Shuttle Atlantis Launched Without Incident 102
forkazoo writes "Space.com is reporting the successful launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. There were no major incidents or problems during the launch, except that there was some concern about the weather at the two European abort landing sites. The weather cleared up and the launch was pretty much perfect. 'Preliminary analysis of images taken by onboard cameras revealed expected "popcorning" foam loss during ascent but none that appeared to strike the orbiter. NASA has kept a close watch on the shedding of fuel tank foam insulation during shuttle launches since the 2003 Columbia accident, which claimed the lives of seven astronauts, and made modifications to reduce the amount of debris shed during liftoffs.' The launch was broadcast live NASA TV stream."
Let's All Go To The Lobby! (Score:1, Funny)
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Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Definitely worth checking out.
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Too bad it wasn't a couple of hours later, night launches are really spectacular. The thing that always impresses me, is the sound, first you see the engines start and the shuttle lifting off and then comes the sound, a rolling thunder that just won't let go..
If you never have experienced a shuttle launch, take some vacation and come down to Central Florida for a shuttle launch. Comparing it to watching one on TV is not possible, it has to be experien
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Dammit, I'm missing out on too much...
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I have never worked a single job in the last 25+ years that required me to work more than 8 hours per day. I work to live, not live to work. And I guess you have never heard of vacation either? I have over 4 weeks a year with paid vacation and I'm enjoying every single minute!
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Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad. (Score:5, Interesting)
They didn't even get off the ground until 1981.
It's the most complex machine ever made. It's not sad that we're only taking our first flight of the year, but I think we could have done better without the bureaucracy and lack of focus at NASA.
How do we get that focus back? Things don't look good to this casual observer - we're pouring a half trillion dollars and an open-ended commitment into this stupid war to preserve a strategic hold on oil fields while NASA languishes and the country's imagination stagnates. We've financed our burgeoning national debt by mortgaging our manufacturing base to the far east, and practically the only heavy industries we still have leadership in are the very industries that NASA is charged with research in - aerospace.
That's what is sad - as a country, we've let our politicians and corporations pursue their own interests for so long and to such bounds that we are in danger of losing some of the few jewels we still have left in our crown. As it is, this first flight of the year garnered so few eyeballs that it'll probably be known as the shuttle that launched the day they sent Paris Hilton back to jail.
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That's NASA propaganda. A nuclear submarine or an aircraft carrier is complex - the Shuttle is a child's toy in comparison.
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How do we get that focus back? Things don't look good to this casual observer - we're pouring a half trillion dollars and an open-ended commitment into this stupid war to preserve a strategic hold on oil fields while NASA languishes and the country's imagination stagnates.
You're making the common mistake that NASA's focus comes from a lack of money. On the contrary, lack of money increases focus -- because it has to. NASA has an enormous amount of money by any reasonable standard. It's only when you com
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It was claimed that they would launch a lot of satellites using the orbiter platform, but that was just dumb when unmanned rockets can do the same for a lot cheaper. The orbiter's only decent sellin
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I keep reading this in different places and wonder what precisely the metric is.
I can certainly believe it was the most complex manned space craft built in the 70s. Beyond that though I wonder.
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When the launches would bore me, we'll have made real progress in space flight.
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Such lauches should be such a common occurance that they aren't great and/or amazing news. That is what is sad in all this.
The launches may not be a very common occurrence, but they are common enough that while watching it with my daughter on HDnet, she was bored because according to her, it was "the same old thing."
When the launches would bore me, we'll have made real progress in space flight.
I get what you're saying there but I think I'd always remain interested. I know I still like watching jumbo-jets take off, especially if I can get close. Jetwash [youtube.com] is incredible. I still get a thrill when I'm right up at the crossing gate when a freight train comes rumbling through. It's the excitement of all that power tamed and put to use by man. Really stirs the blood.
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Fixed that for you.
What's amazing (well, more sad really) is that they didn't replace the thing twenty years ago, post-Challenger. Instead they just added another layer of kludges.
Mods on popcorn (Score:2)
No... (Score:1)
People would think and a grab dream and wish.
Sometimes it worked.
Dream and take.
yeah, but it sure beats paris hilton news! (Score:1)
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Seems to ME that the big media blitz should be along the lines of "Hey! They made it! Look! They're safe, having burgers in the spaceport lunchroom!"
