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Space Science

Wing Seals Blamed in Columbia's Demise 290

Posted by michael from the yellow-and-blue-make-green dept.
MoonFacedAssassin writes "MSNBC has this article stating that a 'seal from Columbia's left wing was apparently the mystery object that floated away in orbit, and it was almost certainly struck by something - like a chunk of foam - before it came off, accident investigators said Tuesday.' The article also quoted Navy Rear Admiral Stephen Turcotte, a CAIB member, as having a confidence level 'up there near the 70s and 80s percent' about the T-seal."
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Wing Seals Blamed in Columbia's Demise More

Wing Seals Blamed in Columbia's Demise

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  • Amazing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:48AM (#5790779)
    These shuttle disasters keep proving how important seals are in our lives, no matter how mundane or simple they appear to be.

    The widespread practice of clubbing them, especially the baby ones, has got to stop.
  • What was it doing up there? Shouldn't it be in the arctic headbutting clubs or something like that?

  • I read... (Score:5, Funny)

    by crevette ( 461203 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:48AM (#5790789)
    ... Winged Seals responsible for Columbia's desmise.

    You know, with all the flying pigs we've seen lately...

    • Re:I read... (Score:4, Funny)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:55AM (#5790879) Homepage Journal
      ... Winged Seals responsible for Columbia's desmise.

      You know, with all the flying pigs we've seen lately...

      and all the cow manure out of Washington lately, but that's beside the point. O-Rings, now T-Seals. There's an alphabetic trend here. I wonder if it was C-Foam.

      Ever get the idea these things are built like models?

      "Insert Seal (T) in Wing Assembly (A)"

    • Wow... I thought I was the only one, and I was about to post the same thing. My first thought was that it was a link to The Onion...
    • Yeah, I read it the same way. Man, if you thought flying monkies were bad...
    • ... Winged Seals responsible for Columbia's desmise.

      Knew they shoulda sent the Rangers instead ...

  • Confidence Level (Score:5, Funny)

    by therecaller ( 667641 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:50AM (#5790815)
    So, if it's not 100%, they just give it another arbitrary number to feed to the media?

    • Re:Confidence Level (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:18PM (#5791138) Journal

      So, if it's not 100%, they just give it another arbitrary number to feed to the media?

      Yeah, that was my reaction on reading the summary as well (god forbid I read the article). Just for once I'd love to see some members of the media really hold NASA's feet to the fire and ask some really tough questions in the press conference. Like "How did you come at that confidence value?" And if the NASA spokesperson hims and haws and doesn't give a solid reason, then the reporter ought to point out that if there is so much uncertainty in the accuracy of the confidence, maybe the answer itself isn't really 70-80% accurate.

      The problem is that the media has settled in to a nice, comfortable role of transcribing press conferences mindlessly and reporting them verbatim to an equally mindless public. Where the hell has investigative reporting gone? Surely the cause of the disaster is beyond the ability of most news outlets to investigate for themselves but they should certainly be able to ask some tough questions and pass NASA's explanation through a sanity check.

      I realize I'm going a bit off topic here, but I'm really getting sick of the crap in the media. The 'authorities' are just throwing out random numbers knowing that no one is going to bother to question them. The sad thing is that once those numbers are 'out there', they become accepted simply due to their familiarity.

      GMD

      • Most investigative reporting seems to be going on in finding out who is sleeping with whom in Hollywood and Washington.

      • ...pulled out of the management's ass.

        After Richard Feynman was asked to investigate the Challenger accident, he wrote up his experiences. They're published as the second half of his second autobiography.

        He was stupified by the amount of fudge-factoring that went on at NASA. The MTBF for a component would be listed at 300 flight hours, and when he asked how they arrived at such a nice round figure, managers would retroactively come up with a listing where each sub-component had MTBFs listed to decim

        • The MTBF for a component would be listed at 300 flight hours, and when he asked how they arrived at such a nice round figure, managers would retroactively come up with a listing where each sub-component had MTBFs listed to decimal places, 34.8712 hours, 29.1109 hours, ... and they all conveniently added up to exactly 300 hours.

          Is this as bad as looks with lower MTBF numbers adding up to a higher MTBF number?

