107 Cameras to Scan Discovery for Damage 261
neutron_p writes "We already know that NASA has prepared for space shuttle rescue mission if a crisis arises during Discovery's return to flight. NASA wants to avoid any risk, that's why they also installed 107 cameras which will film and photograph the orbiter's first two minutes of ascent from every angle scanning for pieces of insulation foam or ice fall off during the launch and strike the shuttle, the kind of damage that doomed its predecessor Columbia. Cameras will be installed around the launch pad and at distances of 6 to 60 kilometers (some 3.5 to 35 miles) away, as well as on board of two airplanes and on the shuttle itself."
Great....but what if the worst happens? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's great that so many eyes are going to be on the shuttle this time around, but do we have a plan for actually dealing with a catastrophe, past verifying that it exists? Do we have a rescue mission planned if something bad happens? And what happens when the rescue mission gets a hole in their wing???
I want to see the Shuttle go up again as badly as the next guy, but they're going up without satisfying the recommendations of the committee. More cameras isn't going to help much, apart from letting the astronauts know they're doomed.
That's great, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say the cameras spot something fishy, like another strike to the tiles during liftoff.
What next?
Adding the same amount of TV cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, rule of thumb: Great progress comes with risk. With the space shuttle, which about 20 years ago was great progress, the risk stays since there are no real developments.
The only question is: Is the spaceprogram worth the risk of flying with the space shuttle?
I personally think it is. I regret the attitude after the accident were complete risk aversion was shown. I would have gotten into the next space shuttle (err, can not pay for it, so they have to offer), and I am sure I would have returned safely (chance less then 1% on a deadly accident). The chance that the foam which caused this came loose and causes the damage is extremely small. Pieces of the shuttle fell off before (especially the ceramic tiles, lost a few per X flights), without problems.
Not New, Just Enhanced Coverage (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be good to have more cameras, but in a sense this violates a NASA truism that indicates not to worry about an issue of which you have absolutely no control over. Given the political climate the cameras are a must, but there will be more non-NASA people looking and fretting and writing their congressman over things that are routine in truth, and even those congressmen will be eyeing things that they have little experience to interpret properly and waste taxpayer dollars debating why ice must form on the outside of the ET ("Because it just does, damn it! Can we go back to flying now?")
Safety First: Not always (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me insensitive, but here's what I have to say. This is NOT a commercial airline where pax expect reasonable safety & expect 100% safety. Space exploration is a risky business. Sometime we have to accept the risks & challenges for some new things. The seafaring discoveres like Columbus & Vasco Da Gama wouldn't have achieved what they did if they didn't accept a single risk factor.
My main point in saying this is that halting shuttles had for 3 years has already had a devastating effect on space exploration, what with budget cuts in NASA & cash-strapped ex-soviet space industry.
Don't get me wrong, I want Astronauts/Cosmonauts/Taikanauts to be as safe as possible. But sometimes we have to bite the bullet.
Please try to understand what I'm saying, don't just jump to conclusions & say I'm insensitive. All I'm saying is that in this excess emphasis on safety has caused immense damage already to space science.
Re:If severely damaged.. (Score:4, Insightful)
And it would just be cool.
This should solve the 1-in-a-million last problem (Score:5, Insightful)
107 cameras seems a bit like overkill and perhaps an attempt to fix a "one in a million" problem that has already occurred.
Could you imagine if the western part of the United States was settled by people that needed 107 cameras pointed at their wagons to make sure that a wheel wasn't falling off before they left? Some people have an adventurous spirit. Let them adventure. Sometimes they die. Sucks, but true.
Good for the future (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt there is any way to eject under those circumstances. The amount of Gs on the crew pretty much prevents them from moving, and the amount of time between "Uh oh" and KABOOM!!! isn't exactly long enough to do anything.
Even if there was a way to eject, it would depend on where the problem took place. 100 feet off the ground maybe you live. In the stratosphere, I don't think your chances are very good. Also, jumping out of the shuttle into a giant plume of fire might be a little more than your body can handle.
