Space Shuttle's Left Wing May Be Damaged

nbc4.com ^ | 20070612 | NBC News space correspondent Jay Barbree

[XBob]

Space Shuttle's Left Wing May Be Damaged Meteorite, Space Junk May Have Struck Panels

POSTED: 5:13 pm EDT June 12, 2007 UPDATED: 7:00 pm EDT June 12, 2007 Email This Story | Print This Story Sign Up for Breaking News Alerts WASHINGTON -- A meteorite or space junk may have struck Space Shuttle Atlantis' left wing, according to NBC News space correspondent Jay Barbree.

NASA recorded a hit on reinforced carbon panels 7 and 8 on the left wing. The panels keep heat from re-entry from burning the spacecraft.

...

This is the same area where foam damaged Columbia's left wing and caused it to break up, killing its crew on Feb. 1, 2003.

[XBob]

you don’t want to know. I had some friends involved, personally, not covert tapes, transcripts.

think garbage bags, a pickup truck, and a midnight ride.

[kitchen]

There are military and national security components to the shuttle program. I'm sure someone will come across this and know what's going on. Maybe they'll toss us a few crumbs.

[XBob]

PS i forgot spaulas and windshield scrapers.

[XBob]

we’re talking ‘70s technology,

in some cases,you are correct, however, I know personally, as I was involved in the upgrades in the early 90’s, when they got their first electronic computers (about the level of a PC 386) on the orbiter. prior to that they were CORE magnetic computers from the early 50’s.

[Erasmus]

A different propulsion method that doesn't require 93457932475 gallons of fuel in a tank the size of a skyscraper.

Absolutely true. Chemical rockets have proven limits to their performance, and we've been up against those limits from the beginning.

Now with your basic thermonuclear rocket, you can get specific impulses of at least ten million seconds. Then, you can both ascend to orbit and back again with half-million pound payloads and never exceed 100 meters per second while within the lower atmosphere.

Great technology!

Of course, we wont have it until 2100, but what's a century among friends?

[ReignOfError]

January 28, 1986 was one of those snow days with no snow -- there was a threat, so they closed the schools, but no meaningful snow fell. We were in the south of the county, and the whole system closed if there was snow in the north. And this was in Atlanta, so we don't deal well with snow under the best of circumstances.

So with an unexpected day off and no impediment to travel, we went shopping. We were at a Goodwill thrift shop when the announcement broke into the Muzak. Everyone in the store ran to the back, where the sad little half-broken TV was carrying the news.

When I saw the smoke plumes, i thought, perhaps wishfully, I saw an escape tower. I was raised on Apollo. But no, it was just the solid rocket boosters, now untethered. The orbiter and its occupants were gone. Just gone.

The Associated Press sent the news under a FLASH header, which clears all other traffic from the wire, sounds every alarm, rings every bell.. Flash traffic is exceptionally rare. The next time AP sent a flash was on September 11, 2001.

[calljack]

We need to stop putting people up there.

It’s expensive, worthless and most of all, dangerous.

Go back to the safety of the cave??

% wise it is cheap, too many scientific advances to mention
and 10’s of thousands get killed driving.
Want to try again??

[ReignOfError]

think garbage bags, a pickup truck, and a midnight ride.

I'm not surprised. Things wash ashore, and someone has to deal with them. Best for us -- and certainly for their families -- to remember those seven as they walked on to the Shuttle, not as they were after leaving it.

[Night Hides Not]

I’m 31 years old. For those older than me...how in the HELL do you sit still through a shuttle launch and landing? After what happened with the Challenger and Columbia, I’m on f**king pins and needles every time a shuttle goes up and when it comes in for landing.

Good question Severa! I'll never forget watching the television during Apollo 12, when they televised the take-off from the moon.

You know what really amazes me about NASA and the space program? We made it safely to the moon and back several times primarily using slide rulers instead of computers!

[XBob]

There was just a report that they are going to fix the ragged blanket on the orbiter with an on board sewing kit.

2. The ‘meteorite’ - space debris hit on the leading edge of the left wing, which i started this thread, was invalid, and actualy due to ‘thermal expansion/dcontraction’ of two sensors????

3. However, most importantly, they apprently have lost gyrosdcopic control of the space station, where the orbiter is currently moored, due to a computer language mix-up between the russian and us portions of the space station, when they unfirled the new solar panels that were just brought up, and the whole unit - space station and orbiter is basicly out of control only held very tenatively stable by the tiny thruster rockets on the orbiter, and therre is only a small amount of fuel to ‘control’ the massive station and all its wings and panels. If they don’t get it fixed by tomorrow, apparently, the space station will have to be abandoned, and its orbit will decay and it will come crashing down on us.

Now, this is just an unverified report, at 0020 CST on 13 June and not reported by NASA or the media yet.

[omnivore]

I think it was Apollo 15 that first showed the takeoff from the moon. (On Apollo 12 they fried their video camera by pointing it at the sun while setting it up.) Apollo 15 was the first one that carried a moon buggy. The buggies had their own transmitters and mesh dish antenna to transmit directly to earth. I believe they mounted the video camera on the buggy and left it running to televise the takeoff. On the earlier missions I think they were dependent on the transmitters and antennas of the LM itself to link the video up.

[Old_Mil]

China and Russia think space is worth it, and that’s hood enough for me.

China and Russia are third (or perhaps second) world nations aspiring to be first world. We, on the other hand are a first (or perhaps second) world nation aspiring to be a third world nation.

[Night Hides Not]

Thanks for the correction, omnivore.

At least I didn't say Apollo 13!

[XBob]

329 - “You know what really amazes me about NASA and the space program? We made it safely to the moon and back several times primarily using slide rulers instead of computers!”

What’s so amazing. Back then as children we were taught to add and subtract and do all the math in our heads or on paper. No calculators or computers.

Now the kids can’t even comprehend how the answer was derived, and have no concept even of order of magnitude to ‘guess’ or ‘know’ that the answer is right or wrong, without a calculator.

The children at the cashregisters today are constantly amazed when I catch their computers with a pricing/total error, and they (and their managers) haven’t got a clue.

[XBob]

this ‘stuff’ didn’t ‘wash’ ashore, it was leightered ashore.

[Alter Kaker]

They are learning. They are taking the first step. They are opening doors for the rest of us.

Call me a cynic, but when I see people wax poetical, I tend to suspect it's because they want for cold, hard facts.

I see very few tangible benefits from the space shuttle and the ISS. You say "they are opening doors." Doors to what? Low earth orbit? It's a very expensive trick, a dangerous one at that, and one that yields zero additional scientific knowledge. I'm hardly anti-space, but manned space flight makes no sense from any perspective.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

bttt

[potlatch]

bump

[Constantine XIII]

It’s the big air-tight environment modules that get you. Putting those together in orbit would be a monster I’d bet!