          Dastardly

  • What a suprise (Score:4, Insightful)

    by (54)T-Dub ( 642521 ) <tpaine.gmail@com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:50AM (#5790829) Journal
    From the begining they said that at least two pieces of debris hit the wing [mos.org] during launch. It seemed pretty obvious to me that this caused the problem. I guess they didn't want to admit that they had been wrong when they gave the go ahead to re-enter.

    • Re:What a suprise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:12PM (#5791057)
      "I guess they didn't want to admit that they had been wrong when they gave the go ahead to re-enter."

      There was no other option than to re-enter.

      On Columbia's mission there was no abort to ISS. Once it was up there, the only way for those astronauts to come home was to re-enter.
      • Well, there was no contingency plan. The Soyuz on the ISS has enough fuel for a complete deorbital burn; would that be enough to drop to LEO and the shuttle, and then reascend? I honestly don't know. But I imagine if you abandon the idea of a deorbital burn on the shuttle and instead use the fuel to get to a higher orbit (and presumably mothball it until it could be repaired and refueled in orbit, if ever), it could have been accomplished.

        I don't know if you could squeeze all seven astronauts into a thre
        • That should have been "Abort to ISS".

        • Re:What a suprise (Score:4, Interesting)

          by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:25PM (#5792606) Homepage
          There was not enough fuel on the Shuttle to match orbits with the ISS. It's not just a difference in altitude, but in direction and velocity. They simply didn't have the means to get there. And it would not mattered if they did. There was no docking collar on the shuttle. And an emergency rescue launch was laso out of the question. It takes a minimum of 3 months to prep a shuttle for launch and there were no shuttles anywhere near launch status.

          The bottom line with teh shuttle program is that if something goes wrong the astronaughts are screwed. But that has been true since the days of Project Mercury.
          • Yeah, I realize that the shuttle couldn't make ISS orbit. I'm suggesting that it could have met a Soyuz module halfway. The orbital rendezvous would have been a bitch.

        • Re:What a suprise (Score:5, Informative)

          by Soft ( 266615 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:48PM (#5792865)
          Well, there was no contingency plan. The Soyuz on the ISS has enough fuel for a complete deorbital burn; would that be enough to drop to LEO and the shuttle, and then reascend?

          No. The ISS is in LEO (400km altitude; neither shuttle nor Soyuz can get much higher), it's a question of orbital inclination, which takes as much fuel to change as it took to get the spacecraft in orbit in the first place. (Well, roughly; I had calculated that 120-160tonnes were needed, the external tank at launch holds 2000, and the Soyuz less than1...)

          But I imagine if you abandon the idea of a deorbital burn on the shuttle and instead use the fuel to get to a higher orbit

          Not even close, I'm afraid.

          I don't know if you could squeeze all seven astronauts into a three person capsule either.

          Not for a return to Earth (the seats are form-fitting and the landing quite hard), otherwise possibly, but the more people aboard, the more fuel is required to get anywhere...

          Maybe multiple trips would have been required. Can the shuttle and the Soyuz even dock?

          No. And they don't use the same docking ports on the ISS either.

          That might have required EVA's...in any event, I think that with all of those resources in orbit, something could have been worked out if NASA had committed to a solution.

          No. The best bet, provided that the danger were known at the beginning of Columbia's mission, was to conserve power so as to last maybe an extra week or two in orbit, and rush Atlantis through launch preparations, bypassing a number of safety regulations to have it ready in less than a month. And only because it happend to be already sitting on the pad.

          Sorry to sound rude like that, but I hear this kind of misconceptions so often...

          This may all seem pointless, but it's not: at some point, we will encounter this situation again in some form. "Orbit to ISS" is not part of the any shuttle mission profile; perhaps it should be from now on.

          It is said to be in the cards. Not that it would help (the ISS can't hold that many people for long), but no mission was planned elsewhere except for the last Hubble repair before its planned end of life, and all interesting places to go are out of the shuttle's reach anyway.

