Shuttle Fleet Upgraded 351
angel'o'sphere writes "Space.com reports that the shuttle fleet will be upgraded with more technology, like new sensors to detect debris hits on the wings, etc. Also, the foam causing the Columbia accident (intended to insulate the tank and prevent the formation of ice) will be replaced by: heaters. I wonder if heating up a tank with liquid oxygen is a bright idea."
Extra Goodies for Shuttles (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Extra Goodies for Shuttles (Score:2)
Apparently my wife, yelling through from the other room, agrees all too well.
It's a great idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a great idea... (Score:3)
Re:It's a great idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
some pictures (Score:3, Informative)
Vandenberg shuttle launch. (Score:4, Informative)
No shuttle missions ever flew from Vandenberg, although there were quite a few landings there.
Part of the reason is that the launch facility was rife with problems. However, the bigger reason is political, in my opinion. Basically, NASA needed the Air Force as reluctant partner in order to get funding from Congress for the shuttle program. From what I understand, the Air Force was interested in using the Shuttle to put spy satellites into polar orbit.
Polar orbit is not something that could be achieved from Kennedy primarily because NASA would never risk putting the Shuttle on a trajectory where early launch failure could result in the orbiter and boosters plowing into a populated area. One does not have such worries at Vandenberg with nothing but desert and Canadians in tehe way should the Shuttle fail.
The numerous problems with the Vandenberg facility (rumoured to have a Native-American curse on it), some really bad press coverage and changes in Air Force administration resulted in the abandonment of SLC-6. The Air Force figured that they could get their spy sats into polar orbit more easily and cheaply with Titans.
BTW: If a Shuttle had ever been launched from Vandenberg, I think it would have been the Discovery. If I am remembering correctly, as part of the deal NASA struck with the Air Force, they actually got ownership of the Discovery. I apologize if any of this is factually incorrect, I am pulling straight from memory here. If you peruse the sci.space.shuttle newsgroup you'll find some truly informative articles there from people who really know about this stuff because they were the ones who actually worked on the shuttle program.
Re:Vandenberg shuttle launch. (Score:2)
Re:Vandenberg shuttle launch. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's a great idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, they've used heaters on liquid O2 before. I was reading "Moon Lost" by Jim Lovell (the Apollo 13 astronaut), and he explains that heaters were used in the Apollo spacecraft's O2 tanks to keep the system pressurized. O2 pressure too low? Just turn on the heaters, more of the supercritical O2 would resublimate, pressure's back up to nominal. In fact, heaters were chosen instead of pumps because pumps have more moving parts which means more things that can malfunction.
Yeah, bright idea (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it is. Very bright.
Re:Yeah, bright idea (Score:2)
Wrong door. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wrong door. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, bright idea (Score:3, Funny)
How do you heat up anything with liquid oxygen, anyway? Most of us use something warm to warm things up...
"Yesterday I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I don't know."
Re:Yeah, bright idea (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Informative)
However, how sure are you about the no way of repairing part? The shuttle standard inventory shows some tile repair components onboard. If they aren't at least some use on the leading edges of the wings, it would be nice to know what they ARE intended for. Sprucing up a just landed shuttle before the press gets there to photograph it?
While we're at it, the later reports have included the possibility of a rescue mission using another shuttle, and the ultimate board conclusion is this is too risky, but notice, there's no breakdown of the risk assessment made available to the general public.
Obviously, a rational risk assessment would be different for a shuttle developing a problem that is an unusual, apparent fluke accident, or one that might well be developing on the rest of the fleet as well, and for a problem known about soon after launch as opposed to when there's only 3 days life support left. How did such considerations get rolled up into the blanket risk assesment made public?
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.caib.us/news/report/pdf/vol1/full/ca
what difference does it make? (Score:2, Insightful)
What difference would it have made? With a whole damned week to ten days - or maybe longer - maybe something could have been done.
NASA didn't even try to fucking look!!!!!!
Because they we're too damn lazy, cheap, or just plain fucking stupid to even look they doomed the astronauts. Because they wouldn't even take one lousy picture.
And I know no words strong enough to express my contempt for the lowly asswipes who doomed them.
