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."
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This is really an interesting subject, because you see that some substances can be harmful at low altitudes and beneficial at high altitudes. Just for the record, I heard an interesting item on the TV news a few weeks ago: they said new research shows that carbon dioxide may radiate heat AWAY from the earth at high altitudes, while it absorbs heat at lower altitudes (the so-called greenhouse effect.) So the plot thickens, and it's clear that we haven't done nearly enough research to conclude that the greenhouse effect even exists.
If NASA was intimidated into changing the composition of their foam insulation, they didn't stand a chance of getting a "waiver" and they didn't dare complain. All they could do was smile and say "yas suh!" Because next year, and the year after that, they have to go back to these same scumbag politicians and beg not to have any more cuts in their budget.
Regards,
LH
No, it isn't- if you will review all the information available, an equal number of scientists & researchers looked at the same data, and reached the opposite conclusion.
Their voices were not given any forum by the press.
There is a still-active volcano in Italy which spews about 4 quadrillion tons of flourine compounds into the atmospere per year- yet we were told the backyard mechanic's cracking of pound cans of Freon were damamging the Earth. It does not add up in either case.
I'm so pissed off right now I could just scream.
What data are you talking about? And it's not the backyard mechanics that could cause a problem, it's large-scale industrial users. I know that volcanos spew a lot of chemicals into the air, but not all flourine compounds can react with ozone. It takes a specific kind of compound that can initiate this chain reaction in the conditions of the upper atmosphere. I think too that it's important to understand that chemical reactions in the ozone layer are not that well understood, and the banning of CFC's was largely a precautionary measure because the risks from ozone depletion are so severe. If the risks were not so severe, we wouldn't have acted to prevent a potential problem. (It's a lot like Iraq today.)
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