    • Re:What a suprise (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Exedore ( 223159 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:13PM (#5791081)

      Well, I don't think that's exactly being fair to NASA. The foam hitting the wing on liftoff was a leading theory all along. What would you have them do? Declare from day one that the foam incident caused the disaster and then lose another shuttle down the road because they were wrong? No, I think the methodic approach is best in the long wrong.

      Another point: regardless of what the exact cause is, something obviously went wrong and NASA would have to own up to it no matter what it is. So I don't think the pace of the investigation had anything to do with an attempt to dodge culpability.

      • What would I have them do? Use resources available to them. The piece floating away (from heating and/or regular orbiting maneuvers) was logged during the mission but not noticed until after the fact -- why? Engineers wanted to take a look with spy satellites but higher ups turned them down -- why? The 'simulation' on the foam hit has been called nothing more than a spreadsheet and woefully inadequate and yet the Boeing contractors were believed and no one asked to double check their numbers -- why?

        Wer

    • Re:What a suprise (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Fastolfe ( 1470 )
      Based on the information they had at the time, the risk that there would be catastrophic damage from the foam hitting the wing was not significant.

      If you are 99% positive about something 100 times, you will be wrong once. Sometimes margins of error and lack of data lead you to an incorrect conclusion.

      They could not have foreseen the damage and based on their extensive knowledge of the orbiter and the nature of the foam and impact, determined that any damage was unlikely to pose a re-entry risk.

      This may

      • Based on the information they had at the time, the risk that there would be catastrophic damage from the foam hitting the wing was not significant. ...

        They could not have foreseen the damage and based on their extensive knowledge of the orbiter and the nature of the foam and impact, determined that any damage was unlikely to pose a re-entry risk.

        And you know this how? The leading edges and the protective tiles were never designed for ANY impact. Do you want me to repeat that. The leading edge Carbon-Ca

        • Re:What a suprise (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Fastolfe ( 1470 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:04PM (#5792377)
          And you know this how?

          Because they said it? Repeatedly? Because this is what all of the published information about the conversations, e-mails that went between researchers, managers, etc.? The event and review have undergone a tremendous amount of scrutiny, and most of that was as transparent as I've ever seen.

          The leading edges and the protective tiles were never designed for ANY impact.

          So? I have a picture frame that wasn't intended to withstand an impact. If I throw a ball at it, though, I can pretty accurately estimate whether or not that frame will be damaged based on the nature of the ball, the speed I throw it, and where the impact occurs.

          Do you want me to repeat that.

          If it makes you feel better..

          he leading edge Carbon-Carbon structures and the protective tiles were never designed for any impact.

          Do you feel better?

          under conditions it was not designed for and which they did not understand.

          I don't guess you're in charge of many missions to space, so I'll try to explain this in layman's terms. Operating an orbiting spacecraft is a high-risk endeavor. You very much do take into account potential unexpected hazards when you design and build one of these crafts. You take certain economical measures to ensure that things like micrometeroid impacts don't threaten the life of your crew, and try to plan contingencies to handle unexpected events. Just because someone didn't "rate" the craft's hull for a certain type of impact doesn't mean impacts of that type were completely ignored or unplanned for, or that the craft will be unable to withstand them.

          Again, go look at the immense volume of information published during this investigation. This wasn't a cursory ho-hum "it doesn't matter" check, nor was it a "holy crap, it wasn't designed for this, they're going to die, but let's not tell anyone" type of thing. The experts there (of which you are not one) examined the data at their disposal (which you do not possess) and consulted their own education and experience with the program (which you do not have) and made a determination (which you are not qualified to do) that the risk to the orbiter was low. This is proving to be incorrect. That doesn't mean they "fucked up". They had no way of knowing any better. Again, if you're 99% right 100 times, you'll be wrong once. It happens. Deal with it.

          If you're going to ignore the advice of the experts, just because that advice very infrequently ends up being wrong, you are going to end up wrong far more often than not, much to the detriment of the space program and the lives of those depending on you.

          Especially when equipment is experiencing conditions it was never designed for.

          If you can design a spacecraft that's perfectly safe, and designed to withstand any and all forms of abuse and unexpected events that the existing orbiter could potentially experience, and do that at a cost less than 100 times what the existing orbiter costs, you will be rich.