And twits like you excuse such actions.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:2)
There are plenty of vehicles besides shuttles that could reach the orbit Columbia was in. If they had known there was a problem, they could probably have used those to supply Columbia to allow it to stay up until some way for repair or rescue could be devised.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:2)
Plenty of vehicles? As in the kind that can re-enter and protect passengers? The US only maintains the Shuttle. Russia can only make or rebuild twoSoyuz capsules per year. Europe doesn't have a manned flight program. I think China's design is a one-person only job. What other spaceworthy vehicles are there available? This isn't a case where an Apollo capsule can ge retrieved from the Smithsonian and launched!
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who said anything about re-entering and protecting passengers? I said plenty of vehicles that could have been adapted to resupply Columbia to keep it up. The military has plenty of rockets that can reach that orbit, for example, as does the non-military side of the US government, plus several other countries.
The goal wouldn't be to use one of those to bring the crew back, but rather to supply them to keep them up long enough t
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:4, Interesting)
NASA had a few viable options had they know it was a major problem. Engineers at NASA asked the Air Force to take pictures of the damage with spy satellites, outside of normal channels, and the Air Force was ready and willing to comply. NASA managers CANCELLED the request because it didn't follow proper procedure. So, you could make the argument that NASA's beuracratic garbage doomed the shuttle.
There's no telling if any rescue attempt would have been successful, but by failing to even try, or even to take the necessary steps to determine if there was a problem, NASA reduced the odds of survival to zero.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.theatlantic.com/issue
Re:Perhaps NOT (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like setting your brother Billy-Bob's R.V. on a hill pointing at your house with no brakes hoping that Bobby-Ray will show up with the truck to haul it away before it drives through your living room.
GREAT.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Atlantis was already undergoing checks for a flight in ~a month, and they could have turned her around in time to launch with a skeleton crew, meet up with Columbia, and transfer people over.
I have no doubt that they could have rescued them, if they had imaged the wing and seen the damage. The shuttle was designed to be turned around in weeks - NASA sold Congress on a flight every week in order to get them to approve the project. Working 24/7, they could have done it. In-space rescue technology has been discuessed for years and someone would have put something together.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Interesting)
But I think the best thing that could have been done would have been to keep all the astronauts on the ISS while awaiting a rescue mission from a Soyuz or another shuttle.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:3, Insightful)
even if rescue was impossible (and there's no guarantee that it would have been), they could have said "goodbye" to their loved ones and set some affairs in order.
Heaters mean less weight? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Heaters mean less weight? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heaters mean less weight? (Score:3, Insightful)
angel'o'sphere
Re:Heaters mean less weight? (Score:3, Insightful)
TM
p.s. IAAME (i am a
Re:Heaters mean less weight? (Score:2, Insightful)
Heaters mean no Ice (Score:3, Insightful)
Too cold? LO2 and LH2 have a defined temperature and pressure at which they stay liquid. The tanks keep it liquid by insulation inside the tank itself, and by keeping the tanks at high pressure (higher pressure==higher temp to boil, same reason water boils at lower temps at high altitude, PV=NRt).
The reason for the foam was to insulate an external portion of the tank, specifically where the
Third time is the charm. (Score:5, Interesting)
The is Government, they weren't accountable when Challenger blew up, and I doubt anyone was held truly accountable for Columbia.
Ditch the damn shuttle. All it does is hamper any possibility of real space usage. It is nothing more than a modern day spruce goose. It has so many things that can go wrong something will. I don't know if the nation has the stomach to lose another 7, and I don't want to find out.
Re:Third time is the charm. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm certainly not the best source of information on it, but everything I've heard is good. Even the worst-case scenario (the obvious tether snap) would result in the mass floating away, not towards, the planet (or so I've read).
Re:Third time is the charm. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Third time is the charm. (Score:2)
I want them to build a mag lev fusion reactor!
They allready have the magnets, I want to see that baby fly!
They could have it move from country to country: make it really multinational...
The problem is the stomach.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you didn't think more things could go wrong? The Apollo missions were a suicide run, if you compare the technology. And even in the future, it's likely that people will die in space. They're pioneers. Look at the recent Mars flop, where they can't get contact with the probe. Anything similar with a crew onboard would be fatal.
The US has a serious problem with lives lost. Not that it is not a bad thing and should be avoided, but sometimes there are risks involved. Like e.g. stationing troops in Iraq, and sending men into space. You must be able to accept some losses in the name of peace, progress and prosperity. Fair? Nope. But it never was, was it?