Re:If severely damaged.. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Dynamics: You can not add random parts to the space station without changing its dynamice properties. Once you add a part, the harmonic frequencies are going to change, and you will have to recalculate the whole thing to check for problematic stress points and fatigue. (Ok, you think: Zero gravity, what stress, it floats by itself. In reality the spacestation is in a degrading orbit, so it has to be lifted once in a while, this uses thrusters which are carefully placed to boost the stations orbit. This also causes a lot of stress on the station!)
The harmonics are already a problem since not everything of the spacestation is in one plane, making it already very complex. The harmonics also dampen out pretty slow since there is not atmosferic friction (there are dampeners though).
Thus a continously added object like the spaceshuttle will be not add a lot in space, but will add a lot in complexity and weight, making the lift of the spacestation more complex and expensive, and will probably reduce the life time of the station.
Re:107 cameras? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems Redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
But if they are going to snap pictures of the belly at the ISS, isn't that enough to determine if there are cracks in the heat shielding?
This system will tell us when, where and how the damage occured. But then this is something they should have had all along.
Re:If severely damaged.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this shortsighted? What do you know that hundreds of NASA experts don't? Do you know if it is possible to modify a space shuttle so it can be a useful attachment to the ISS? Is the ISS equipped with the necessary tools to do this, or do we need to send up another mission to supply them? Do you know if it is safe to have the shuttle attached permanently to the ISS?
I don't mean to be mean, and I'm not trolling, but surely if the shuttle experts have deemed that the best option is to plunge it back to Earth, then maybe that is the best option. In the end you have to trust their judgement, regardless of any blemishes on their track record. I'm sure they have weighed up their options with what to do with a broken shuttle.
Another "disaster" will happen again (Score:3, Insightful)
After Challenger
After Columbia
So what'll be next?
My guess is that they'll never see it coming, whatever it is. NASA is too focused on making sure the foam doesn't cause another problem. However, the foam was fine for 20+ years and the chances of the same exact thing happening again are infinitely smaller than the chances of a new problem occurring.
So, here's what they'll say when the next explosion happens
Re:Seems Redundant (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes it is. And cars should have had seatbelts all along. And airbags. Commercial pilots should have flown in locked cabins. Airport security should've been tighter, etc, etc, ad nauseum. The sad truth is that sometimes we learn more from the "bad" lesson than the "good" ones. The real danger is when we get too scared to stop trying any more. Full credit to the shuttle team for doing their best to patch the leak and get back out there again.
Re:This should solve the 1-in-a-million last probl (Score:5, Insightful)
- Wagons don't cost 2 million each.
- When a wagon wheel falls off 7 people don't fry
- You can feel a problem with a wagon wheel just from the ride. In a space shuttle you don't know there is a problem until it's way to late.
- if you think you have a problem with a wagon wheel, you jump out and take a look. An EVA is a major use of resourses, both in flight and on the ground.
- A foam strike isn't the only thing that a camera would catch. Remember, the first indications of what when wrong with Challenger came from video.
IMHO, the space shuttle's biggest problem was a design which said that the thing needed to have wings.Re:This should solve the 1-in-a-million last probl (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, NASA was warned about the problems with o-rings and low temperatures. While the first indicators to the public might have been the video, surely there were some people who immediately knew what caused the event.
Contrast (Score:3, Insightful)
107 camera's to keep tiles from breaking of sounds like using duct-tape to cure software problems with your bionic arm.
It just seems to shush the minds of those not wanting to awknowledge the risks involved with strapping 7 people on a rocket.
Or did they recently sign with FOX?
No pain, no gain (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that's the death of the US manned spaceflight effort right there. The strange thing is, I'll bet the astronauts themselves would willingly take risks; after all, as Americans, they are in a sense descendants of one of the greatest risk-takers ever.
Oh, well: maybe China can do better.
And if a camera falls off... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great....but what if the worst happens? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you left a car in a parking garage for 10 years, then came back and tried to start it, do you think it would work? No. The tires would be flat on the bottom. The fuel would have separated. The fuel and brake lines would likely be dried and cracked. There would be rust. The battery would be dead. It would not work.
Now, imagine that instead of being parked in a nice, protected garage, it was instead in outer space, at roughly -170 degrees Celcius, being bombarded with harsh solar radiation and tiny space debris traveling at 18,000 mph for 10 years. Would it work? Would you bet your life on it?