Space Shuttles almost Ready to Re-Launch 279
stagmeister writes "CNN and Space.com are reporting that the Return to Flight Task Group, the overseeing committee that determines when the Space Shuttles can go back into space, has reported that the only items blocking the Shuttles are issues 'related to tank debris, orbiter hardening and tile repair.' They plan to re-meet in later this month to finalize their decision. However, 'NASA has made clear it intends to resume shuttle flights with the repair capabilities it has in hand without knowing for sure whether they would work in an emergency.' Would you want your children flying a space shuttle that hasn't been properly beta-tested?"
Beta-testing (Score:4, Informative)
Screw that. If the chance of coming back alive is at least as good as it was on the 100+ other shuttle launches, I'd give almost anything to go myself. I guess some additional beta-testing might be nice, but how much will it cost?
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Informative)
One of the biggest problems is testing. It's not like we have an extra shuttle to launch, punch a couple holes in, and have reenter. They do the best that they can on Earth, and will be doing more in-space tests on the first launch.
As for "what authority" the task force has, NASA safety boards generally have a lot more independence and authority than the equivalents in Russia, even before the accident. Without the board signing off, Congress won't be happy at all. There have been a lot of problems on ISS involving the Russians doing things like bring unapproved batteries onboard, or firing Progress rocket engines for an attitude-changing maneuver before the gyroscopes had been confirmed to be off, etc, that have led to a lot of major safety concerns.
Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who signed off on the safety of the Columbia launch: every other safety board in the shuttle's history, including those during the ones early in the Shuttle program. Furthermore, most, if not all, other hydrogen-fuelled rockets (for example, Arianne) have used similar insulation systems, and while most haven't had side-mounted payloads, they have had components that foam could have damaged. It's a good thing that this research is being done.
They've had a lot of blame heaped on them, when the shuttle has overall had a pretty darn impressive safety record - about equivalent to Soyuz (same % of craft losses, greater total casualties but far greater human launches). Its cost record, of course, is something different all together, and that is what justifies replacing this first-generation reusable with a second-generation craft that can take advantage of everything learned.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:5, Informative)
How so? Vehicles that carry humans aboard have to be human rated. Ie they have to be designed with much stricter tolerances, much more paperwork, higher quality, and so on. Not to mention the Russian Kliper is most likely going to be launched on top of a Zenit rocket anyways. The fact that it doesn't require a human passenger just means that no one is going to die unless the rocket explodes on the pad or crashes into someone's house.
You don't like the one I gave you, then tell me why it isn't acceptable (other than the fact that it hasn't flown as long).
I didn't say it wasn't acceptable, but like I did say, the Zenit 3S-L has only flown about 12 times, the Zenit-2 less then two dozens flights where it HAS blown up at least once. Not to mention, the Zenit only carries about 10tons into orbit, while the Space Shuttle Stack carries well over 130tons into orbit!(30 or so tons of payload)
You should also not forget that Columbia didn't blow up during launch, it failed during re-entry. Only Challenger was lost during launch and that could have easily been avioded if they decided to wait until it had gotten warmer(Although they did make the shuttle stack more reliable after that event)
You win, but not by much. (Score:3, Informative)
Foale returned to Earth after spending 145 days in space, 134 of them aboard Mir. His estimated mileage logged was 58 million miles (93 million kilometers), [nasa.gov] can be used for an estimate of miles / days, which is in one day the shuttle does 400K miles (or
Checking the data down below here, you will find that cars have one half the rate of the shuttle. IOW, the shuttle is more dangerous, but not by that much. And that does not consider the speed or the usefullness of the shuttle. [speedtrap.org]
I would trust NASA and the shuttle.
Human Spaceflight, History and Future (Score:3, Informative)
I have always been interested in spacefligh and at one point considered Aeronautics to be my eventual feild of work. I do know what im talking about. IANAPRS (i Am not a PROFESSIONAL Rocket Scientist) So i wont claim i know Everything i should or need But im no average bystander with a casual interest in it.
The shuttle is Dying. Clear case point. IT WAS BUILT DEAD. The shuttle was a masterpeice of design and some of the inital work for it was pehonomenal. BUT as all publicly accountable institutions with large goverment funding in any country, they had to deal with political decisions that impacted on the end result of the Space Shuttle.
Personal I want to see the shuttle Fly Purely because its better than the alternative. No i dont mean the russian soyuz modules or even Buran (the soviet space shuttle, which is arguably better given it flew a full orbit test and reentry under auto pilot, Which are by themselves very excelent machines. Abeit more "ruggedized" than the NASA engineers would want. Soyuz is still derived from the Balistic Missile school of rocket science. And there is proof that in fact the Russians are better able to deal with an emergency than the US are presently. A soyuz can be "locked and loaded" ready on the launch pad to take off in 6 hours. This comes from the entire launch fabrication and facilities still being heavily derived from balistic missile technology, which was built to be used quite quickly in the event of a nuclear war.
