FOAM HAS PLAGUED NASA FOR 5 YEARS

Mercury News ^

[isthisnickcool]

Cool! Did you wave?

Actually, I did. LOL! Dang! I always have my little digital camera with me but they went over too fast.

[Ramius]

FRom the respones of some freepers HERE we should just ACT LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG!

No. Something was very clearly and tragically wrong. That matter is not up for questions.

The difference is that there are some of us that wish to wait for more facts before jumping to conclusions. If this was caused by a lack of funding or incompetence then that will come out, and *then* I'll be first in line to hack away at NASA and let the chips fall where they may.

But it could also be that this was caused by something going wrong that simply wasn't part of the risk algorithm before. There are some risks that aren't known until they cause a failure. That's what learning and science is all about. I'm willing to wait to find out.

We've had more than forty years of space travel without even *one* problem with re-entry. That's an amazing statistic. As patently dangerous as it is, we've gotten away with it every time but this one. It is quite possible (likely, even) that we will have something *new* come out of this investigation that gives us some new component for the risk equation. Something wasn't figured in.

[fooman]

Good point. I think that FR can play a role here.

We scooped the wires by at least 10 min according to the WSJ and even got a commendation for it from Lucianne.

I also think that work from alamo girl helped the slick one get impeached.

Go freepers.

[Ramius]

...that insulating foam could peel off the space shuttle's external fuel tanks and damage the vital heat-protecting tiles that the space agency says were the likely ``root cause'' of Saturday's shuttle disaster.

Nobody has yet said that there is any "likely" root cause yet. Anybody that did should be pulled from the investigative team. Failure analysis requires that the analysts quite specifically *not* have assumptions at the beginning. Analysis must follow where the evidence leads, and sometimes it leads in unexpected directions.

[isthisnickcool]

So much for your bogus title. It has been corrected.

[fooman]

Good grief. I see people posting the highlights of the article as the 'Thread Title' all the time.

I did not realize that there was a requirement to make the thread and article title the same.

I regret posting this article, because so many people seem offended by what I thought was the key highlight of the article.

If it were just another foam article, I would not have bothered posting it, because I do not think that it would have added much.

I would prefer this thread be pulled, because the KEY issue here is that NASA come clean on releasing the test results from the engineering company named above.

I would like to see the engineers interviewed that developed/tested the foam specs as well.

I did not intend to mislead I am sorry if I caused any hard feelings.

I hope this thread is pulled soon.

[Minutemen]

That "photograph" appears to have been drawn by one of Mad Magazines' cartoonists. What is that "stovepipe" sticking out of the wing??

[Bob]

I read the thing. I found nothing that says that NASA is withholding test results. Since you posted this with a title that is not accurate maybe you can point out where the article says "NASA withholding results". I don't see it.

From a previous post:

In 1999, the Southwest Research Institute, a non-profit laboratory in San Antonio, Texas, fired insulating foam fragments from a compressed-gas gun into thermal tiles and recorded the results with digital cameras. After the Columbia crash, NASA asked the institute not to release those results.

Technically speaking, NASA isn't withholding test results; the institute is withholding test results (because NASA asked them to).

[Quilla]

If thread titles are composed as the actual article titles, it helps to eliminate duplicate threads. Posters perform searches on keywords in the actual title.

No hard feelings.

[DoughtyOne]

I find that you have posted his about ten times across the forum. Evidently embarassing yourself on just one thread wasn't bad enough. Here's what I said to you on the other posts.

I'm just curious if you also think it's an insult to homicide, robbery, or assault victims when their family and friends exercise their God given talents to investigate who
carried out those crimes, when the police are unable to asertain who did it?  In this instance we have an agency that has two vested interests, full disclosure and the
welfare of the agency itself.  Why it would be an insult to the astronauts to make sure they weren't short-changed in the process, is beyond me.

I have seen the product of your logic before.  It's generally interesting, but seldom very sound.  Don't give up.

[CWOJackson]

Today we pay tribute to seven brave people. These seven people were combat pilots, aeronautical engineers, scientists…astronauts. Many of them had been with the space program for years, for others this was the culmination of their dreams.

Within hours of this terrible disaster there were some on FR claiming that the disaster was the result of NASA’s incompetence, that the disaster was avoidable and that the cover up had already began. They have offered up memo’s, doctored photos and wild rumor as evidence. In order to be true than we must also assume that the seven astronauts who died were fools or somehow duplicitous in their own deaths. Are we expected to believe that the knowledge of a few rumor mongers on the internet is greater then that of those who flew on Challenger?

Are we to believe that these seven astronauts were not aware of the foam problems on the shuttle program or the effects of budget cuts on the program? Are we to believe that they were foolish enough to fly a platform into space that was doomed from the beginning as some on FR claim?

If we accept their speculation then we must also assume that their fellow astronauts, walking the woodlands of east Texas looking for their remains, will not seek to discover the real cause of their deaths, but will work to cover up for NASA. Do you really believe this?

Is this what we’ve come to on FR? This doesn’t just smear NASA, it smears the seven brave people we honor today.

You find this embarassing? This is the product of your logic? I do feel sorry for you.

[Fred Mertz]

Your song and dance is getting old and boring already. Try something new.

[CWOJackson]

I'm sure it's boring to you, but then again you take TBLSHOW seriously. As I told DoughtyOne, different values.

[Paleo Conservative]

But why is foam made with Freon any better? There are lots of chemically inert gases that can be used to make foam.

[fooman]

Thats a good question and its why we want to see the results of the tests.

At this early stage, it appears that the foam was different.

I know that the replacement freon's were not as efficient as the stuff that had cfc's in air conditioners.

[aristeides]

If the photo in the Israeli paper is not of the wing, somebody needs to tell Roger Hedgecock, Rush's substitute today. He was saying earlier in the show today that the picture is of a wing.

[TomServo]

I did not intend to mislead I am sorry if I caused any hard feelings.

Let the thread stay. We all screw up from time-to-time. No biggie.

[TLBSHOW]

it sure is thanks Fred!

[Howlin]

It is NOT a picture of ANY damage to the shuttle. It's a picture from the cargo bay! It's not even the wing.

http://home.earthlink.net/~sigma90/israelrebut.mpg

[deport]

He was saying earlier in the show today that the picture is of a wing.

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LOL.... did he say if it was chicken, turkey, or just what was it...... Yep he said it so it must be true.....