ENDEAVOR shuttle may be stranded in space

trip.i said:
Are you condoning the murder of hundreds of thousands of nanobots?
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It's not murder. Said administrator demanded they be programmed with knowledge of the Gospels so they would sacrifice themselves and go to heaven. I guess he didn't realize the ramifications of the Free Will heuristic programming though.
 
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world...acewalk-repairs/2007/08/13/1186857393015.html

NASA was urgently calculating whether risky spacewalk repairs are needed after a close-up inspection revealed that a nine-centimetre gouge penetrates the thermal shielding on the shuttle's belly.
A chunk of insulating foam hit the Endeavour at liftoff last week in an unlucky ricochet off the fuel tank.
The unevenly shaped gouge - which straddles two side-by-side thermal tiles and the corner of a third nine cm and just over five cm wide. An inspection today shows the damage goes all the way through the 2.5-centimetre thick tiles, exposing the felt material sandwiched between the tiles and the shuttle's aluminium frame.
Mission managers expect to decide tomorrow or on Tuesday US time at the latest, whether to send astronauts out to patch the gouge. Engineers are trying to determine whether the marred area can withstand the searing heat of atmospheric re-entry at flight's end. Actual heating tests will be conducted on similarly damaged samples.
"We have really prepared for exactly this case, since Columbia," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.
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It looks like it has to be repaired, but they say they are prepared for such a task. If it hadn't happened to Columbia, it looks like it would have happened to Endevour.
 
This problem apparently existed previously and it was only 'luck' (:boxedin: ) that kept it from happening before Columbia. That they even know about it this time (before reentry, obviously) is a step up. Once the repair decision is made, focus on the mission can resume...

If it's successfully repaired, it will actually make good press for NASA... for once...

;)
 
You may thank the environ-Nazis for the Columbia disaster and the current problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank

Development of the ETs thermal protection system has been problematic, and has proven a fatal weakness to shuttle mission safety. NASA has had difficulty preventing fragments of foam from detaching during flight, ever since a 1995 decision to remove chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-14) from the composition of the foam in compliance with an Environmental Protection Agency ban on CFCs under section 610 of the Clean Air Act. In its place, a hydrochlorofluorocarbon known as HCFC 141b was certified for use and phased into the shuttle program. The "new" foam containing HCFC 141b was first used on the aft dome portion of ET-82 during the flight of STS-79 in 1996. Use of HCFC 141b was expanded to the ETs acreage, or larger portions of the tank, starting with ET-88, which flew on STS-86 in 1997.
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I know that environmentalist-bashing is a popular sport, and that any attempt to protect the enviroment is fascism in action. However, the assertion made by Wikipedia and others that the foam has only been problematic since 1995 is contradicted by this article:

New Scientist said:
In 1992, Columbia was struck in an almost identical incident to that revealed in images from its ill-fated final launch on 16 January. A piece of foam insulation fell from the external fuel tank and hit the underside of the shuttle, gouging a 12-centimetre-long hole in the heat tiles.
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Emphasis mine. The foam has always been a problem. Furthermore, if NASA weren't sure that the new foam was up to the job they could have applied for an exemption, of which there are already several.

The final nail in the coffin for this argument must be that the shuttle still uses freon in cooling systems without apparently falling foul of the act.


Interestingly, that New Scientist article continues:
Columbia was damaged again during a 1997 mission. A NASA report from the time said: "Inspection revealed more than 300 hits to Columbia's exterior thermal protection system (TPS) tiles, with about 132 measuring greater than one inch long. Current estimations indicate about 100 TPS tiles may need replacement." Again, NASA concluded: "The damaged tiles posed no threat to flight crew safety."

In 1995, NASA had estimated that 90 per cent of the damage to tiles was being caused by pieces of the external fuel tank insulation flaking away.
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Ten years ago, of course was before we got to see what damaged tiles could do. I doubt they'd dare try to return without repairing it - even a token effort, if they really thought there was no risk.
 
Shouldn't those things be mothballed already? IIRC they are almost as old as my VW Bus. Couldn't we build a couple dozen shiny new Soyuz-y capsules for what we're spending keeping these dinosaurs going?
 
Definitely not something to worry about, say NASA. I guess they're probably right based on past experience. Hope they're right!

So this hole apparently goes right through the tile. How can this be safe? Is it just that the tile is over an unimportant piece of orbiter so if it burns through it doesn't matter? Or is the hole so small that it won't heat up the skin appreciably?
 
ConspiRaider said:
It could be a ruse. The astronauts might just be saying the tiles are damaged, just to get the extra layover at the ISS and test out, finally, a certain unmentionable activity in a weightless environment. And away from NASA's prying and voyeuristic eyes.

In space, no one can hear you scream.
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Why don't they say "We ran out of gas.", like the rest of us?
 
richardm said:
So this hole apparently goes right through the tile. How can this be safe? Is it just that the tile is over an unimportant piece of orbiter so if it burns through it doesn't matter? Or is the hole so small that it won't heat up the skin appreciably?
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A few things... first, this gouge is not as large as the one on Columbia. Second, the temperature profile is not uniform across the surface on reentry (that is, it doesn't get as hot in that area as along the leading edges). Finally, there is some damage that will have to be repaired on the ground, but they must have decided that it's less risk to land the orbiter, than to send an astronaut around the far side.
 
Jimbo07 said:
they must have decided that it's less risk to land the orbiter, than to send an astronaut around the far side.
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That's another job that falls into the "I'm glad I don't have to decide that" category.
 
They're Baaaaccckkk...

Endeavour's Safe Return

Next up, a trip in October to deliver a new pressurized component (Node) to the ISS.

For all of the fair criticisms of the ISS, I'm still amazed that humans have the ability/audacity to build a 500 ton spaceship in orbit!

:cool:
 
Piscivore said:
Shouldn't those things be mothballed already? IIRC they are almost as old as my VW Bus. Couldn't we build a couple dozen shiny new Soyuz-y capsules for what we're spending keeping these dinosaurs going?
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Age does not mean obsolete, given proper maintenance. We're going to be running B-52 sorties on Mars some day.
 
Joshua Korosi said:
Age does not mean obsolete, given proper maintenance. We're going to be running B-52 sorties on Mars some day.
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Hell, a lot of DC 3's/C-47s are still in everyday use.
I guess the old saying about the DC3 is true: You can wreck one,but you can't wear it out.......
 
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