo wrote:NASA is highly concerned with the movement of Dean. They are trying to land the shuttle in Houston.... however with Dean on the horizon, they move landing a day early or take a chance in landing it at Edwards AFB in Cali.

Personally, I'd much rather come home in California than Houston


nothing personal there.... it's the humidity

PJ wrote:

Skibo wrote:I saw this earlier today and am very surprised that after the effort to develop a repair procedure that they won't patch the hole. I will be thinking good thoughts and hope that we won't be second guessing that decision.

I think the danger, both to damaging more tiles, as well as to the astronaut chosen to do the work, is a higher risk than a return without a repair.

The good news is that the damage is in a place that isn't quite as sensitive to damage - the heat at that point isn't as high as on the leading edge of the wing where Columbia was compromised, and a small structural deformity there won't impact the aerodynamic profile of the vehicle.

What happened with Columbia, as best I understand, was the wing leading edge of the wing was compromised, and the high temps there melted the aluminum substructure, basicly destroying the wing. This caused the shuttle to tumble (imagine an airplane losing a wing) and at the hypersonic speed and temps of re-entry, the vehicle was subjected to stresses it couldn't handle.

This point of damage is near the rear landing gear, much further inboard and not in a position to do damage that could compromise the flight characteristics of the vehicle.

If an astronaut tried to do the repair, it would be alone, without good live camera feeds, and strapped to the robot arm of the shuttle. You could have the astronaut slam into the bottom of the shuttle and either seriously hurt him/herself or knock more tiles off, thereby opening enough of a thermal gap to make the heat a danger.

One thing to remember, in the 25+ years that NASA has been flying shuttles, foam and ice has been falling off the tank during virtually every launch, and many many times shuttles have come back with damaged or missing tiles. If Columbia hadn't taken a foam strike on the leading edge of a wing, the issue probably wouldn't have garnered much attention, and this wouldn't be a concern.

I think you make some good points and it seems self-evident that those in charge of the mission have weighed the benefits vs risks of an in-orbit repair and decided against it.

However, it was known while Columbia was in orbit that tile damage had been done and it was decided at the managerial level, prior to reentry that the risks were acceptable. It was only AFTER the orbiter was destroyed that various rescue/repair scenarios were discussed and dismissed as impractical or impossible in that particular case. In other words, over the years, the falling ice/foam problem hadn't been properly assessed for risk and left managers with an unjustified level of confidence in dealing with the ongoing damage during successive launches.

Also, going back to the Challenger, the now well-known problem with the infamous 'O' rings had been getting steadily worse in missions up to Challenger's launch, but at certain levels of management in NASA the concerns of some of the engineers who designed the 'O' ring assembly were dismissed and the risk assessed as acceptable. We know in hindsight that while spaceflight possesses inherent risks, it was more likely errors in judgment at the managerial level that ultimately lead to the Challenger's destruction.

I guess my point is directed at the last of your comments. Yes, there have been many successful launches over the last 25 years, although with far fewer launches than first planned for the program and with a hull loss rate in excess of what was expected going into the program. There are many reasons for the Shuttle program's failure to completely live up to expectations. It was and is after all an experimental and complex technology.

But investigations after the loss of Challenger and Columbia both concluded that decision making, information flow and risk assessment at certain levels of NASA's managerial hierarchy are somewhat flawed.

Having said that, I'll be sending out thoughts for the safe return of the orbiter and holding my breath until the wheels kiss the runway.

pojo wrote:NASA is highly concerned with the movement of Dean. They are trying to land the shuttle in Houston.... however with Dean on the horizon, they move landing a day early or take a chance in landing it at Edwards AFB in Cali.

The shuttle can't land in Houston, there isn't a landing facility available for it. Shuttle primary landing facility is back "home" at KSC in Florida, with 1st backup location being Edwards.

The issue with Dean and Houston is the staffing of Mission Control at Johnson Space Center. With Dean tracking in a way that could majorly impact Houston, Mission Control would have to be relocated to KSC. If that is done, the number of personell would be drastically reduced (possibly even cut in half) because the facilities at Kennedy are smaller than those at Johnson, because KSC was never meant to function as Mission Control.

NASA likes to have redundancy, especially during reentry and landing; they may have three people/stations at mission control monitoring one data stream. The choice to come home early is so that they don't have to give up any of this redundancy in data monitoring by relocating/downsizing mission control.

flyboy55 wrote:I guess my point is directed at the last of your comments. Yes, there have been many successful launches over the last 25 years, although with far fewer launches than first planned for the program and with a hull loss rate in excess of what was expected going into the program. There are many reasons for the Shuttle program's failure to completely live up to expectations. It was and is after all an experimental and complex technology.