Kjella
Re:The problem is the stomach.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The problem is the stomach.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the recent hold-ups with NASA have been largely because folks are concerned they're cutting corners on safety -- choosing to save a few dollars rather than do what's most prudent.
The astronauts may be willing to risk their lives for the sake of the space program, but I think they want to do so as heros, not casualties of NASA cost-cutting gone wrong.
Re:The problem is the stomach.... (Score:2)
Who knows what happened with the probe. It could be something that could be fixed with 30 seconds and a screwdriver. The advantage to sending humans into space is that we can adapt and do things that machines simply can't do. While unmanned missions certainly have their uses, we need to still send men and women into space.
Apollo reliability (Score:5, Informative)
Lets start with the Saturn V rocket. The thing was designed by the Huntsville Germans. When you think of German engineers, think meticulously designed and crafted, expensive as heck, and reliable. Did they ever lose a Saturn (Saturn V or Saturn Ib) in flight? Titan was much cheaper than Saturn but hasn't had quite the same record.
OK, now consider the Apollo CM with its ablative heatshield and low-lift blunt-body design. And with a Max Faget solid-fuel tractor escape rocket. Compare with Shuttle with wings, and tiles, and computers flying the thing and with the Shuttle parallel to the tanks where stuff can fall off or blow up. In the Challenger explosion, the crew capsule remained intact and killed the crew when it hit the water. If something happened to the Saturn rocket, the Apollo crew had an escape rocket, they had space suits to survice a cabin puncture, and they had parachutes to make a safe water landing.
Sure Apollo was primitive by comparison, primitive in the sense of Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Safe). Oh, and Apollo had redundant space crafts so even when the Service Module was blown to shreds (as a result of ground handling to empty a balky oxygen tank by running tank heaters until the insulation burned off), they brought back to crew, although one guy had a 103 F plus fever from a urinary infection because he didn't think they had enough electric power for him to take a leak often enough.
Give me Apollo primitive over Shuttle any day.
Re:Apollo reliability (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the first stage was designed largely by the Germans. They built it simple, reliable, and strong. The original design for the Saturn V first stage (the S-1C) called for four F1 engines. When this was later bumped up to add a fifth engine, engineers found that the structure was sufficiently beefy that little extra bracing was needed. It was fuelled by kerosene (JP-1) and liquid oxygen. It was simple, rock-solid, sturdy, and reliable. It was a truly beautiful monster, and it did its job admirably.
North American designed the second stage (the Saturn S-II). Since the S-II stayed with the rocket longer and higher, weight was much more important. Liquid hydrogen had to be used for its higher energy density than kerosene. Traditional rugged German rocket engineering would have made the S-II solid, reliable--and too heavy to fly. The S-II components were designed to bear a load precisely 1.5 times the load anticipated in flight. Parts that were too strong were shaved down and tested until they failed at exactly 1.5, so as to save every ounce of weight.
Probably the biggest engineering challenge of the S-II was construction of its common bulkhead between the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. Despite both being cryogenic liquids, in use they're about seventy degrees (Celsius) apart in temperature. Usually this was a nonissue: the top of one tank and the bottom of the other were hemispherical, and met at only a single point. Unfortunately, such construction added weight, so for the S-II (and for the third stage, the S-IVB) a common bulkhead design was used, where a single hemisphere formed the wall between the two tanks. Entirely new techniques had to be developed to assemble the structure--miles of perfect welds were required; the metal was shaped by being pounded into a mold with explosives. And they had to do it twice for each S-II--two thin hemispheres of aluminum sandwiched a layer of insulation to make the bulkhead. Absolutely phenomenal, and way beyond anything that the Germans (or anyone else) had done before that point.
Anyway, IANAA (I am not an American) but I hate to see all of the engineers at North American Aviation and Boeing (for the S-IVB) get shrugged off--the Germans were instrumental without question in the early US space program, but credit where credit is due...the S-II and the S-IVB worked absolutely perfectly (to my knowledge) throughout the Apollo program. (Almost--a single J-2 engine of the five on the S-II failed to ignite on Apollo 13. This alone had no impact on the mission, and certainly was the smallest issue that 13 faced.)