          Again, sending people into orbit is a highly risky activity. You have to spend money to be prepared for certain types of events, but when the likelyhood of those events is low and the cost to mitigate them is high, you have to make a decision and frequently a compromise. If you don't understand this, or have issues with it, feel free to make them known, but I applaud our astronauts for being willing to take these risks on our behalf, and I applaud NASA for making the achievents they do with the funding they have. I wouldn't have it any other way.

          continued to flaunt their disregard for basic engineering principles.

          Whoa there, this is a pretty loaded statement. In what ways does NASA continue to "flaunt their disregard for basic engineering principles"? Care to give us some examples? Or are you just throwing out unsubstantiated, emotional statements because you're pissed off at something?

          Do we continue to have Slashdot readers that think they can do a better job than the guys with the PhD's and decades of experience? Maybe you should start up your own space exploration company.
    • Well, it was common for something to hit some part of the shuttle during launch. There was more work needed to determine exactly what failed due to being hit by the debris, since the shuttle is supposed to survive a bit of an impact. They also needed to know what to check in the future in case they don't see an impact that could endanger the shuttle. And they want to know what they need to check, fix, and recheck if they see an impact. It's not like they could just leave the shuttle in orbit forever.

    • It seemed pretty obvious to me that this caused the problem.

      Of course it's obvious in retrospect. If it was obvious at the time, then a roomful of NASA engineers, who are much smarter than you or I, would have noticed it and done all they could to fix it.

      It has nothing to do with them not wanting to admit they were wrong and everything to do with the fact that 99.99% sure means wrong 1 in 10,000 times.

      You're at the height of both arrogance and ignorance to stand up on a forum like this and point ou

    • NASA said launch derbis hitting the shuttle happened several times before. this time it may have been heavier from ice. Or it may have hit a weakened part of an aging shuttle.

  • That's the Bush Administration for you... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Interrobang ( 245315 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:51AM (#5790842) Journal
    They always use the media to blame everything on the left wing!!

    /me ducks and exeunt chortling

  • A chunk of foam?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by gpinzone ( 531794 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:52AM (#5790853) Homepage Journal
    They really gotta start building these shuttles a lot stronger. I mean, even the wimpiest kid doesn't flinch from getting hit in the head with a nerf ball.

  • next problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by ih8apple ( 607271 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:52AM (#5790855)
    First it was the O-Ring in 1985
    Then it was the T-Seal in 2003


    Logically, the next problem will be with the Y-Tube in 2011.
    Science and Logic Prevail!
    • ...except for the fact that I can't do Math....
      that should be 2021

    • How about the U-Bend? :)

    • ...the KY-Tube in 2069.

    • Re:next problem (Score:5, Interesting)

      by John Harrison ( 223649 ) <johnharrison@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:12PM (#5791060) Homepage Journal
      I realize your post was made in jest, but there are some serious differences that this brings up.

      Remember how quickly and how harshly politicians jump on Thiokol after Challenger? They wanted to move all shuttle work to a different company. Now that some of the big boys might be at fault with Columbia nobody is up in arms. Why do you think that is?

      • Re:next problem (Score:3, Insightful)

        by FTL ( 112112 )
        > Remember how quickly and how harshly politicians jump on Thiokol after Challenger? They wanted to move all shuttle work to a different company. Now that some of the big boys might be at fault with Columbia nobody is up in arms. Why do you think that is?

        Challenger was a disaster waiting to happen. There were engineers at Thiokol who knew the shuttle was probably going to blow up (though they thought it would happen before it cleared the tower). There was clear blame in Challenger's case: management

      • Re:next problem (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ryan Amos ( 16972 )
        We Americans are too quick to assign blame. Hell, we didn't even know anything was wrong, so how can it be anyone's fault? Yes, some horrible consequences can result even if everyone involves carries the very noblest intentions and has no real hand in the matter. So the most we can really do from them is learn from them so they don't happen again. There is nowhere to blame here, which seems to be scaring some people. Get over it, it was an accident. More people die in car accidents in a day, and probably su
    • Shouldn't that be the Jeffries tube in a few centuries, following a logorithmic scale? ;)
    • The U-Vent?

      Then they can finally move on to the X-Window, and finally the Y-Zipper!

