Small Object Hit Space Shuttle Last Month 122
UglyTool writes "A small object, possibly a micrometeoroid, hit a radiator panel on the Space Shuttle Atlantis in September. The impact also damaged a one-inch (2.5-centimeter) area in the radiator's honeycomb-like aluminum mesh, but did not sever any of the panel's 26 vital coolant tubes as it passed through the half-inch wide panel.
This brings up some interesting questions. Is there a better way to protect the shuttle in orbit? Will a serious mishap in space be the end of our manned space program?"
From the article: "The impact left a hole about one-tenth of an inch in diameter, NASA reported Thursday on its Web site. The damage 'didn't endanger the spacecraft or the crew, nor did it affect mission operations,' NASA said. The radiators were brought inside the bay before the shuttle's landing last month, so the damaged area did not encounter searing heat during re-entry through Earth's atmosphere."
That's part of what makes astronauts still cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
It just goes to show you that going into space is a very dangerous prospect. All of the astronauts in the space program know and understand this, and accept the level of risk it entails. Sometimes when we do thing like send civilian teachers into space or read about how the latest millionaire hitched a ride on a Soyuz, we forget just how risky it really is, but that doesn't make it any less so.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I really respect the bravery of our astronauts, if given a chance, I'd go up on the next shuttle. The public just needs to understand that it's not a joyride, it's hard, dangerous work.
Oh, and the good news is that thanks to these pioneers, hopefully, going outside the protective shell that is our atmosphere will become safe, and perhaps even common. If we're lucky, maybe even within our lifetimes. After all, it wasn't very long ago at all that riding in an airplane was a relatively risky proposition, and today, thousands of people do it every day without giving it a second thought.
Re:That's part of what makes astronauts still cool (Score:1)
After all, it wasn't very long ago at all that riding in an airplane was a relatively risky proposition, and today, thousands of people do it every day without giving it a second thought.
5.08 years ago, that statement was much more true.
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The GP says "relatively short time", I'm scratching my head. I'm 54 and it's been safer than driving my whole life. My grandma who was born six months before the Wright brothers flew their motorized kite knew (from a distance) risky flight (Lindberg et al) but she's been dead since 2003.
"Relatively" is relative, I guess?
Re:That's part of what makes astronauts still cool (Score:3, Insightful)
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-Next Generation 2x16 - "Q who"
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I personally think the radiator was the best place for an impact to occur.
The multiple honeycomb layers absorb impact better than a solid single plate (this is the same reason they used aerogel to capture space dust).
A single THWACK on a hard shell could send a shockwave through the craft moving the damage zone elsewhere, better to coat the entire surface in shock absorbin
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The space shuttel is rocket-booster based... I meant capsules carried by rockets. No worries about foam at takeoff, nor do you have to babysit a radiator or whatever fancy part some government contractor shoves down our throats.
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Anything of substantial size that hits the shuttle (or ISS) is going to go right through. No honeycomb structure is going to change that- you just have to hope is stays clear of pressurized areas and such.
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Wouldn't coating the skin result in greater insulation, necessitating the need for more radiators? NASA got lucky that the object didn't pierce a liquid line (though, hopefully they're smert enough to have blowout valves on every line in the radiator).
Um, the object went through the panel (albeit only 1/2" thick) - your "multiple honeycomb layers" would be good at crushing under the load of a larger, slower object; but they're pretty usele
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I wonder, if I still had a slide rule if I'd remember how to use it? I used one to cheat in math class in high school. Dumb teachers.
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I can just imagine this logic applied to other aspects of daily life:
News report: "Lightning strikes Windows computer; keeps operating."
Slashdot poster: "How about lowering the risk by ditching this fragile and overpriced operating system they call Windows..."
Deflector Shields (Score:1)
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mind you, space debris is typically flying a LOT faster than an rpg...
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Will be common-place (Score:1)
How is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
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Should have paid for the collision damage waiver (Score:2)
Doesn't Need To Be Serious (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's important to remember that with space exploration, it doesn't have to be a serious mishap but it could be any mishap at all. Fuel tank O-rings not being tested down to low enough temperatures, insulation breaking off the shuttle, pea-sized particles piercing the shuttle--these are the things that pose risk to our space program.
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Like budget negotiations?