Oh, and Apollo had redundant space crafts so even when the Service Module was blown to shreds (as a result of ground handling to empty a balky oxygen tank by running tank heaters until the insulation burned off), they brought back to crew, although one guy had a 103 F plus fever from a urinary infection because he didn't think they had enough electric power for him to take a leak often enough.
The redundant spacecraft didn't exist because NASA anticipated a possible accident (explosion of the service module) and supply an extra spaceship. There was a second ship present because the mission required it--the only way the Americans could get to the moon on a short schedule was by leaving most of the craft (command and service modules) in orbit, and landing the smallest ship possible--the lunar module. It was a lucky coincidence that Apollo 13 could use the lunar module in that way, and even then, it wasn't really designed with a 'lifeboat' capacity in mind. A favourite example is in the case of the ship's scrubbers--lithium hydroxide canister
Re:Apollo reliability (Score:4, Informative)
A small correction to an otherwise excellent post. The center engine failure on Apollo 13 was not failure to ignite, it was a premature shutdown. That in itself is not very interesting, but the reason why is. Both the first and second stages of Saturn were susceptible to a pogo effect, where vibrations in the structure could get into a feedback and shake things up quite a bit. Normally this wasn't too big of a problem; modifications were introduced to lessen the effect as the program went on, but even without the modifications there weren't much in the way of problems (aside from some things breaking in the payload during the launch of Apollo 6). But on Apollo 13's second stage, the pogo was particularly bad. It was a few seconds away from ripping the entire second stage to tiny pieces when the shutdown occurred. The vibration had started fuel sloshing around, which fooled a sensor into shutting the center engine down early, which stopped the pogo. I don't think this would have lead to a loss of the crew, but it certainly would have got their blood pumping, and of course the mission would have been completely scrapped. But it didn't blow up, and the launch went fine.
On the other side of things, Apollo 12 got hit by lightning on the way up. Twice. Aside from some electronics being reset and a whole bunch of near-heart attacks, the rocket just shrugged it off. And the shuttle's reaction to being launched when it's a tad too cold is to simply explode without warning. Sigh.
Re:Third time is the charm. (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA, like many other big organisations and corporations, has long since reached critical bureaucratic mass. What this means is that ANY big change is only going to increase bureaucracy, and never reduce it. Even if the intention is to reduce bureacracy, you'll end up with NEW administrative positions creating procedures for doing so, and enough paperwork for the bureacracy reduction to warrant at least a 5% increase in administration, or if this is not possible, at least a 5% increased administrative workload for non-administrative positions.
The only way to get out of this is if a new organization or company can take the place of the old. When we're talking about government-funded large scale operations like NASA, it just isn't going to happen any time soon. Our hope, ironically enough, is that China gets their space program together. Then, and only then, can NASA die and be replaced with something less porky.
Regards,
--
*Art
Re:Third time is the charm. (Score:2)
And replace it with what?
They shouldn't ditch the shuttle until another viable alternative is ready. We probably both agree that they should be funding alternative launch vehicles more agressively.
But don't ditch the shuttle until there's a better option. I'd rather have us still go to space instead of wait for the development of a new vehicle to come to completion.
It'll be alright (Score:4, Interesting)
Damon,
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
And where's the money for that going to come from. NASA's budget is stretched to the limit as it is. That needs to be upgraded first. If they're not careful the failures they have had with probes because of Faster, Better, Cheaper will cross over to manned flights.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
That's a great idea, there's only the slight hitch of funding.
NASA's budget is continously being scaled back. One can look at the recent Beagle 2 failure to see that testing is really important, and cutting testing in the interest of saving $$$ lowers the odds of success. Given enough missions, the failure will eventually happen.
Re:Disaster??? (Score:2)
Re:Disaster??? (Score:2)
Postponing the inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately it looks like NASA is moving in the wrong direction [popsci.com], cutting the funding from their shuttle replacement project. Of course, I'm all for making the existing shuttles safer, and what they're doing now is a good idea.
Re:Postponing the inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep seeing this argument and I must protest. I routinely fly aircraft that were designed and built long before I was born. The space shuttle is not a car. They don't just haul it in every three months for an oil change and then pray that the "check engine" light stays off during launch. While I believe improvements need to be made, writing something off simply because it's old is wasteful and short-sighted.
Re:Postponing the inevitable (Score:2)
Yes, they shouldn't have scrapped their shuttle replacement project. But don't blame the NASA folks. Blame the US budget allocators for reducing NASA's budget.