      BlackGriffen

  • And this is going to effect NASA how? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by confused philosopher ( 666299 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:54AM (#5790863) Homepage Journal

    There aren't going to be any great changes from this finding. We are still going to use the Shuttles. Only thing now is that we are going to "cross our legs and hope to fly," in the words of a great Canadian Prime Minister spoof.

  • more info (Score:5, Informative)

    by pjgeer ( 106721 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @11:54AM (#5790870) Journal
    New Scientist also has the latest [newscientist.com].

  • Eskimo Space Program (Score:5, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:00PM (#5790931) Journal
    First Astronaut: It looks like you blew a seal!

    Second Astronaut: Naw (wipe wipe) that's just mayonaise from my lunch.

  • Seals strike again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nonsecurity ( 570950 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:01PM (#5790948)
    With all its moving parts operating in extreme environments, it's a little ironic that the part the brought down the shuttle was an unremarkable seal allowing hot gases to go where they shouldn't.

    The external tank insulating foam was changed a few years ago to avoid CFC materials. Is the new environmentally friendly foam more prone to flake off and strike the shuttle?

    • Re:Seals strike again (Score:5, Interesting)

      by crawling_chaos ( 23007 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:32PM (#5791312) Homepage
      What I'm curious about is the location of the foam to begin with. I need to do a little more research, but I seem to recall that one of the cryogenic stages (I think the second) of the Saturn V put the insulation inside the tank to help prevent separation when the metal of the tank would contract from the cold.

      It was an expensive proposition to do this, and that may be why the Shuttle went with exterior insulation in the first place.

      • Re:Seals strike again (Score:3, Informative)

        by FTL ( 112112 )
        > It was an expensive proposition to do this, and that may be why the Shuttle went with exterior insulation in the first place.

        NASA is utterly paranoid about foreign particles getting into the Shuttle's main engines. I expect they'd rather have foam falling off the outside of the tank (and usually causing no damage) than have it falling off the inside and being sucked through the live engines. Eep!

        • They were worried about it with the J-2s, as well. That's the reason Wernher installed these things called filters in the fuel lines. They also did a huge number of static firings and vibration tests to see if the stuff would come loose. It didn't.

          The big win with interior insulation is that the environment is more predictable. You don't have to worry about the effects of pigeon shit and bat urine on the foam, for instance.

    • Re:Seals strike again (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <setherNO@SPAMtru7h.org> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:51PM (#5791535) Homepage
      > it's a little ironic that the part the brought
      > down the shuttle was an unremarkable seal

      not really. The areas of biggest weakness are going to be the joints, and the seals between those joints that prevent the undesireables from getting inside. These areas will be subject to the most wear because they have to contain the internal pressures, and survive weathering by external pressures.

      The stuff inside won't care because they only have to worry about the internal pressures, which in the case of the space shuttle are pretty tightly controlled out of neccessity.

      Until we figure out how to skin a vehicle with no seals or joints, seals will continue to be a liability and will need regular, thorough, inspection.
    • I read a quote from an astronaut, IIRC, and to paraphrase it said you are flying on top of 200,000 different parts, all of which were manufactured by the lowest bidder. my feeble mind was blown (temporarily)
    • Is the new environmentally friendly foam more prone to flake off and strike the shuttle?

      NASA has responded to this idea at least once:

      ...NASA officials... said the piece that broke off and hit the wing of the Columbia was probably the old foam, not the new, more trouble-plagued material.

      When it had trouble with the replacement foam, NASA applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for an exemption from the CFC ban, saying, "no viable alternative has been identified." It gained the exemption in 200

  • It still freaks me out that a "chunk" of foam can have that much of an effect.
    • Well if that freaks you out...

      Look at the first (or one of the first) space missions where a spec (yes, a single spec) of paint hit the windshield of the shuttle and put a mondo dent into the glass. And those windshields are built STRONG. Its all about velocity!

  • You mean there are seals that live on... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kahei ( 466208 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:06PM (#5790992) Homepage
    ...oh, wait, I just realized that every other bored person on the entire face of the planet must be making the same joke.