But investigations after the loss of Challenger and Columbia both concluded that decision making, information flow and risk assessment at certain levels of NASA's managerial hierarchy are somewhat flawed.

Having said that, I'll be sending out thoughts for the safe return of the orbiter and holding my breath until the wheels kiss the runway.

I agree with you that NASA as developed a cockiness when it comes to vehicle performance, and I keep my fingers crossed every time a shuttle goes up or comes down.

On the other hand, spaceflight is inherently dangerous, you sit on top of millions of gallons of highly explosive fuel and stick a match to it. In my mind it is a bit like being a fighter pilot, you have to have some cockiness about getting the job done; NASA has to feel confident about the vehicles or else they would spend so much time trying to fix issues they would never get a mission launched.

Challenger was different from Columbia in the fact that Thikol told NASA they were operating outside of safety parameters in regard to the O-rings. That was a major screw-up on NASA's part.

With Columbia, a lot of factors came together in the right place at the wrong time. NASA had never done full inspections of the heat shielding and did not have methods in place to do so because they had never seen foam strikes be a cause for concern in the past. Columbia wasn't an ISS mission, so there wasn't a way to improvise an inspection. Finally, in the past, foam strikes had come from other areas of the tank and impacted the shuttle's belly, I don't think there had ever been a case where the leading edge of a wing had taken a foam strike. When you look at the orbiter/tank/booster stack, the majority of tank/shuttle interaction is on the belly.

I just want to know 2 things!
It's always the foam breaking off during lift-off that causes problems.

So if these are rocket scientist, can they not fix this issue?

What is this foam? Like a cheap beer cooler, or a block used in lakes to support docks?

Come on the Space Shuttle design is roughly 30 years old. Seams like they could fix the issues or design something new!

Sidew13 wrote:I just want to know 2 things!
It's always the foam breaking off during lift-off that causes problems.

So if these are rocket scientist, can they not fix this issue?

What is this foam? Like a cheap beer cooler, or a block used in lakes to support docks?

Come on the Space Shuttle design is roughly 30 years old. Seams like they could fix the issues or design something new!

The foam is a spray on insulating foam; the best real world example I ca coem up with is the blown in insulation you get in attics. The shuttle tank foam is sprayed on as a liquid, and it expands/hardens around the tank. The spray on foam is used because the tanks are one time use items, they are carried almost to orbit and discarded, burning up over the Indian or Pacific Ocean (depends on launch trajectory) as they fall back into the atmosphere.

The tank has to be insultated because the fuel contained within has to be maintained at a super low temp. in order to keep it in a liquid state.

The extreme vibrations/stresses of launch, mixed with the low temps of the insulation cause it to crack and fall off. I'm not sure if NASA and the contractor in Louisiana ever tried to change the foam until after Columbia. They have revised the attachment points where the shuttle connects to the tank trying to keep foam from being as likely to strike the vehicle itself.

PJ wrote:

Sidew13 wrote:I just want to know 2 things!
It's always the foam breaking off during lift-off that causes problems.

So if these are rocket scientist, can they not fix this issue?

What is this foam? Like a cheap beer cooler, or a block used in lakes to support docks?

Come on the Space Shuttle design is roughly 30 years old. Seams like they could fix the issues or design something new!

The foam is a spray on insulating foam; the best real world example I ca coem up with is the blown in insulation you get in attics. The shuttle tank foam is sprayed on as a liquid, and it expands/hardens around the tank. The spray on foam is used because the tanks are one time use items, they are carried almost to orbit and discarded, burning up over the Indian or Pacific Ocean (depends on launch trajectory) as they fall back into the atmosphere.

The tank has to be insultated because the fuel contained within has to be maintained at a super low temp. in order to keep it in a liquid state.

The extreme vibrations/stresses of launch, mixed with the low temps of the insulation cause it to crack and fall off. I'm not sure if NASA and the contractor in Louisiana ever tried to change the foam until after Columbia. They have revised the attachment points where the shuttle connects to the tank trying to keep foam from being as likely to strike the vehicle itself.

OK, that makes sence. BUT the attic foam is light and fluffy like cotton balls, The spray type I think your talking about comes in a can, right?