In your link it said the $6 billion expected for shuttle replacement has mushroomed to $35 billion. I don't suppose you have that kind of cash lying around to keep funding this program?
Re:Postponing the inevitable (Score:5, Funny)
35 billion? That's only half of that 'war fund' that your prez rammed through congress. Cash seems easy enough to get your hands on, if you can work a WMD or terrorist threat into it.
NASA (to congress): "We have reason to believe that Osama Bin Laden is cunningly hiding in space, possibly on the Moon or Mars. We'll need some cash to go design and build a ship to pick him up."
Congress: "Hmmmm...."
NASA (thinking quickly) : "Oh , er, it looks like he might have a, er, WMD or two with him as well..."
Congress: "Here's 35 Billion dollars. Go."
NASA (collectively steepling fingers): "Exxxcellent."
Re:Postponing the inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear fission/ Hydrogen steam rockets..... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.lascruces.com/~mrpbar/rocket.html
blah
Re:Nuclear fission/ Hydrogen steam rockets..... (Score:2)
Re:Nuclear fission/ Hydrogen steam rockets..... (Score:2)
Besides, treehugging NIMBYism isn't the only reason to be skeptical of using nuke power to get from the surface to orbit, although I suppose a lot of backyards did catch pieces of Columbia.
Further reading of interest: Project Orion, The M
Sadly this is whats required... (Score:2, Informative)
I, for one, am appalled that it took a spectacular explosion, mass media coverage and the unfortunate deaths of shuttle crew to be able to reach this point. Is this really what is required to be able for technology to advance? I once heard in a movie once, that the shuttle was the result of "th
Re:Sadly this is whats required... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reality Check (Score:2)
The whole idea of the tender process, is to find the lowest priced quotation to implement a solution within a given set of specifications.
Now, of course, this does not necessarily mean that the cheapest quotation will be the one selected; but, human nature being what it is, and the simple fact that most if not all projects lack a certain thing known as "an infinite budget", generally you can pretty much bet your life savings on the least $$
not a technical but an organizational Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need more technology to read an email from a technician or engineer who warns because of missing or destroyed isolation foam.
The NASA has to change the way on how to react on such warnings.
STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech (Score:5, Insightful)
The STS is capable of lifting over 100 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit, or throwing 40 tonnes to Mars (with an appropriate small upper stage).
Capacity like that means humans to Mars in a decade [nw.net] or doubling the size of the current ISS (into something useful) in ONE THROW. Or, having an Apollo-class launcher ready for the let's-go-back-to-Luna folk.
The Shuttle, on the other hand, the Winnebago of space exploration, is a horrible hybrid device. It's essentially a portable space station, which is fine when you don't have one, but now we do. It's not a good repair vehicle (a capsule would be much better and hugely cheaper), it's not a good "escape pod" (not even the ISS uses it for that purpose), and it's not a good space transport system, because it itself weighs ninety of those precious, expensive, to-orbit tonnes.
My heart sank when I read that more space dollars were going to be spent "upgrading" this thing that has trapped us firmly in Earth's orbit for 20 years.
Come on NASA! Show some balls! Show us just a little bit of the "right stuff" you used to manufacture in bulk. Pick a destination, strip the shuttle off the stack, and GO THERE.
Re:STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech (Score:3, Insightful)
It is easy to rally people behind something like the Shuttle just because of the coolness factor. Try to get the same type of response for a simple heavy lift space vehicle and you'll be left out in the cold as far as funding is concerned.
Re:STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:STS is great tech - Shuttle is horrible blech (Score:5, Interesting)
Um... no, think about it for a moment. That won't work unless you can collapse all those parts as if they were empty cardboard boxes and then re-assemble in orbit. I doubt many of the big workhorse rocket designs ever lift close to their true capacity - the awkwardness of the payload (in terms of aerodynamics and balance) is not trivial. And then if you get that to work but require human assembly at the destination, you still need to send people up, except now you're sending them on something else at the same time. Now you've got to manage two spacecraft designs, two coordinated launches, and so on.
While I agree with your general idea (learn from the old stuff and do BETTER), spaceflight hasn't gotten any easier, and upgrades to spacecraft aren't as simple as swapping out a video card and loading new drivers...
