Fewer Heat Shield Dings on Shuttle Discovery 118
According to NASA, the amount of damage to thermal tiles noted on Discovery was significantly lower after the latest mission. According to the report, there was a 33% reduction in the number of dings on the belly of the orbiter and an almost 50% reduction in the number of hits greater than one inch. This would seem to indicate that the new foam is working better. "The vehicle looked very good," Thomas Ford, a member of NASA's ice-debris inspection team at Kennedy Space Center, said Wednesday. "It's definitely gratifying."
A flight every 6 weeks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:2, Informative)
Currently only Russians are able to do that. Shuttles' turn-around time is way too long and even though there's less damage it still takes one person a week per tile to repair.
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:1)
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:1)
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A flight every 6 weeks (Score:1, Flamebait)
What about... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Re:What about... (Score:1)
Re:What about... (Score:1)
the only explanation (Score:2, Funny)
Clearly they didn't let the female astronaut make the return trip. I'm guessing they also didn't find any rubbermaid garbage cans crushed under the rear wheels, right?
Re:the only explanation (Score:5, Funny)
And it's a cheap shot against women to make fun of them for it. Their notorious inability to judge distances is all the fault of the guys in the first place.
They keep telling them that this:
_________________________________________
. .
KFG
Re:the only explanation (Score:1)
I guess the real question is whether or not this counts as a weapon in space.
Re:the only explanation (Score:2)
Re:the only explanation (Score:1)
Yep, thats about right.
Now if I could only do that in real life....
Re:the only explanation (Score:2)
Re:the only explanation (Score:1)
Re:the only explanation (Score:5, Informative)
One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:3, Interesting)
But, we can hope! If they can make the launch every 2 months or so, that's going to be amazing - they have fewer orbiters than before, so it's pretty agressive. The question is, what comes next?
It looks to me that the Asian countries are going to take over real space exploration. That's both good and bad. China isn't exactly known for sharing information, but at least they are doing it.
Re:One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'd say that, barring accidents, NASA has managed to launch one every two months.
Re:One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:2)
Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Space (Score:2)
I bet they'll use dragons.
Re:One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:3, Interesting)
No, China is known for sharing information with allies.
Companies from the United States are not well known for sharing [theregister.co.uk] their technology [theregister.co.uk]. .
In fact, the United States is known to be susceptible [slashdot.org] to private interests affecting their "foreign policy".
No offense, but every Country in the world deserves to be on
Re:One sparrow does not make a spring (Score:2)
I disagree. I think that individual human beings have certain rights, but deserve no more than the consequences of the actions they choose, and whatever good or bad luck comes their way. If a bunch of individuals want to band together, form a nation-state with borders and a foreign policy and whatnot, more power to them. I don't think they deserve to be on an equal footing with any other nation-state or other entity, though.
I thin
China is not a leader in space (Score:2)
How do you figure? China has launched 2 missions in 4 years, for a total of 7 days in space. They are flying a rocket/spacecraft that is a virtual clone of a Soyuz which they purchased. They haven't developed anything fron scratch. . They have no heavy lift capability. They have never launched an unmanned explorat
Re:China is not a leader in space (Score:2)
Can we say... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can we say... (Score:1)
Re:Can we say... (Score:2)
no liner? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
Also, you've got to fasten the liner somehow, which would mean holes in the tiles.
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
You missed the parents point.
Google for "LineX" or "Rhino Lining".
You are most likely correct, though, about the lining burning away and possibly causing more damage, though.
Re:no liner? (Score:1)
It doesn't fly as far.
KFG
Re:no liner? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem isn't the heat, but the pressure (that causes this heat as a side effect).
During re-entry, the shuttle travels supersonic thereby preventing the air to get out of the way fast enough.
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
Jeez, according to sci-fi magazines dating back to the 50's, we should have had them for decades. The future is really disappointing isn't it?
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
Re:no liner? (Score:3, Informative)
That said, ablatives aren't easy, especially if you want aerodynamic control as you come in -- it's exceedingly difficult to get them to ablate evenly, which results in weird and unpredictable forces on the lifting and control surfaces.