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"Seems innocuous" and serious are not mutually exclusive. In fact anything that does not seem innocuous has undoubtably been accounted for with quadruple redundancy backup preventative measures. All serious mishaps are thus likely the result of overlooking something small and innocuous.
I think a better question would be "Are the unaccountable and unpredicable points of failure threatening to overwhelm our ability to prepare for them potentially leading
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Technically it was o-rings on the solid rocket boosters, not the external fuel tank.
Maybe it's the age? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Granted, it could simply be that the vibrations of re-entry have weakened the metals at the molecular level, but that should only impact operational strength not tolerance to such injuries.
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It's been a while since I researched this, but IIRC each shuttle was designed for 100 launches. No orbiter has come even close to this. Number of launch cycles is more important than age for the aluminum parts and the fasteners. Aircraft, for instance, are typically judged based on takeoff/landing cycles or hours rather than age. Also, the orbiters have been overhauled over the years.
In any event, all of this is not really relevant to a micro meteor strike, since a particle moving at that velocity isn't go
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Haven't you ever heard of fatigue? Besides, "metal" is a pretty useless term here, do you mean steel, aluminum, titanium, beryllium, magnesium, etc.? What alloy? All of these have very different properties. There are also thermal cycling issues (as the craft travels from shadow to sun). I believe that there can also issues related to using materials in a vacuum and exposing them to radi
How to keep the shuttles safe. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Smaller sattelites (Score:4, Insightful)
The likelihood of a sattelite being hit by a micrometeor decreases with smaller scale sattelites.
The only problem is manned missions. Low mass, unmanned nano sattelites are the future.
Re:Smaller sattelites, nope (Score:2)
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yeah, the boring future.
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In fact, the future according to the original 60s Star Trek is almost primitive compared to today's reality.
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If the future is just watching our toys have all the fun romping around on faraway planets, I am not in favor of it.
> Until you're dead, anyway. And, er, this IS the future. Check your calandar, it's the 21st century.
Right. 2006. That means it's the present.
> They can even fix eyeballs now (click my sig for details), even though Doctor McCoy can't in the 23rd century.
Ok, yeah, but Dr. McCoy ran Spock by remote control. Can we do that, mister smartypants?
> In fact,
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Don't want NASA to become the next target for using NANO satelites. Hell, anyone into NANOtech could have problems.
Obvious fix (Score:5, Funny)
How about some sort of shortwave radar system that tracks inbound threats, combined with a fast-firing gatling gun that shoots thousands of projectiles per second at the incoming material in order to deflect or destroy it.
Ok, it might not seem like a good idea at first, but after each mission, it'll become more and more necessary. The perfect money-making idea for that special aerospace contractor in your life.
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Is that why they had that gun in the moon jeep in Armegedon?
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How about some sort of shortwave radar system that tracks inbound threats, combined with a fast-firing gatling gun that shoots thousands of projectiles per second at the incoming material in order to deflect or destroy it.
Excuse me, wouldn't firing thousands of projectiles per second increase the number of projectiles in orbit, making things EVEN WORSE?
Ok, it might not seem like a good idea at first, but after each mission, it'll become more and more necessary.
Yes, it will become more and more nec
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Might just as well invade Iraq or bomb Iran. I'm not sure you percieved the point of the OP.
KFG
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Might just as well invade Iraq or bomb Iran. I'm not sure you percieved the point of the OP.
My bad. There are so many stupid decisions (from Bush & Co) to be mocked, I just lose track.
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That's the whole point! "Nightmare scenario"?! PROFIT SCENARIO!
I wrote:
The first shuttle goes up with just one of these guns. The second one goes up with two of them, the third goes up with a whole battery...
So it would be something like... (Score:1)
2. Gatling guns
3. ???
4. Profit!
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Great Idea - put thousands of more little chunks of metal in orbit. If you aimed it right the shuttle could orbit into them in a matter of hours.
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The trick is to not use conventional bullets. They would have to be some kind of material that would sublimate in space over a very shot period of time. Fire the bullets, the hit the target to slow or deflect it, then the fragments evaporate to relatively harmless gas.
The rounds themselves would have to be either caseless, or the gun would have to capture the spent "brass" to be sure it wasn't a hazard in its own right. Plus the "powder" would have to be extremel
Particles of sand (Score:1, Interesting)
Like one of the above posters said, it won't be something bit that ends the space program, it will be something that is seemingly innocuous that causes problems.
