US Free Enterprise System Is the Best Vehicle to Return to Space

Townhall.com ^ | February 26, 2018 | Jeff Crouere

[logi_cal869]

Discovery’s loss was definitely borne more of NASA politics, but is subject to debate for contributing factors, including contractors & scheduling.

In the case of Challenger, it was definitely MTI; there should have been indictments, but it harkens back to the later Discovery loss and its political factors.

http://www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/ppessays/thiokolshuttle.aspx

It is commercial corruption of science - not government - which has us at the precipice of being eclipsed by China, scientifically. Not to be confused with the political corruption of climate sciences, another matter altogether.

Moore’s law was inevitable, but it simply does not exist in science without visionaries and I do not believe that the constraints of for-profit corporations are capable of making the next scientific leaps...risk being what it is for great discoveries.

The next major advancement will permit space travel and human survivability outside the protection of our terrestrial magnetic shield, but I doubt I or my children will see the development. Grandchildren, perhaps...if society survives that long...

[dr_lew]

By “Discovery”, I guess you mean “Columbia”, as it was lost on reentry. Challenger was lost on launch, and I don’t know what MTI means, and can’t find it on search, but they shouldn’t have launched in those conditions, according to their own criteria, is the point, I guess.

I understand that both of these disasters were the result of pushing the design margins a little too far. They might have had better luck. Or, they might have been more careful.

[logi_cal869]

Yes, Columbia. I don’t know why I keep getting the two names mixed up, though it probably has to do with the controversy over Discovery’s flight under NASA’s RTF (return to flight) and its own fuel tank foam problem during liftoff.

MTI: Morton Thiokol Inc.

“Pushing design margins” is a bit of a moronic comment on this matter given your username which, I presume, is more than a moniker.

On his way to investigate Flight 123 (747 which suffered decompression and crashed in Japan), the NTSB engineer received some information on the bulkhead repair completed on the plane some time prior to the crash. He quickly plotted out some numbers and calculated to the exact number of takeoffs/landings at which the botched bulkhead repair would have failed due to metal fatigue.

It is this example of engineering precision which led to the temperature restrictions for shuttle flight regarding the SRBs & their poorly-engineered o-ring seals (a design later improved).

MTI recommended flight despite engineers warning of the temperature. The politics side of that event should have been a harbinger for Columbia, as NASA obviously no longer employed adequate technical ability to set safety margins without relying solely on contractors. Had there been a strict flight envelope, Challenger would have been scrubbed or delayed due to the weather conditions on the pad.

With Columbia, the same was warned by NASA engineers regarding the fuel tank but it was, IMHO, a faulty design by Lockheed Martin which was not sufficiently vetted, leaving NASA to figure out what I assert LM knew themselves: That the change from CFC foam to HFC foam increased vehicle launch risks by an order of magnitude; history reinforces that statement.

It is my assertion that it is impossible for engineers NOT to have known what NASA later established on its own regarding the main fuel tank’s insulation.