Discovery's Dangling Gapfiller Removed by Hand 401
Cyclotron_Boy writes "According to the New Scientist and NASA TV, Discovery's gap-fillers were removed successfully by hand by astronaut Steve Robinson earlier today during the eva. They didn't even have to use the forceps or the makeshift hacksaw-blade tool."
Re:Lemmie get this straight... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gap Filler (Score:5, Informative)
The fabric is to prevent the tiles from banging together on lift-off. From the gist of the article, it sounds like it doesn't matter for re-entry. I guess they'll find out the exciting way when they try to land.
Re:Gap Fillers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Would have fallen off (Score:2, Informative)
Gap filler isn't needed on reentry (Score:3, Informative)
The reentry has very different pressures/angles - I believe the pressure of the reentry keeps the tiles from moving enough to bump each other too badly.
Re:Futurama.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seems the prideful route... (Score:3, Informative)
There are currently 9 people on ISS, and except for the 2 assigned crewmen I don't believe any of them have the necessary seats for the Soyuz. So even if you wanted to use it only 1/3rd of the people could fit.
Fortunately protruding gap filler is a minor issue, because you just can't evacuate 9 people from ISS with the attached Soyuz.
Re:Seems the prideful route... (Score:3, Informative)
You can go into final approach under computer contro.
But you can't land. No landing gear.
The only way to open the landing gear is with a manual control. AFAIK it's the *one* part of the shuttle with no connection to the computers. ISTR that they were afraid of a computer glitch deploying the landing gear prematurely - say on orbit. The landing gear can only be stowed by the ground crew. There is no "raise landing gear" switch on the shuttle. Actually, the landing gear mostly "fall" open by gravity - it's the act of unsealing the doors premature that would cause a Bad Day.
Re:Alternatives to tile? (Score:4, Informative)
The tiles are heat radiators, not adhesives. Perhaps you meant the filler? It's not an adhesive either. There has to be gaps between the tiles (because the skin and tiles don't have the same thermal expansion coefficient), but gaps can pose problems (they increase the likelyhood of tiles falling out, for one; they also tend to channel in extra heat during reentry). The fillers deal with both of these issues.
What actually attaches the tiles to the skin isn't the filler, or even an adhesive - it is a felt strain isolation pad. A simple adhesive would come loose under thermal expansion. The tiles are attached to the pad, which is in turn attached to the skin.
Pedanti (Score:3, Informative)
However, the Russians did have 3 deaths in space, on one of the Soyuz/Salyut missions (my apologies to any Russians, I don't remember the specific mission number). Komarov on Soyuz 1 was probably not an in-space death as well -- his chute tangled, and I believe he died on impact, which is definitely not an in-space death.
So out of 18 known in-flight deaths (and I am not counting Apollo 1, that wasn't in-flight), only three were in space.
Re:Breaking News (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Going good?!? (Score:3, Informative)
The post you replied to is correct -- while there have been problems with tile damage in the past, dating back to the very first mission (although the problematic area was later covered with thermal blankets rather than tiles, so the problem can't recur) -- there have been no cases of severe orbiter damage in the past due to tile/RCC damage.
Re:A more rugged space shuttle? (Score:1, Informative)
Appearently you have never noticed that the shuttle has to fly. A solid hunk of iron would be much stronger, but we don't have anything that could lift a solid chunk of iron of that size into space. Even if we did, a solid hunk of iron is not very useful in space, so we would compromise on something weaker anyway.
Don't forget that the laws of ecconomics play off of the law of physics. The heavier something is, the more energy it takes to get to orbital speed, which means more fuel is needed, which means bigger rockets, and/or less payload. Either choice is less cost effective, and taxpayers don't like that.
A related concern is the heavier something is, the more energy you have to get rid on re-entry. This adds into other engineering concerns, but I'm getting a headache thinking of it all now.
Re:Confirm the purpose of the gap filler? (Score:2, Informative)
page 4 from this NASA PDF:_ tps.pdf [nasa.gov]
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/91372main
Gaps and Gap Fillers The gaps between the tiles, which range from 0.028 inch to 0.200 inch are necessary for two important reasons. The first reason concerns the difference in thermal expansion properties between the tiles and the orbiter airframe. When in orbit, the external temperature fluctuates by as much as 400 degrees F. The tiles contract much less than the airframe, due to differences in the thermal expansion; thus, the gaps are required to accommodate the difference. During reentry the gap dimensions are also critical. As the orbiter descends through the ever-thickening atmosphere, pressure gradients cause the plasma surrounding the orbiter to flow. If the gaps are too large, hot gases can flow through the gaps and can cause damage to the backup surface seals (filler bar). Gap fillers are used extensively to control the gap dimensions between the individual tiles in many areas of the orbiter and in some areas to provide mechanical 'padding' between the tiles.