Space Shuttle Endeavour Landing Live Thread 12:30 pm EDT

08/20/07 | Kevin Davis

[KevinDavis]

I would like to serve crow to them..

[DilJective]

does this look familiar...

Thank God they made their way back home!

[cabojoe]

Great picture, thanks for sharing it!

[NormsRevenge]

Missed the landing today.

Thx for those shots of the gouged area and the thread.

Nice little ding.. an inch or two either way and a hit on the joints of the tiles and it might have made it even more tough on deciding to do a walk and stick a big Curad on it or ‘goop’ it.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for that shot. how long was that exposure?

Hey glock, Check this out.
Nikon spoken here. :)

[NormsRevenge]

OOPs me bad, 25 seconds, now I see it. It seems longer, those things are flying

[Two Thirds Vote Aye]

Yes it was WOOOO-HOOOOO!, prairie! I watched the whole thing on my computer at work.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

“..they pulled the asbestos out of the caulk in the bedded joints — another political screwup.”

How is using asbestos in a shuttle launch politically incorrect?

Is nuclear waste politically incorrect too? If so, why haven’t we banned it? Will everyone that uses electricity created by nuclear power plants go live in their back yard and rub sticks?

[brityank]

Ever hear of straws breaking the camel’s back? Well, by themselves none of these is a prime cause; all had a part to play in the demise of Challenger, and ultimately the rest of the fleet.

Two things that did not have to be given up — asbestos and freon — were deleted from the manufacturing cycle due to political decisions. In the case of asbestos it was removed from the caulk due to the scare tactics run by the government and the lawyers against the mine owners and product users. Their take was, and still is, ANY exposure to asbestos is a death sentence, and must be avoided at all costs. Based on that, the manufacturer of the putty deleted it from the mix, thereby making the putty more friable because the fibres that assisted in its plasticity were removed. At normal temps, 50+F it’s fine; below 32F and it crumbles.

Freon was used in the foam coating of the external tank to keep out the heat. The hype over the Ozone Hole got that eliminated, even though NASA could have obtained a release to continue its use. Management at NASA decided not to go for that release, and the shedding of the foam increased. There was another cause to the foam shedding, that was also a management decision — the first tanks were painted white. By eliminating that paint coat, they saved about two hundred plus pounds that could be added to the payload. The paint not only helped the foam stay in place, but also helped keep the rain and condensation from getting beneath the foam.

You think nuclear waste isn’t a political problem? Go talk to Jimmy Carter. When my local power company gave us the ability to select the co-generator we could use, they had all kinds of “Green” suppliers and mixes on the form. I called and specifically asked for Atomic Only — they don’t have that selection available.

By the way, I’m a nobody; talking to a nobody. Check it all out yourself — just make sure you verify your sources.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

You are not a nobody. You are doing your part in reinforcing the reality of bogus decision-making in a much needed arena of sharing of the insanity around us.

I got a quick quiz for you, and no googling, why was lead paint consider a health problem in homes older than 1978? How did it actually cause the health problem?

[GBA]

Thanks for posting that list. My dad and I argue about this one all the time. When I think of the money wasted giving people money so they won't be poor but instead actually enslaves them, when I think of the money wasted on schools that should be closed or John Murtha's pet projects, I wonder how much better we would have been if it instead had gone to the scientists, engineers and corporations doing research related work for NASA.

Think of all the engineers, techs, designers, program managers, manufacturing and quality control people and so many others that could have been earning money, paying taxes and advancing the state of the art and our collected knowledge.

Personally, just the need to explore and to find answers to questions we haven't even asked yet is more than enough of a reason for me. Regardless, thanks for the list. It shows that a lot of good, a lot of the things we depend upon and now take for granted, have come from NASA.