(Personally, I think we should try to do everything at once - do better rockets AND build the space elevator. They are different enough projects that they wouldn't steal specialist engineers from each other, thus we could work on both at the same time. If either one works, we win, and if the elevator works we really really really win)
Re:Serious question: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is propellant. Where you gonna store the propellant? Much of your first half of the store of propellant is expended in accelerating the second half along with the ship.
Let's do the math... (Score:2)
NASA really has learned nothing.
What would be bad about it? (Score:4, Informative)
If keeping it from going below a certain temperature by insultating it is OK, then heating it to that temperature would be OK. Why would you think otherwise?
wadda they gonna use... (Score:5, Funny)
American Centric (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:American Centric (Score:2)
If it's all the same to you, I'd rather trade a heroes death for a fe
Could be very bright... (Score:2)
Read more about the space program... (Score:3, Informative)
They had heaters *in* the oxygen tanks at least on the Apollo missions. Such a heater was in part responsible for the Apollo 13 near-disaster, though that was caused by a whose string of failures.
I wonder... (Score:2)
I wonder if the author is a rocket scientist... I would guess no.
I take offense (Score:3, Interesting)
Space MUST keep going regardless of disasters. It's the nature of the business.
Do you guys wanna live on Earth when all its resources are deplited and the population is HUGE? Uh, no I didn't think so. Me, I wanna live on the moon base or Mars if I can live that long.
Hahahaha.. it's next retirement paradise for the dotcom guys/gals; forget Florida ;(
Re:I take offense (Score:3, Insightful)
Screw safe - how about cost-effective? The Shuttle was already the most expensive launch vehicle in the world on a per-pound basis BEFORE this latest disaster. Manned or unmanned. Now, it'll be even MORE outrageously overpriced.
It should be dumped immediately and replaced with Soyuz for manned launches, and an array of unmanned boosters for cargo launches. Giant-sized payloads can wait for the higher-capacity Atlas, Delta and Ariane boosters that a
I wonder too (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, maybe NASA will finally get their shit together and check things with some random Java programmer before their next mission. NASA, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, COME TO YOUR SENSES AND CONSULT A RANDOM JAVA DEVELOPER ON THE TANK HEATERS, HUMAN LIVES ARE AT STAKE.
I can't help but feel... (Score:5, Insightful)
People will believe that if the sensors don't show it, it must not be there. The heating systems will complicate and potentially lead to other, new kinds of catastrophic failure (as anticipated by the /. editor Michael's comment on the wisdom of heating a large tank of liquid oxygen).
This article [theatlantic.com] is must reading, I think.
Kludge (Score:3, Insightful)
The right fix is to architect a new system that is not vulnerable to these problems in the first place. But I suspect that will happen only with private spaceflight and resulting fiscal accountability.
Re:Kludge (Score:3, Insightful)
justification (Score:3, Interesting)
for all the people asking why it is that NASA isn't making changes until an incident has happened, i.e. why not change things proactively...
there's a saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
this phrase is especially insightful for situations where change can be disastrous. there is risk associated with every change, i.e. something can go wrong or the change may have unforeseen problems.
given that the space shuttle for the most part has been relatively reliable, i don't think anyone at NASA is prepared to stick their neck out and say we should introduce a lot of changes.
not only that, changes cost $$$. and somehow, i don't think NASA has much of that to spare as it is.
this is not my opinion, i'm merely trying to see things from NASA's perspective.
my own opinion is that more work should be dedicated to developing a more appropriate modern shuttle. the person who posted and said that NASA should design a lighter shuttle that takes advantage of the fact that we have a space station, and that the current shuttle's weight takes up too much of the precious thrust payload has the right idea.
also, if they could build a modular space station, why can't they build a module space shuttle? and if the space station can be an international effort, why can't a space shuttle? humans in space should be a global effort, not the effort of any one country; cooperating and sharing our development efforts and resources would certainly accelerate our progress. (this is a bit idealistic, as i can understand that tensions between countries would make such cooperation difficult).
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:3, Funny)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
[ingeb.org]
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do
I'm half crazy all for the love of you"
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:4 more years (Score:2)
Re:They're not heating the tank = more info (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hey mr rocket scientist... (Score:5, Funny)
Aw, c'mon. It's not like this is rocket science...
--
*Art