Sad....but guess what (Score:2)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/06/09/space.sh
Now, THAT is sad. And I hope that it really is 'no big deal'.. Even though my first reaction was "Oh S*&t".
May the crew have a safe return.
Why did the foam become an issue only this decade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why did the foam become an issue only this deca (Score:2)
Re:Foam problems (Score:3, Informative)
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http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4448 [capmag.com]
The foam that broke off was from the old foam....but it was stock piled BX 250. This foam weakens with age.
AC is correct: Environmental Issues (Score:2)
Re:AC is correct: Environmental Issues (Score:5, Informative)
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It used to be you'd just file a TPS report on the damage and be done with it. But that was back when Y2K was the biggest concern.
</OfficeSpace>
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Re:Why did the foam become an issue only this deca (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why did the foam become an issue only this deca (Score:1)
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You are mistaken (Score:3, Informative)
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The shuttle isn't launched off the back of anything. You're not thinking that there is a huge plane that gives the shuttle a piggy-back ride to a really high altitude and then the shuttle zooms away from there, are you? The videos that you've seen of the shuttle riding on top of a larger jet are when the shuttle is ferried from one site to another. It's like using a trailer to get your funny car to the track on race day. (How's that for a Slas
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The original poster made the claim that the Space Shuttle launch represents a huge carbon footprint, and he's absolutely right.
Yes, the fuel powering the Shuttle is H and O, but the power required to produce liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is NOT FREE. One of the cheapest and most common power sources in the world is dino power, and it is the largest source of power in the US.
I would certainly call that a
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But even if that were the case, that's not something unique to the Shuttle's design, just part of doing business in general. So while I understood the OP's point, I think it's stupid,
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Re:Why did the foam become an issue only this deca (Score:1)
Re:Why did the foam become an issue only this deca (Score:2)
It was a problem in the 80's and 80's - but it never caused significant damage, so NASA largely ignored it. Just as with Challenger and the O-rings.
Looks like there is some minor thermal blanket dmg (Score:1)
foam of doom (Score:1)
the fact that the shuttle *not* exploding/crashing etc. is big news should be a warning sign to NASA about this foam... I mean what the hell is it doing on the OUTSIDE of the tank in the first place? wouldn't it be safer/smarter to have it INSIDE the tank its self? I mean the whole purpose of the foam is to keep the fuel nice and cool, which keeps the
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- already
been flight-tested! The first few launches had a external tank. Later launches discarded the paint coating to save a couple tons of payload weight. Reinstating this coating would have the effect of providing a tougher skin to the foam, making it more damage-resistant. Aren't the lives of the crew worth the small hit on payload capacity?A giant leap backwards (for technology) (Score:1)
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If the turbines ingested much of anything at all, they would fail. And turbines don't fail gently. They fail by throwing bits of metal outward that were formerly rotating at 30-100,000 rpm. The Shuttle can survive an engine shutting down (and has), but likely not one exploding.
There are glide-back abort modes, but they're very risky, and it's not clear things would survive turbine failures long enough to enact them.
All that said, I don't think chunks of foam coming off inside the tank is normally con
Re:foam of doom inside the tank (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there is also the problem of foam acting chemically with the fuel or oxidizer. It now needs a liner. That is a lot of volume, and now the shuttle does not have enough room for fuel and oxidizer.
Anyway, that's my best guess.
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Re:foam of doom inside the tank (Score:5, Informative)
You're insulating the hydrogen at -250C (~22K); the Lox is almost irrelevant, since it has such a higher heat of vaporization and density, and therefore low boiloff. Hydrogen insulation can be and has been done both inside and outside the tank -- the Saturn V upper stages put it inside. Inside the tank, the attachment between insulation and tank material is kept warm, which makes that problem easier. However, it's hard to make a lightweight insulation that the hydrogen doesn't soak through, and hydrogen has a very high thermal conductivity, so that destroys the insulating properties. The foam doesn't have to take pressure, but it has to be sufficiently sealed that you don't get conductive flow past eg your interlocking bricks.
Insulating hydrogen tanks is a decidedly non-trivial task, especially when you want ultra light weight for a rocket. It's rather far from obvious what the best answer is.