If the shuttle had been a capsule reentry system, ablatives would have been fairly obvious. With wings, it's much less c
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
well..what about a second layer of the same tiles? so if the top layer is damaged....the second one should be able to handle it. Think of a snake shedding it's skin or a shark replenishing its teeth with a backup
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
When rentering, the air touching the wings is several thousand degrees. But the air in front of the wings (as in the air being pushed away by the air in contact with the wings) is several tens of thousands of degrees. So any change in the wing, such as a
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
The development project required to do substantial changes to the heat shield would be massive. You can't just attach another layer of tiles, for several reasons. Weight is the obvious one -- it cuts into payload capacity, probably quite substanti
Re:no liner? (Score:2)
Man, you owe me an afternoon. That was a thumping good read...
Re:no liner? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can think of one amazingly obvious reason why they don't do it: weight (or, more precisely, mass). Every pound of stuff you put on the tiles to protect them is a pound less the shuttle can carry into orbit. It already can't carry very much (compared to unmanned rockets that are far less expensive to operate), so slapping a few hundred (or perhaps thousand) pounds of stuff on the tiles to protect them is not going to work.
Now perhaps you'll say that such a coating wouldn't have to weigh much because it could be thin. I will remind you that the foam that brought down Columbia slammed into the wing at about 550mph relative to the shuttle's speed. Any coating that's going to do any good would have to be able to withstand such an impact or it's not worth the weight of the coating. I think you should now realize that any protective coating would have to be (a) very thick and (b) very heavy in order to do any good, which would therefore (c) make the shuttle's cargo-carrying capacity more pathetic than it already is.
It's a bad design. You can keep applying band-aids all you want, but having the heat tiles exposed to debris damage during ascent is a fundamentally bad design than can't readily be corrected. Ever see a Saturn V launch? Tons of ice shed from the ascent stages, crashing all over the place, yet no Apollo mission was ever in any danger whatsoever because of it. The "valuable" part of the stack was at the top, away from debris, and the heat shield itself was tucked away inside the stack. Until we come up with a way to launch things without cryogenic propellants, this is going to be the preferred arrangement for getting stuff into space.
50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Farce (Score:2)
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:2)
The Saturn V was the most reliable heavy-lift vehicle ever built with the largest payload capacity. Too bad they scrapped it.
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:1)
>largest payload capacity. Too bad they scrapped it.
And then they lost the plans so they can't even build new ones.
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:1, Informative)
Fortunately, the plans are not lost. Unfortunately, even with the plans, it's not possible to build new Saturn V rockets.
Here's what the SpaceFAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/space/controversy/ [faqs.org]) has to say about the "lost" Saturn V plans.
From the FAQ:
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:2)
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:2)
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:1)
-ed
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:2)
There have been 12 Soyuz missions to the ISS since the first one in 2001. Where do you get the "dozen Soyuz trips per month."? Even if you add in 22 Progress launches, that's still nowhere near a dozen Soyuz trips per month.
Re:50% less bits of foam falling off!!! (Score:1)
Other than Russia and China, no-one *has* a manned space programme and currently neither of their programmes are as sophisticated as the US's. The shuttle may be causing some headaches, but if it hadn't been tried, people would still be demanding it was tried: "why are we sending up these space rockets and burning them up on re-entry. Why don't we try and save money and materials by building a re-usable vehicle? Added bonus: we can retrieve things from space as well as put them up there." With hindsight
what are you talking about (Score:1)
Shields up (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shields up (Score:2)
The REAL Test (Score:5, Funny)
I paraphrased a little there, but the REAL test of this stuff would be to park the shuttle in Walmart's parking lot for a few hours. See how it looks after that.
Re:The REAL Test (Score:1)
A Wal-Mart parking lot on
Black Friday.
Re:The REAL Test (Score:2)
A Wal-Mart parking lot on
Black Friday.
Pfft. Now you're just being silly. An M1-Abrams couldn't take that.
A sad sign of the times.. (Score:1)
I remember growing up and feeling NASA were a magical place where anything could happen and that it was just prime ace, the place to be.
