Posted on 06/12/2007 4:48:53 PM PDT by 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.
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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.
I don’t know. They will have some space by staying in the shuttle, and can go to iron rations for food. Power and water and oxy are the limiting factors, in my grossly uninformed opinion.
How many people up there now?
Bring back the “Failure is not an option” guy.
What resources have we located that are worth colonizing and exploiting? Manned space travel would probably be worthwhile once we find some, and might be worthwhile if viewed as a training exercise until that time, but a lot of manned space travel is non-productive.
Yes, they are docked. They have already installed the new solar panel truss segment and unfurled the panels.
You’re welcome. Sounds it was a faulty sensor is all.
Why not?
Because it costs too much and there seems to be little benefit.
It’s expensive, worthless and most of all, dangerous.
I suppose that same argument could have been said back in the 16th century about a far away place known as the Americas.
People need to explore. Especially Americans; it's in our blood. Regardless of the danger; I'd go up in a heartbeat if given the chance.
Anybody notice how we didn't have these problems for the first couple of decades of the shuttle program? The technology is clearly aging badly.
The "recyclable" nature of the shuttle is what sold it during the decade when the eco-nuts really got hold of this country.
ok, so I take a sledgehammer instead of a ball pien hammer........lolol
One big problem with the shuttle tiles is that they are exposed to the environment (and thus subject to dings and such) at all times. In the old rockets like Mercury thru Apollo, the backside of the capsule (which had to deal with reentry) was protected by the final stage until just before the reentry sequence began
The shuttle was badly designed from day one, with multiple inherent design flaws. The famous physicist Richard Feynman was appointed to the commision investigating the Challenger blowup. They wanted a whitewash, but he refused to go along, and published his own evaluation of the design flaws. A fuller discussion is in his autobiography "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman". The bottom line is that it seems that fatal flaws were glossed over in order to get the Shuttle built.
To Columbus: We need to stop sending people out there it is expensive, worthless and most of all, dangerous.
Thanks for the info. FYI - The only launch I have witnessed on site so far in my life was Apollo 13. The Saturn V shook the ground and I was quite a distance away, waited all day for it. What a show and I was a youngster but remember it like it was yesterday.
Based on what?
I think there are three at the ISS, with one scheduled to switch out on this mission. Guess that’s nine folks up there now.
” Anybody notice how we didn’t have these problems for the first couple of decades of the shuttle program? “
I think the original designs were “improved”.
The Russians have done rather well with the “can on a candle” booster technology over the years.
Conditioning. Back in '67 we watched 'em burn up on the launch pad. (Apollo 1)
There are always going to be risks when you try to propel human bodies up into space at a gazillion miles per hour.
What? That's reason to stop? America: "Land of the free and home of the brave" or "Land of the secure and home of the afraid"?
Yes.
Unmanned probes may or may not satisfy curiosity, but nothing more. That is my definition of expensive and worthless.
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