Falling Window Cover Damages Discovery 360
Mz6 writes "At 5:30PM EDT, one of the space shuttle's protective window covers fell and
struck the left Orbital Maneuvering System engine pod on Discovery today. The window cover hit the carrier panel around the OMS pod. NASA is taking a new panel to the launch pad to replace the one hit by the falling cover. NASA is expected to know by 7 PM EDT if the replacement panel will work and whether launch can proceed tomorrow as planned. The window cover in question is from one of the overhead windows. It fell on its own, not when workers were handling it. The cover was found after it had fallen and hit the orbiter. In addition to the carrier panel that workers plan to replace tonight, engineers are looking for any other damage." Update: 07/13 02:03 GMT by T : RmanB17499 points out a CNN story according to which "the launch of the space shuttle Discovery will go ahead as scheduled Wednesday after technicians replaced two protective tiles damaged near the spacecraft's tail Tuesday, a NASA spokeswoman said."
Vulnerable (Score:2, Interesting)
It Fell off? (Score:2, Interesting)
If it had come off in orbit, we might be going thru the loss of another crew on reentry.
Fallen window ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:If God Had Meant Man to Go Into Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Transportation technology and exploration missions have always started out with rudimentary technology, prone to risk and with lots of fatalities paving the way. Crossing the oceans, crossing the continents, going to the poles, the mountains and the abysses have always been dangerous undertakings, and we've gotten better at it over time. Space is just another frontier, and another learning curve.
How NOT to write a headline (Score:2, Interesting)
Cockpit window falls from Discovery, hits engine pod [spaceflightnow.com]...
Is this what you would call "sensationalistic"? Jeez, and I thought the Star was bad.
Re:Vulnerable (Score:5, Interesting)
Heat tiles are frequently found to be missing when the shuttle lands. Small minor damage is not uncommon. What brought down columbia was more a case of a golden bb than anything else. (Plus it was a heavy object traveling quite fast)
That said, space is a pretty easy environment to survive in. It's the part where you're burning a few thousand tons of explosives, and slowing down from 20,000mph using the atmosphere that are the dangerous parts.
The damage that occured to the space shuttle here is trivial.
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why we have this complex, unbelieveably expensive shuttle, I will never know. Whether it is a car or a space craft, the more parts, the more that can go wrong....
I hope that they replace this with a more reliable vehicle...
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:2, Interesting)
Umm, money? It's a metric ass-ton cheaper than lighting off anything close to a conventional rocket that will disgard stages that you'll have no chance of recovering. Likewise, the orbiter comes back to you instead of having to hunt for it in the ocean (the largest landing zone on earth) with an aircraft carrier ($$$) or hunt for it in the back yard of some farmers house on land.
Sure, it's time for an update, but it's also the most successful launch vehical in history with only 2 catastrophic failures over several hundred missions. Knock it all you want, but regardless, it's been a good ride.
The Vomit Comet and protocol (Score:5, Interesting)
What amazed everyone is that one group was not required to pressure-test their pressurized vessel, and a window blew out during one of the flights, sending nice bits of glass all over. Now, how can all of these other (arguably over-specified) aspects of the experiments be so rigidly-controlled (with carefully-worded protocols for everything), and they leave out PRESSURE TESTING GLASS WINDOWS?
True, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, true, the Shuttle isn't falling apart at the seams. However, the indication is that the engineers either rushed some of the prep work or failed to set adequate precautions in place. In either case, they may have messed up elsewhere and not said.
If you were up there, knowing that the world's media was focussed on your every twitch, knowing that any delay would finish any chance of you having a future but that any unconfessed and unobserved error on your part would be utterly untracable, would you be willing to take the fall?
Given that kind of pressure, I'm not confident that other accidents haven't happened. All I can do is HOPE they haven't and that NASA will take the time to verify as best they can in the time that they haven't.
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the major reasons it's expensive is due to unethical space contractors who charged up the wazoo, such as the company that your dad worked for.
This is often done after the bidding process is over, and sometimes companies do this after the project is well underway, and hold the project hostage until NASA agrees to the new fees. NASA often didn't have much choice in these sorts of practices, and it was already too late for other companies to bid on the project.
So, maybe your dad can tell us why so many space and defense contracts are so fucking expensive.
And yes, I agree that NASA probably could be more cost efficient. But it's not like they're selling cookies-- many free market principles don't really apply when you're doing something massive like building massive space vehicles, and when only 1 or 2 organizations can do it at all.
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a big fan of the space shuttle, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have the exact numbers offhand as to how many satellites (let alone tons of waste) the shuttle has returned, but I recall that it was in the range of 30-40 (many of those being experiment satellites whose design was to have them returned - engineering reentry survival into all of them would have cost an utter fortune).
As for "glide back to earth rather than parachute", I think you should ask the crews of Soyuz 23 or Soyuz 18-1 what they think of parachute landings. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that making capsules reusable is a lot harder than spacecraft, because there's almost always some deformation (and/or saltwater corrosion, depending on the landing site) on impact.
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously though, they are there likely for enviromental protection. The shuttle sits outside for close to a month and in that time, it likely will rain, possibly hail, dust, acid rain, etc.
Re:Ironic & scary (Score:3, Interesting)
RFID tags on tiles (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:2, Interesting)
They accepted this risk because of the rewards of doing things like going to the moon. Now however, where is the reward in seeing a routine shuttle complete it's flight plan?
Don't get me wrong, I am a big proponet of manned space flight. I think an astronaut, (and the public) were accepting that someone could die attempting to land on the moon.
But to die attempting to er..um..uhh...The average joe isn't sure what the shuttle is doing besides going up and down. (sometimes)
Re:It fell on its own? (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as there aren't any birds immediately surrounding, I think they're above "seagull flight ceiling" pretty quick.