[SamuraiScot]

And don't forget today's in-flight epigram from shuttle Commander Eileen Collins:

"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the earth and replace the resources that have been used."

(http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050804/2005-08-04T141203Z_01_N04115231_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SPACE-SHUTTLE-DC.html)

Does that mean she plans to replace thousands of gallons of rocket fuel after they land (God willing) this coming Monday? From where? Pray for these people's safety. I think they'll need it.

[sionnsar]

no one knows whether Discovery will catch fire and explode on its return trip to earth, as Columbia did in 2003.

I quite reading at this point. Maybe I'll go back, but to get it so wrong at this early stage doesn't bode well.

[tet68]

Wrong from the very first sentence.

The space shuttle Discovery, now in orbit, lost part of its heat-shield as it took off from Cape Canaveral on July 26.

[Paradox]

Back in 1997, a report on shuttle wear and maintenance by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., stated that insulating tiles were suddenly flaking off our space shuttles in flight. The engineers suggested that it was because the formula for making them had been changed. For the sake of environmental "friendliness," NASA had stopped using Freon in the production of the tiles.

Sorry, but this guy is confused, there are thermal TILES on the orbiter, and there is foam insulation on the external tank. NOT the same thing. Therefore, this entire article is, um, Freon-free Fecal Matter.

[burzum]

You assume that Commander Collins' statement was political and anti-American. You are wrong. While Americans may use our natural resources, we tend to take good care of the planet and not cause widespread destruction. It would be difficult to see any major areas of environmental destruction in the United States from space. This is not true in the rest of the world. The Aral Sea mega-catastrophe and the destruction of the Amazon rain forest would be almost impossible to miss from space. There are hundreds of examples of major devastation to the environment that many countries simply do not care to fix. I presume that she was talking about the Aral Sea disaster because that is the most obvious environmental damage that can be seen from space.

[Fledermaus]

Yep. As in the ridiculous ban on DDT, environmentalism causes death.

The same is true of the WTC on 9/11. Both the planes hit the buildings ABOVE the floors where asbestos insulation was used. After the ban they had to use another insulation that, as we saw, didn't quite protect.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Let's pray the EPA stays Earthbound.

[RightWhale]

Including anti-enviroweenieism does not excuse the sexism and other sins in the article. It is probably racist, fascist, and Darwinian as well.

[Boundless]

> ... lost part of its heat-shield as it took off ...

No, it didn't, apart from one minor chip of a tile.

The external tank lost part of it's insulation. That
insulation isn't a "heat shield", part of the thermal
protection system, but is designed to keep the liquid
fuel cold, and prevent condensation and ice on the tank.

The loss of the foam was irrelevant to the ET after
ignition, but did present a potential debris hazard.

Does NASA still have problem with STS? Sure.
But the article is uninformed prattle.

[lepton]

The author seems confused between to tank insulation, and thermal tiles.

The Freon issue is real as far as the tank insulation, but he loses his point in mangling his references.

[King Prout]

aside from the "catch fire and explode" error, the author is constantly confusing the foam insulation on the external tank with the ceramic heat-shield tiles on the orbiter.

while it is true that Challenger was lost and Discovery is in peril due to Greenie interference, it helps NO ONE to so badly misrepresent the facts.

[sushiman]

The shuttle will be visible over Japan ( where I be anyway ) at 5 a.m. Saturday morning . I plan on being outside to check it out ...The last space shuttle I saw was the Columbia passing over New Hampshire in 1995 ...We all know what eventually happened to it ...Perhaps I shouldn't look ?

[EsmeraldaA]

Ping!


I thought you might want to see this..

Which by the way, is more of the same...:-))

[Figment]

"For the sake of environmental "friendliness," NASA had stopped using Freon in the production of the tiles"


This story is BS. It wasn't freon used in the tiles, but freon used in the insulation of the liquid fuel tank. Enviromentalism may be to blame, but not regarding tiles

[RippleFire]

bump

[spycatcher]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_31_corner-archive.asp#072064

HIGH COLLINS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
NASA guy writes in:

It sounds like the mission commander on this critical return to flight needs to stop making up politics from window gazing and should instead keep her mind on the mission. She's making it look like the commander of a shuttle that is currently being inspected and repaired in space has nothing better to do than give us sixth-grade bromides from low earth orbit. Which may be accurate, but isn't a flattering public image for her or for the human space flight program.

[isthisnickcool]

People I know at JSC LOVE Eileen Collins. I have a friend who has been training astronauts at JSC for 16 years and he says she is one of the finest people he has ever known.

I'm not sure exactly what she meant by what she said about "taking care of the Earth" but I'm positive about what I've heard people say about her.

[El Gato]

But for some reason, NASA has not put Freon back into its tile formula,

There never was any Freon in the tiles. It was in the foam applied to the external tank. If you are going to call yourself TheFactIs.org, it would be nice to get the facts straight, don't 'cha think?