IMHO, the solution to the problem is very simple -- don't use hydrogen! Kerosene, propane, and methane are all better alternatives. They actually have higher performance by many relevant metrics, too. Hydrogen is *so* light weight (0.07 g/cc) that the tanks get big. The lower Isp of hydrocarbon fuels is more than compensated for by the better fuel / tank mass ratio in the vast majority of applications. And that's even before you count the high cost of handling hydrogen and designing engines to work with it -- it's enough colder than LOX to make a difference, and it has myriad other handling concerns that make the development programs expensive.
And yes, I do build rockets for a living. No, I haven't ever worked with hydrogen, but there's a reason for that...
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Aerogel. Ultra-light weight, best thermal insulator known to mankind (other than a vacuum, which is another possibility). Nobody makes it in sufficient volume though, but that could change if NASA got behind it.
Re:foam of doom inside the tank (Score:4, Informative)
Not true on all counts. Aspen Aerogels makes a felted insulating blanket out of the stuff; I've worked with it for Lox insulation. It's not even all that pricey -- $4/sq ft, 1/4" thickness. It works *great* on the ouside of the tank, when it doesn't have to have any strength (I wouldn't want to expose it to any sort of aerodynamic loading, though). However, it's quite porous (aerogels are inherently open-cell structure) and soaks up liquids quite well. I've personally experimented with immersing it in LN2; it's obviously not the right choice on the inside of the tank.
Oh, and vacuum isn't a possibility -- the structure required to hold vacuum is *far* heavier than that required to hold pressure. Vacuum is the insulator in standard cryo shipment (dewars), but there weight isn't a concern.
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Neat cryo trivia: cold liquids will condense water vapour out of the air, but an exposed pipe that conveys liquid hydrogen will *liquefy the surrounding air*, leaving a mixed pool of liquid nitrogen and oxy
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Aerogel is far better than conventional foams, including high performance CFC-filled foams. It is far worse than a good vacuum dewar, though.
The extra fun part about the LH2 plumbing is that the condensing liquid is oxygen-enriched, which makes it even more hazardous. As if the 4%-75% explosive range in air wasn't wide enough...
And people wonder why working with LH2 is hard ;)
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[...]
> Then there is also the problem of foam acting chemically with the fuel or oxidizer.
[...]
> Anyway, that's my best guess.
Good guesses. Reality is stranger.
The tank is made of aluminum alloy. Very thin metal. At supersonic speeds, the tank would heat up. The increased temperature would cause the walls to become weaker, and the tank would buckle and rupture. By putting the insulation on the outside, they keep the metal of the t
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See my other comment for why it's not an easy task to decide whether to put the foam inside or outside. It's been done inside on eg the Saturn upper stages, and there are sound reasons both ways.
The alloys in question (one of the Aluminum/Lithium alloys, I don't remember which off hand) are just fine at deep cryo temperatures. Mostly it's steels that have trouble with cryos, most aluminums are ok. Many of them actually get stronger as the temperature drops, and I believe the Shuttle tank counts on this
Re:foam of doom (Score:5, Informative)
1. Materials. The alloys used to make the tank are designed for cryogenic service. they will not exhibit metal fatigue or stresses. They are also designed not to react with they hydrogen or the oxygen. many materials start acting funny (funny boom, not funny haha) when exposed to pure environments of either propellant. thermal cycling on an ET is very limited anyway, perhaps a handful of tankings ahead of a launch depending on the number of scrubs, so the shrinking and reexpansion of the tank when cryo temperatures are applied or removed does not occur enough to cause metal fatigue. they have people keeping track of such things.
2. Manufacturing complexity. Most of the ET foam is applied with a robotic sprayer once the tank is completely built. Retooling the assembly line to spray the inside of the tank would be an expensive proposition in and of itself, not to mention requiring the tanks to not be completely assembled when the foam is applied. the tank seams would thus not be as well insulated, causing ice to form. The spray on insulation isn't what killed Columbia anyway. the robotic process allows the foam to be sprayed uniformly with few voids in the foam. the CAIB concluded that hand applied foam applied to reduce aerodynamic loading at the orbiter attach points as well as prevent orbiter killing ice formation at those same points is what brought down Columbia. the hand applied foam cannot be applied with nearly the same uniformity as the spray on foam. The tanks were redesigned to eliminate most of the need for hand applied foam. This doesn't prevent mission managers from being paranoid about anything coming off the tank and causing a problem.