Rocket Scientist (Score:2)
So what is the correlation between the speed and damage chances between the shuttle and hubble?
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If Zonk had linked New Scientist instead of (sheesh!) Forbes you'ld know that.
lost bolts? (Score:2)
During the last trip, there was a lot of ISS construction work in EVA. There was a lot of commentary about a bunch of bolts and other small items that got "lost" (dropped) during the activity.
Then there was talk about unknown objects which were sharing the orbit with the shuttle before it descended. They delayed for a whole day just to look at the shuttle again, and to keep looking for lots of parts. But none of the news commentary seemed to draw any connection to the lost bolts.
Now we are hearing a
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Even wheile they're in orbit, they're not a significant hazard. Due to the tyranny of orbit mechanics, anything at their altitude will be moving mostly in the same direction, at much the same speed.
Now if somebody was crazy enough to launch in the opposite direction, THEN th
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If the loose mystery objects were the lost bolts, then their mere presence wasted a full day of head-scratching.
If a bolt settled in the bay and bounced during landing, causing damage to the panels as discovered this week, then their mere presence has not been harmless either.
There are many useful orbits below the ISS and those satellites don't want runaway bolts accelerating toward them, either.
Need I remind you that it was a few-ounce piece of foam that everyone THOUGHT was harmless yet destroyed a
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First of all there are just a few bolts, and several billion cubic miles of space.
Secondly, the bolts have NO means of "accelerating", they are constrained to orbit at the same speed as everything else at that level, so the relative speeds of the objects tends to be miniscule.
Now there *is* a big problem if the satellite is in a "spy" orbit, a north - to - south mostly "polar" orbit. Then the relative angles are wic
Was it really a micro meteorite? (Score:2)
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Let Me Be The First To Say: (Score:2, Funny)
"Sssssssssssssssssssssssss. . ."
Snakes in a Spacesuit! (Score:2)
"What? You hate snakes!"
"When you're in a spacesuit and you hear hissing, you damn well hope it's a snake!"
(with apologies to the online comic Freefall)
(1) this happens, (b) no it won't. (Score:4, Informative)
(1) The shuttle is inspected with magnifiers after every flight for such hits. Most are tiny, but the windows are the most common part in need of replacement from these hits / pits. This is not the first time, it's not the last. Impacts by micrometeorites make up about half the critical things that could end a flight. They always have. They've known the risk for some time now. The astronauts all understand it. The shuttle flies tail-first in order to minimize the risk to reentry-critical parts. It's mostly news now because of the hype and drama about the return to flight.
And (b) the other previous US and Russian major mishaps didn't end the manned program, the next one won't either.
impacts wil be common (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there a better way to protect the shuttle in orbit? Will a serious mishap in space be the end of our manned space program?
If whoever going into space doesn't have a plan for coping with the amount of litter in the immediate neighborhood of the earth, then they are stupid and probably WILL suffer catastrophe.
Cost (Score:1)
Shields up! (Score:2)
Re: Small Object Hit Space Shuttle Last Month (Score:1, Troll)
God, this news is sooo last month.
All power to shields! (Score:1)
Whipple Shields (Score:4, Interesting)
qv: Whipple Shields [ciar.org]
The idea behind whipple shields is that you put several thin barriers in front of a hypervelocity threat, and the shock waves induced inside the moving body (from rapidly loading and unloading it with compressive forces) tears it apart. What emerges from the other side of the whipple shield is a cloud of dust rather than a rock (or steel bolt, or whatever), and this cloud of dust is incapable of penetrating the side of your spacecraft.
The document linked above describes research which demonstrates that the strength and thickness of the individual barriers is much less important than the number of barriers, and the ratio of barrier thickness vs space between the barriers. Thus whipple shields can have extremely high mass efficiency against hypervelocity threats, equivalent to 0.6 of the same thickness of hardened steel. A foamed polystyrene solution (where the cell foam wall thicknesses are tuned to the correct ratio of foam cells' widths) could therefore provide the same level of protection as ~135 times its weight in hardened steel plate.
This technology is being actively developed for protecting battletanks from shaped charges (which generate explosively-formed penetrators moving at high hypervelocity speeds of 8,000m/s and more), but its relatively low thickness efficiency (0.6x, as opposed to ~3x-4x for some modern composite armor systems) limits its usefulness in this role, as battletanks have limited space to play with. Spacecraft are much less limited in this respect.