The american space program tried to leave this behind to "look towards the future" Wernher Von Braun, the German behind the V2 rocket and a significant member of his staff surrendered to the US at the end of WW2 and were essentialy the brains behind the US space program and most of the Balistic missile technology developed leading up to it. He, before even the launch of the saturn V had begun to think about the desin of a "reusable" space vehicle. Taking off like a rocket landing like a plane.
All of this is looking towards the kind of mass market future for spaceflight most here would hope to see someday. But the risks remain great. and currently It appears that the US have taken a step back. Deciding to shift to disposable launches with single use crew modules. While safer due to the elimination of long term mechanical wear and tear it is still going to be throwing precious resources away every time. and adding to the amount of junk in space.
Where it should have gone and NEEDS to go is where some of the prototypes that have come from aerospace research reside and go. There is no reason besides lack of interest stoping us from building a Single Stage to Orbit Space Plane that could take off AND land like a plane at an airport. Dont cite technicalities. Theyre fudged by people that either havent looked at the full picture of available technology, or have a vested interest in not looking at it. Current Aerospace technology if rounded up and applied directly to the problem with the kind of $$$ the us goverment gave back when the Appolo program began or even with the amound of money put into the space shuttles development. Perhaps even with the meager budget given to the creation of the "new" Spacecraft for nasa, th
Re:What about fiberglass shell? (Score:5, Informative)
SpaceShip One (orwhatever it was called) was going MUCH slower. It never reached orbital velocity, ~22,500 knots iirc. The heat experienced during reentry is from the atmosphere slowing the craft down. You wouldn't have to shield a craft at all if you were only traveling a few hundred mph. You'd have other problems, of course, but reentry heat wouldn't be one of them.
Get your facts right. Re:The Only Things? (Score:4, Informative)
You've messed up the difference between safety and reliability. The shuttle reliability is 2%- 1 in 50, but the safety is actually only 95.5% (4.5% deathrate) because they put different numbers of astronauts on some of the shuttles (the first launch only had 2 crew for example, and some of the defense-related launches had reduced crew also), but both times they blew up, they had a full crew onboard. If you do the maths, it's about a 4.5% fatality rate.
Shuttle is actually more than twice as dangerous than Soyuz (overall), furthermore Soyuz hasn't had any deaths at all in about 30 years, and none with the current version that seats 3. The reason Soyuz is safer is because they had all the really deadly problems early on when they only risked small crews, whereas the Shuttle is more brittle, and kills at random (hence more likely to kill a large crew).
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you're counting unmanned launches, though, your numbers still don't make sense. Please elaborate. There have been far more than 4.5 astronauts killed per launch (and what's up with the "%"?), because 2% of shuttle launches have ended in casualties, and each carried 7 astronauts. There have been ~1600 Soyuz launches, but little over a hundred manned launches, of which two involved fatalities, one with one death and one with three deaths. Your numbers, quite simply, make no sense. By the way - if you want to count total casualties of the Soyuz program, you need to add in the 50 technicians killed by an explosion of a Soyuz booster on the pad on March 18th, 1980. It's kind of ironic to think of it, but when you factor in ground crew deaths, even a mostly unmanned (and when manned, minimally manned) rocket like Soyuz could even have a higher death toll than the Shuttle on a per-flight basis, even with 1600 flights (it's hard to say for sure, with Soviet secrecy)
And if you want to talk about Soyuz's abort modes, you better talk about miracles. Remember Soyuz 18a? The crew went through a bloody 21.3g, and stopped just short of falling off a cliff. One person's internal injuries were so bad he never flew again. And even its normal operation can be disastrous - the much maligned "land via wings" approach of the shuttle prevented things happening to it like Soyuz 23, which broke through the surface of a frozen lake and nearly drowned its cosmonauts.
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:4, Informative)
That's not how they work.
You can't lose significant heat by radiation during reentry- you're surrounded by plasma at ridiculous temperatures, to lose heat you would have to be as hot or hotter than that. Bad, bad idea, you're trying not to get hot!
No. Here's tiles 1.0.1. The ceramic shuttle tiles have high temperature resistance, but very low heat capacity. When they are at red heat because of the low heat capacity you can pick them with your bare fingers (provided you hold it by the corners!) because there's little energy there and so your fingers can conduct the heat away without burning; your fingers cool the ceramic down rather than it heating your fingers up. They also have reasonably low thermal conductivity which helps. The idea is that the tiles get hot, but not as hot as the plasma, and the vehicle conducts the small amount of heat away. So they don't radiate, they just don't absorb much.
All very clever, but it's been a disaster, the tiles are too flipping fragile (they would be destroyed flying through rain), they get damaged on every flight, and they are outrageously expensive to replace. Some tiles can take a week to replace because you have to work from the back of the wing forwards, removing all the tiles, fix the tile and then put them all back again.