  • Long Live the Shuttle ... now lets move on. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jedi Holocron ( 225191 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:11PM (#5791044) Homepage Journal
    The Shuttle is a wonderful experimental spacecraft. Let's all keep that in mind. Designed in the 1960's, built in the 1970's, finally flown in the 1980's on 20 year old technology. The world's first partially reusable launch vehicle. Kewl!

    Okay, let's move on. Oh wait, we didn't. We floundered with National Space Plane projects. The X-33 was sacked. The Delta Skipper was sacked.

    Hey, let's continue to rely soley on an outdated experimental concept vehicle can continue to stick roman candles up our kiesters as a way to get into "space". We'll live with the limited altitude (no micrometeorioid protection), limted power, limited duration, etc... etc...

    Okay, sorry for the slight rant there. The shuttle rocked but it is time to move on. Why haven't we? If NASA had a budget that was maybe, at the least, equal to the increase in defense spending for 2003 we might be able to do this.

    We are not. Maybe we just haven't found the reason to really want to go to space. I dunno. it is frustrating.

    My graditude to everyone that has ever dared to travel to space. My thanks to those that have lost their lives in the endeavour.

    • Okay, sorry for the slight rant there. The shuttle rocked but it is time to move on. Why haven't we? If NASA had a budget that was maybe, at the least, equal to the increase in defense spending for 2003 we might be able to do this.

      An appealing idea, but a good number of people happen to think that:

      1. NASA is at the point that a significant budget increase is unlikely to result in a comparable increase in results, because they tend to inflate costs;
      2. if costs remain high, then only huge government agenc

  • brilliant way to disagree... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Goose Bump ( 454208 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:13PM (#5791070)
    Physicist James Hallock, another board member, said he does not believe a missing seal alone could have created a big enough hole for the kind of heat damage experienced by Columbia. As the plumes of hot gas entered the long, narrow gap, it probably chipped or broke away at the adjoining wing panels and created an even bigger breach -- enough to lead to the ship's destruction, he said.


    Isn't this kind of like saying the bullet isn't what killed him, it was the hole it left behind?

    • Re:brilliant way to disagree... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:53PM (#5791561) Journal

      He is an expert. He is expected to say this sort of things, in fact, it is what he is paid for. And in some ways, it make a lot of sence; if the hole / gash hadn't opened up further, the ingress of hot gas may not have caused enought damage to the structure to cause a failure.

      To take another example I know more intimatly; We (the RNoAF) lost a F-16AM during Operation Enduring Freedom this winter, when both main landing gear tensionstuts collaped on landing. Now, at the surface, we lost it because the struts broke. Dvelving deeper into it however, showed us that the struts broke because the jetjockey slammed a fully loaded, newly refuled (from a tanker aircraft) into the runway with a sinkspeed three times the limit.

      Sometimes what you think causes the failuer is but the start in the chain of events, sometimes it is the last bit of it.

  • transfer of kinetic energy (Score:4, Funny)

    by lazira ( 651928 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:20PM (#5791166)
    It had to be the result of some blunt-force trauma, the transfer of kinetic energy, somehow
    I gotta remember that term. Like: "how about I transfer you some kinetic energy" or "Ouch! That transfer of kinetic energy was uncalled-for."
  • Reminds me of a joke I heard:

    This penguin is driving his car in the desert and it breaks down. After walking down the highway for miles, he's able to find a gas station that will tow his car in and fix it up. The mechanic warns Mr. Penguin (maybe it's Tux?) that it'll take awhile.

    Penguin is dying of thirst. After all, he doesn't like being in the desert in the first place, let alone walking for miles. He finds an ice cream shop and orders a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. Man is it good. He's just go

  • When I read this title (Score:4, Funny)

    by dlakelan ( 43245 ) <dlakelan@street- ... g ['s.o' in gap]> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:25PM (#5791239) Homepage
    The title of the story made me think:

    Seals? With wings?

    Time to take that bong away from the aerospace engineers.

  • I know that a shuttle is different in many ways... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:26PM (#5791251) Journal

    ...from a fighter aircraft, but;

    "he seals are made of reinforced carbon composite and fit between pairs of panels made of the same material that are designed to withstand temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees during re-entry. These seals and panels wrap around the leading edge of each wing." sure sounds like a badly thought out design to my ears.

