Posted on 02/04/2003 4:15:00 PM PST by kattracks
Thank fussy "environmentalists" from the Clinton administration for the substandard but politically correct foam that NASA thinks caused the Columbia disaster.
"NASA engineers have known for at least five years 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," the Philadelphia Inquirer noted today in an article by Knight Ridder News Service.
So why was such a crummy substance used in such a crucial capacity, with the lives of seven astronauts at stake? Because "environmentalists" fretting about their theory of human-caused "global warming" wanted to use it.
In a 1997 report, NASA mechanical systems engineer Greg Katnik "noted that the 1997 mission, STS-87, was the first to use a new method of 'foaming' the tanks, one designed to address NASA's goal of using environmentally friendly products. The shift came as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordering many industries to phase out the use of Freon, an aerosol propellant linked to ozone depletion and global warming," Knight Ridder reported.
Insulation is sprayed on the shuttle's tanks to keep the super-cooled nitrogen and oxygen fuels at the correct temperature.
Before the P.C. new insulation was used, about 40 of the spacecraft's 26,000 ceramic tiles would sustain damage in missions. However, Katnik reported that NASA engineers found 308 "hits" to Columbia after a 1997 flight.
A "massive material loss on the side of the external tank" caused much of the damage, Katnik wrote in an article in Space Team Online.
He called the damage "significant." One hundred thirty-two hits were bigger than 1 inch in diameter, and some slashes were as long as 15 inches.
Most frighteningly, some slashes cut three-quarters of the way into the 2-inch-deep tiles, near the ship's aluminum skin, which burns at only 350 degrees. More than 100 tiles had to be replaced - 11 times more than in a previous mission that had used foam made from politically incorrect Freon.
"As recently as last September, a retired engineering manager for Lockheed Martin, the contractor that assembles the tanks, told a conference in New Orleans that developing a new foam to meet environmental standards had 'been much more difficult than anticipated,'" Knight-Ridder wrote.
The engineer, who helped design the thermal protection system, said that switching from the Freon foam "resulted in unanticipated program impacts, such as foam loss during flight."
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Yup. That was the brainchild of the Environmental Defense Fund, (that's where Ruckleshaus went after leaving the EPA).
Now we get apples from China.
I'd love to have a list of US investors for those little ventures to compare with a list of donors to the EDF.
I thought DDT was banned back in the 1970's. I know here in NJ it was. They used to spray the marshes, and thats where blowfish layed their eggs. They almost went extinct. They're numbers are now back up, but they stay mostly in the bay now. Back in the 1970's you could catch a ton of them in the ocean right off any jetty. I haven't seen nor heard of one caught in the ocean since.
Also, I wouldn't be too quick to blame the EPA for the faulty foam on the shuttle. If true, this problem sounds more like a lack of genuine leadership at NASA. If freon-free foam won't do the job and endangers astronauts, then NASA should have asked the EPA for a waiver. A waiver allowing the use of freon would surely have been granted by the EPA in this situation. It sounds more like a case of no leadership and no backbone at NASA.
As much as I hate Clinton .. I have to agree with you
What is important is to let them finish the investigation first before pointing fingers
NOW SPIT THAT OUT!!! TWOOEY!!!
Yes, I agree with you that the failure here was in the leadership at NASA. There will never be a shortage of reasons to do or not do new things; the function of a leader is to weigh the costs/benefits and make the correct decision.
BTW, I'm not so sure the EPA would have given NASA a waiver; They are serioulsly degrading the training of our soldiers in California to protect a turtle or bird or some such thing.
Further, how would a heavy molecule like Freon make it all the way up to 200,000 feet from ground level?
Freon is not a "heavy molecule". It is a light gas with a molecular formula of CH3-F (if I recall correctly.) So the molecular weight is similar to propane gas. It is light enough to float all the way into the stratosphere, and traces of freon have been detected in the stratosphere. A key principle here is that the free radical chain reaction only requires a trace of freon to start the reaction and destroy a substantial amount of ozone. On the other hand, I don't believe freon has anything to do with "global warming." But the ozone depletion issue has a solid scientific basis.
I don't believe that is correct. Propane, when it leaks, falls immediately to the ground and hugs it and literally drains down to the lowest area it can find. It would have to find wind and wind currents of a continuous thermal nature that usually peter out when the sun goes down.
I've never understood why, if freon kills ozone and ozone at surface levels is such a dangerous substance that the T.V. weather constantly shows a movie graphic each hot summer night of it blowing from Sacramento up into my neck of the woods... Why wouldn't we want freon leaking from auto airconditioners to kill off this supposedly bad ozone?
So much of this scare tactic is just massive B.S., designed to keep State and Federal pissants in a government job for a big fat cat government pension. The putrid politicians that campaign on these fears are more toxic to taxpayers and taxpaying businesses who are already overburdened by these parasites, than any supposed toxic gas!!!
Besides that, people that continue to swallow this bellicose belching of gaseous baloney are becoming inert in their ability to think for themselves!!!
Please feel free to correct me where I am in error.
Now how does that translate to it being lighter than air, exactly? Is there some difference in density that accounts for it?
It isn't. That doesn't mean it doesn't disperse upward (slowly) by the law of partial pressures. The ozone holes at the poles are historic phenomena. There was a large volcano in Antactica that did impact the size of the southern "hole." There are a number of sources of chlorine in the atmosphere, freon happens to be more stable and capable of initiating more dissociations of ozone per molecule than diatomic chlorine. The impact of freon on the upper atmosphere is arguable. The impact of HCFC, freon's inferior, more expensive, and far more toxic substitute, on DuPont's bottom line, isn't.
I'm sure this is interesting stuff and everything, but the idea that the manufacture of foam (with freon) for four or five space shuttle launches per year poses an environmental hazard is utter insanity. Did you ever see a launch? The magnificent plumes that seem to envelop the horizon and half the sky? But NASA needed politically correct foam insulation??
It appears very possible that the environmental extremists and their Democrat sponsors bear responsibility for the gruesome deaths of seven astronauts.
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