Now where it's at is Google and... erm, where else? Perhaps like PriceWaterHouseCoopers? IBM? I dunno... My point is, that NASA shou
Re:A sad sign of the times.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A sad sign of the times.. (Score:1)
Re:A sad sign of the times.. (Score:1)
Re:A sad sign of the times.. (Score:2)
TBH, given that:
1. The entire scientific world uses standard metric measurements
2. Everyone in the world except the US uses standard metric measurements
I'm really amazed that NASA use imperial units at all... it just seems crazy.
Fixing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fixing (Score:2)
Of course the irony here - the fact that with this sweeping generalization you've employed about as much actual thought as this hypothetical "average American" you're railing against - has most likely totally escaped your notice.
Re:Fixing (Score:2)
Generalization (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Generalization (Score:1)
Journalists maybe, or activists. But engineers, rocket scientists or nuclear physicists (whose very usefulness you seem to imply) ? Name one such state. I don't mean to apologize for modern Islamic states, but I fear that rhetoric has got the better of you. You should not let that happen to you, unless, of course, you could prove me wrong.
Re:Generalization (Score:1)
Re:Generalization (Score:1, Flamebait)
Yeah.
Iraq is so much better off now.
Re:Generalization (Score:2)
Re:Generalization (Score:2)
Re:Fixing (Score:2)
And I am sure that the NASA engineers would do a much better job if they thought that their own lives and families depended on them doing the best job they could. It is just that we are all so rich and bloated now. That is the price of sucess.
I often wonder how Rome pulled off being top dog for so long. I don't think America's dom
Rome (Score:2)
How is this significant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the data on all flights prior to that one? What are the maxima/minima and standard deviation? A 33 or 50% variation might be expected.
Re:How is this significant? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
UFO during Shuttle launch STS-114 (Score:2, Interesting)
Check out the UFO on the latest shuttle launch
It's not much, but it's another one NASA missed.
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-9107467
so we could have reduced cost a long time ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so we could have reduced cost a long time ago (Score:2, Interesting)
The foam has been damaging tiles since they switched away from CFCs to make it in an effort to appease the environmentalists that swore the ozone was being depleted as a result of CFCs. Clearly they compromised safty. Can read about it here - http://flyawaysimulation.com/article1564.html [flyawaysimulation.com] .
How about they use the old coolant (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about they use the old coolant (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How about they use the old coolant (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually loosing a tile or two doesn't matter. Actually when they switched, tile damage went up dramatically. Read about it here - http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID [capmag.com]
Re:How about they use the old coolant (Score:2)
A catalyst "by definition" lowers the activation energy of a reaction, how you manage to translate that showing down a reaction I don't understand. The other part of the "definition" is that the catalyst is unchanged at the end of the rea
Re:How about they use the old coolant (Score:2)
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/ bp/ch22/activate.html#rate [purdue.edu]
http://www.chem.brown.edu/chem12/catalyst/catalyst
and of course at some that don't state the speed must be increased:
http://wine1.sb.fsu.edu/chm1046/notes/Kinetics/Cat alyst/Catalyst.htm [fsu.edu]
http://www.purchon.com/chemistry/catalyst.htm [purchon.com]
So yes I guess people do call inhibitors catalysts - lear
Wow (Score:2)
Why do I not feel that comforted?
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Yet, I couldn't believe (Score:3, Insightful)
I always imagined someone did a spacewalk (even as spacewalks are dangerous) during one of the first flights to inspect the spaceship for damage done during lift-off. This is not the way to do engineering - building something extremely complex and expensive and not learn every tiny bit it has to teach.
The sad part is that lives could have been saved.
Build a space bus. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Build a space bus. (Score:2)
After you scrap the Shuttle and CEV.....by the time you get anything else large enough up there, the ISS will be a pile of unhabitable rubble.
New Foam? Not. (Score:3, Interesting)
The foam itself hasn't changed at all, so that comment is misleading. What's been changed is where the foam is applied.
Oh, and there's two types of foam btw. There's the stuff that gets sprayed on the acreage areas of the tank (which is applied by machine), and there's the foam that's hand applied to stuff that needs a bit more precision. The acreage foam is the new environmentally friendly stuff you hear blamed for the Columbia accident. Which is ironic, because it's the other foam, the hand applied variety, they've had so much trouble with. And guess what? It's the older, non "evironment friendly" type, and it's also the type that caused Columbia's disaster.