    At mach 2+, the airpreasure is high enought to rip an aircrafts structure apart - thus we make sure that no edges stick out of the airframe, and that no holes excist or can appear in such things as the leading edges of the wings, stabs or tail. At the speeds the shuttle has on reentry, this is even more important - even if you don't factor in the heatpulse. A design which, if it breaks, opens a gash into the interior structure is thus a flawed design - even if the designer didn't think it would ever fail! And remember fellow /.ers, NASA did more or less the same error when it came to the O-rings in the solid rocket boosters; the design was flawed from the start, but they choose to belive it wouldn't fail.

    As far as I recall, the shuttle does not have leading egde flaps. Thus it shouldn't be a reason for a 'split' design like the article describes, a solid leading edge panel made of reinforced carbon should be both possible and perhapes even less expencive. It is certainly among the things NASA should consider to lessen the possibility of another disaster. Oh, and make sure the foam sticks to the tank as well, or at least find a better way to test it for flaws.

    • Re:I know that a shuttle is different in many ways (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lindsayt ( 210755 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:59PM (#5791631)
      This is almost exactly the same point that Richard Feynman made in regard to the first shuttle accident: they calculate failure statistics wrong and don't properly reinforce to guarantee against disaster. I believe his example went something like this:

      If a suspension bridge is expected to handle 40,000 pounds of traffic on a daily basis without failing, but small cracks begin to appear after a month of usage at that weight, the bridge has failed. It is architecturally flawed, regardless of the fact that the bridge has not collapsed. If an O-ring is 1 inch thick and cracks 0.25 inches thick routinely appear in said O-ring, there is not a 75% margin of error; the O-ring has failed. A disaster has not occured, but the structural integrity has been compromised, even if it is well below the point of a catastrophic failure.

      His point was that NASA had virtually ignored all non-catastrophic failures, instead seeing how far they were from being catastrophic and calling that difference the margin of error. The problem is, the design had failed, since those non-catastrophic failures were not supposed to have happened. Hence, depending upon a device which has already shown a tendency for non-catastrophic failures is no margin of error at all.

      I'm probably doing injustice to his argument since he was a genius and I'm merely a Systems Administrator, but I think it's relevant.
    • I've wondered why they don't make the silica surface out of larger pieces as opposed to the smaller tiles. The answer I got was:

      1. Smaller tiles are more fault-tolerant (to a degree). You can lose a few small tiles with no serious effects (depending upon location and the number of lost tiles), whereas losing a large tile would be uniformly catastrophic.

      2. Thermal expansion. Smaller tiles have room to expand without moving around too much. Larger tiles would exert more stress on the attachment points
  • Would also create jobs! The x-33 is needed or something like a inexpenive hybrid rocket engine(rubber/nox or lox)with a new improved shuttle on the top.

    Why wasn't Nasa demanding the government replace these flying Edsels' ? They didn't and there's your catastrophe.

    Time to push for a new future nasa. Either go with more expensive x-33 or something more affordable. Just do it.

  • seals considered harmful (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wfmcwalter ( 124904 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:40PM (#5791401) Homepage
    I remember reading a thing about Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the US nuclear submarine program. He was considering the means by which motive power would be extracted from the nuclear reactors. The scheme had turbine blades inside the reactor vessel, turning a shaft that (eventually) turned the boat's screws. This mean the shaft had to pass through the wall of the reactor vessel. He was worried that the seals around this opening wouldn't be perfectly reliable, and naturally if they ever failed this would allow radioactive fluid into the boat's compartments, irradiating the crew. The seal manufacturers assured him they could make a seal that was perfect, that would withstand all that could be thrown at it. Rickover wasn't sure, wondering if a magnetic interlock (where the reactor vessel is intact, and magnets on either side cause one shaft to move its counterpart).

    Rickover took the seal guys aside, and asked them - if your son was on this boat, would you still want seals, or would you opt for the magnetic method? The seal guys thought for a while, and sheepishly replied that they'd go with the magnets. To this day, all US naval reactors have magnetic interlocks, not seals.