Other so-called "Active Defenses" [ciar.org] developed for battletanks might also be applicable.
-- TTK
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Maybe, but these objects are an order of magnitude faster than an RPG round. And they work by firing off a charge to intercept the incoming round. You think the debris problem is bad not? Try setting off a few of these in the ISS's orbit. "Cleanup in aisle 5"...
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Maybe, but these objects are an order of magnitude faster than an RPG round. And they work by firing off a charge to intercept the incoming round. You think the debris problem is bad not? Try setting off a few of these in the ISS's orbit. "Cleanup in aisle 5"...
Yes, the anti-missile grenade systems (like Russia's and Ukraine's ARENA and Drozd, and Israel's Trophy) are not a very good fit. These systems cannot deflect anything moving faster than a few hundred meters per second. I was thinking more in t
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Protection isn't magic (Score:3, Informative)
At best, we have a whole list of things we can do to minimize impacts:
1. minimize the junk new satelites spew out. This has been in work for quite a while now.
2. track the paths of known junk, or old junk producers. Again, being done.
3. toughen critical structures on spacecraft, especially pressurized habitats. Also, provide retreat areas that are secure.
4. plan flights around the worst of the known debris clouds. Again, they already do this, but it is increasingly impossible.
5. provide advanced warning of impending collisions. This could come from ground based and vehicle based radars. But frankly, at best you are only going to get a few seconds warning for the smaller stuff. Maybe enough time to say "Duck and cover!"
6. rest assured in the knowledge that, if it isn't big enough to kill you, chances are you can ignore it. And if it does kill you, your problems are all solved.
By the way, the note about the shuttle radiators being pulled in before the shuttle returned to Earth? They HAVE to be pulled in. The Radiators are inside the cargo bay doors. The only way to not pull them in and get the doors closed would be to jettison them, which I doubt the crew could do on orbit, even if they wanted to.
To Boldly Go... (Score:2)
Stroke of genius (Score:1)
Come on, Zonk! (Score:2)
Do you link New Scientist when you have a story about finance?
The story I linked has two big photos of the hole, as well as a much better writup, more details, and far fewer ads.
Sheesh.... Hope your day gets better, Zonk.
This is hard, we shouldn't do it anymore (Score:2)
Why is NASA/the Government/the Public so quick to shut down the space program every time something bad/fatal happens?
I respect the hell out of anyone who has a job that takes them into harm's way. I also think it's amazing that the US has yet to lose one astronaut IN SPACE. However, how many test pilots have been killed jockeying experimental aircraft for NASA and private companies? Should we not build new aircraft because someone might get killed flying it?
We do need to take a serious look at shuttl
kevlar/ceramic ballistic plates? (Score:2)
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a meteoroid in space that is moving relatively slow compared to you would actually be a very novel thing to encounter. probablistically, if you are gonna
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damn didn't know we measured speeds up there the same we measure UT.
Note: Damn americans with their 12" feet lol
Vehical Loss - Results? (Score:1)
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Judas H Priest! (Score:2)
This sort of thing is not particularly unusual. The shuttle gets hit with perceptible impact dozens to hundreds of times per mission. They have polish out a few to dozens of divots from the windows alone after each flight. The rocks/paint chip/aluminum particles that make up most of the impactors don't have window-seeking guidance systems, so there are proportionally more hits on the rest of the vehicle too. It's just a matte
I know what it was (Score:2)
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]
Aliens Are Throwing Rocks at us? (Score:1)
Space Station (Score:2)
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no.
that money is nothing in the overall scheme of things.
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The space programme may not have produced anything you consider valuable but knowledge is always valuable even if it takes centuries to turn a profit. Some people are so desperate to pay less tax they'd end up throwing the future gains baby out with the inefficient government bathwater.
Her
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Anybody who thinks the space program hasn't produced anything valuable is woefully ignorant. Fuel cells, EKGs, Tang, solar cells, and myriad other breakthroughs were a direct result of the space program.
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According to NASA [nasa.gov] (PDF warning), the requested operating budget is US$1,811,300,000.
According to the CIA Factbook [cia.gov] there are 298,444,215 people in the US.
Doing the math [google.com] says you pay US$6.07 a year for the space program.
If you can get yourself into space for that amount, let me know how it turns out.