Posted on 07/27/2005 3:25:59 PM PDT by MindBender26
NASA realizes debris that fell of external fuel tank yesterday came close to causing irrepairable damage to shuttle now in orbit.
Fleet GROUNDED. More later
Chances to return to flight again, no better than 50/50.
Does anyone know why there is foam on the external fuel tank in the first place?
Probably to keep the internal tank pressure below safe limits.
The Flight Director got pissed off at some reporter from the BBC asking the same tired question, and the flight director told them all they would get fustrated because he was telling them what he knew at that time.
As far as I'm concerned, if the problem is not using freon anymore to clean the tanks then for the sake of any astronaut set to ride a shuttle, go back to the *reliable* technology and methods. Screw "enviromental" thinking and address that in the next generation of reusable launch vehicles.
The post I was speaking to was making it clear why the fleet is grounded and why it makes no sense to keep on asking about this situation.
I was one of the first to reply to this story, (#8 or 10)and have read all the way up to #250, I think. (I checked my pings around that time).
Obviously we all know (those of us who have been paying attention) since yesterday that we have no reason to believe that any damage has been done to the orbiter.
It's somewhat disconcerting to realise that others may not have understood me.
Such is life.
Thankfully it didn't harm the orbiter. I'll reserve any furthur judgement until the mission is over. While I am confident the crew will return safely, it does no good to second guess anybody while we have a crew in space.
So I remember hearing that the formulation for the foam was changed.......simply because the envirowhackos complained about one or more of the ingredients in its formulation.
Soooooooooooooooo naturally, NASA....to be politically correct and to be seen as Earth Friendly.....complies, and the new foam breaks off, peels off, etc. during launch.
I directly blame the last shuttle crew's loss on environmentalists and the IDIOTS at NASA who went along with this utter barnyard matter.
I'm convinced that it is not a quantum leap, any more than there was truly an original "sound barrier" in the sky. The problem is more psychological than physical. In addition, the approach towards hypersonic boundary control has been to brute force our way through it rather than to finesse the issue with a full-scale suction/sinterization approach that turns the cubic equation into a linear one.
At the moment, the lift capability looks daunting, but when I review the DynaSoar and Lifting Body Reentry Vehicle Programs, I see that most of the shuttle missions could have been accomplished by such devices, with just 1 or 2 astronauts rather than 7. These programs would have been a lot cheaper, too.
How many times have we sent 7 people up to study microgravity on spiders or whatnot? We overbuilt that side of the capability needed, and overspent when we could truly have had a "fleet" of dozens of reentry aircraft. If there was a mission that truly needed 6 astronauts, we could have sent 3 missions to rendezvous in space.
If the solar sail project had worked, we would all be talking about payload capabilities for such small types of projects, and growing from there. Instead of a 3ton space telescope, we could have ten specialized homespun 200 pound telescopes. I think the payoff would be much more with that kind of private based system.
Oh, well, that's the end of my space rant. I sure hope the shuttle astronauts are ok and the program recovers, if only for the sake of how much money we've already poured into it.
see post #76
Yes! NASA needs scrapping. There is no salvage possible. I have worked at 2 NASA installations including KSC. When I was at KSC, ALL of the contractors were sitting around with their proverbial thumbs u-know-where. But then for every two of them there was a government bureau-rat "managing" their (non)work. I quit after two months, since I want to actually do something for my pay and not just be a taxpayer's parasite. Save for a very few high achievers and workers with a work ethic, the whole space program has become a job welfare program for the mediocre and lazy.
No problem, let's just outsource it to China.
Yep. My brother in law is an electrical engineer who specialized in communications. He gave up on NASA in total disgust after twenty years to build up a successful business in custom cabinetry. NASA is driving away the best and brightest in it's PC quest to keep the mediocre from feeling left out.
it's shame as freon is heavier than air so it goes to ground not to the atmosphere
Ok..let's try it this way...
"We call an object 'black' if visible light hitting its surface is not reflected...that is, the light is absorbed by the object and our eyes do not see a color reflected from the surface. We see a plant as green because the plant absorbs wavelengths of visible light including all but green, which is reflected back and is what we see. The same goes for all other colors."
"Since we have defined 'color' as the wavelength(s) of visible light reflected from an object, with the remainder being absorbed, a black object has no 'color' by our definition. An object we call 'white' reflects all wavelengths of visible light and therefore could be considered all-colored."
So I guess it depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
What we need to do is pay attention to what NASA is doing and saying, and when our crew comes home safely we need to find out why they didn't revert to the old foam process, wnich did not fall off. It's strange, we had a giant thread about this nearly 2 and a half years ago.
If this wasn't a problem when NASA used freon then I say this: DAMN IT, get NASA's contract partner all the freon it needs until we replace the shuttle fleet.
Amen Bro!
My thoughts too.
Same here. I am pissed though. Our generation got screwed my friend.
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