    Fact is - seals are hard. Hard to make, hard to maintain, and hard to check. They're almost always the first thing to fail, and rarely gracefully.

    So, rather than the next gen spaceplane being some slicko streamline hitech composite fibre whatnot, it should be a windowless monocoque made from thick polymerised concrete. The astronauts will need a stihlsaw to go EVA, but then a concrete spaceship needs no maintainance, so they won't have to.

    • Re:seals considered harmful (Score:5, Insightful)

      by seanmeister ( 156224 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:02PM (#5791662)
      Where did you read that?? Last time I was in a naval reactor plant (1991, USS Theodore Roosevelt), the reactors heated water that was then circulated through a steam generator which created steam that was then carried outside of the reactor compartment to (among other things) turn a steam turbine that turned a main engine that moved the ship. That's pretty much how naval reactors work.
    • A really amazing story. The last time I was on a nuclar boat was in '94. The reactor was in the reactor compartment. It made steam that left the RC in big pipe and turned the tubins in the engin room.
      The shaft going out the back of the boat did not use a magnetic seal of any kind but use a mechnical seal.

      Rickover was nothing but consertive in a lot of the designs.

      Maybe you should look at a Jane's Fighting Ships instead of a Jane's Comic Book. :wq

  • In poor taste... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Yoda2 ( 522522 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:42PM (#5791429)
    ...Then the mechanic said, "Looks like you blew a seal." "No, no", the Eskimo replied, "that's just mayonnaise!"

  • Support for Space (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JASP2 ( 181290 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @12:47PM (#5791494)
    Yo... latest polls show that 86% of Amercans feel the human risk is worth continuting Space exploration. That's pretty cool. I wonder why Politicians are so scared of approving NASA's budget ?

    THe problem with the budget is not so much the small ammount they get, but the fact that the budget/mission changes every 2 years due to new officials in the house and senate and oval office. We need politicians to lock in a 15 year plan and write in riders to ensure the budget can't be changed. Then Nasa can focus on a long-term mission without worrying about next years budget cuts.

    just my two-pence... and I work at the University of Colorado's Aerospace Department.

  • 4 Km/s... yeh it floated away (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:08PM (#5791731)
    4 Km/s... yeh it floated away

    The object "floating" away from the space shuttle was moving at 4 Km/s. That indicates it absorbed momentum from a meteorite. The shuttle is susceptible to meteorites from 1-10 cm. Foam is being blamed because we can control the foam. The real story is that the 1-10cm meteorites are a risk we cannot control. Unfortunately, we will never be told what the probability of a meteorite hit will be.
  • You know, it seems only a few years back, some crazy animal huggers were complaining about the clubbing of baby seals. See what happens when you let 'em grow up? I say we go back to clubbing the baby wing seals.

  • Why did it stay on during launch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HermanZA ( 633358 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:53PM (#5792259)
    and come off in space? There is a lot of shear forces and vibration during launch and almost nothing of that in space, so why did it come off when it did?

  • Upside Down? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:01PM (#5792341) Journal
    There's probably a really good reason, but from a naive viewpoint, the proximal cause for any chunks of foam coming off the main fuel tank being able to damage the shuttle is that during primary burn, the shuttle is slung below the tank. If the vehicle were lifted to orbit in shuttle-above-tank configuration (rotated 180 degrees along the longitudinal axis from the standard configuration), the Columbia accident might not have happened.

    Anyone know why the current method (shuttle-below-tank) is used?

    • Re:Upside Down? (Score:3, Informative)

      by ashitaka ( 27544 )
      Communications. If the shuttle is on top the tank would block transmissions to and from the shuttle.

      • BZZZT WRONG! (Score:3, Informative)

        by ashitaka ( 27544 )
        Shoulda checked before posting, although that was my recollection.

        The shuttle turns over so the crew can see the horizon and have a visual frame of reference if they needed to take over manual control without instrumentation in case of an abort. Sitting on top of the external tank they wouldn't know where they were.

  • Did anyone read that (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Loosewire ( 628916 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:18PM (#5792515) Homepage Journal
    And think "Winged seals - i didnt know there were any species of flying seals" ;-)

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