3. Foreign object debris. the popcorning seen on liftoff is due to aerodynamic stress and vibration that the vehicle experiences during the climb. there is no reason to believe this won't happen if the foam is inside the tank. (an additional cause of foam shedding in this case is mentioned in 1 above)
The turbopumps on a shuttle engine are very powerful and built to tight tolerances. Even a very small piece of debris entering these pumps can tear an engine apart when it is operating at full capacity. Filters are placed in the fuel lines ahead of the pumps to help prevent such things from happening, but they're meant to catch the odd piece or two. You can see from the launch video how much popcorning can occur during a flight, so placing the foam inside the tank where it can access the fuel line creates one of two scenarios. 1. the filter clogs, starving the engine of fuel, shutting it down and creating at best an abort scenario, which, depending on the point of the climb at which it happens increases the risk to the crew and at best forcing NASA to spend extra money from its dwindling budget to retrieve the shuttle from Africa. 2. the filter fails, allowing FOD into the engine, blowing the back end of the orbiter off and creating a very bad day for everybody.
In order to prevent this FOD, a liner, perhaps made of a metal alloy would be needed. This 1. increases manufacturing complexity even more. 2. to borrow your argument, increases risk due to metal fatigue and stresses. and 3. adds a gigantic amount of mass to the vehicle, reducing the payload capacity. when you're getting to orbit, payload is king. the more payload you can get to orbit the better. the success of many programs, manned or otherwise, can hinge on tens of pounds in the mass budget either way. that's the nature of the game. the first few flights of the shuttle, the tank was painted white. This created a nice, pretty, uniformly white vehicle. Then someone pointed out that the paint served no engineering purpose and was costing 500 pounds. The paint requirement was then deleted and 500 pounds more payload could be sent to orbit.
I can probably think of more engineering arguments, but it's late and Iv'e had to retype this once already.
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Question - How much foam came off when the exterior surface was painted ?
If the coated surface helped reduce the occurrence of FoD then maybe those 500 pounds were well spent. And then maybe they could wo
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The problem is the "shuttle consept of doom", not the foam... Something has to cover that rocket, foam is better than ice. If the shuttle didnt "ride" a rocket then there would be no need for foam
Did anyone else see it ? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The night launches are always better, but during the summer it can be hard to see due to the general cloudiness and rain patterns of the Florida summer.
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Saw this on the firehose (Score:4, Funny)
"iPhone battery will last
"Vista successfully installed printer driver"
"Scientists in Norway discover that the sun rises each and every Tuesday."
"iPhone cures herpes."
"$company is forming a patent pact with Microsoft"
"iPhone violates 221 Microsoft patents"
"In Soviet Russia iPhone orders Calamari FOR you"
"1337 H4XZ0R creates a beowulf cluster of iPhones running Ubuntu using his Wii Wifi"
Slow news night.
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Seriously, why would slashdotters care about the iPhone curi
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Not in the northernmost parts of Norway it doesn't...
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But I agree with you without incident? Wow! so you mean everything worked... like It has 90 percent of the time with the shuttle? Like why they test and rest the shuttle before launch?
Tell me when another one blows or we find aliens, sadly space has once again become boring. I'm sorry to say it but until I'm going up, I really could care less, the rate we are going (people afraid to fund it) we'll not even land on mars in my
nasa (Score:1)
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In my great-grandparents' lifetime, they probably saw seven people die of dysentery on the boat over to America, and you know what? They got over it. (My great-grandparents, not the dysentery victims.) Losing a space shuttle now and again wouldn't have distracted Grandpa Joe from his craps game.
If we lose that tolerance for risk altogether, we're done as a species.
breaking atmo (Score:2)
What a headline.. (Score:2)
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Breaking: Tear found in thermal blanket (Score:5, Interesting)
Post-launch in-orbit inspection has revealed a potential problem. There is a small four-inch tear or bunching of a thermal blanket on the OMS pod near the tail. It's not clear at this time if this will be an issue on re-entry. This area of the orbiter receives less heating on re-entry, but thermal protection is still important. NASA will probably release more details later today.
Article: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5127 [nasaspaceflight.com]
Image: http://www.cfnews13.com/uploadedImages/Media/Video /0037(4).jpg [cfnews13.com]
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Some pictures. (Score:1)