Images of Endeavour's Damaged Tiles

Roland Piquepaille writes "Neptec Design Group, a Canadian company and a NASA prime contractor for 25 space missions, was kind enough to send me exclusive images of Endeavour's damaged tiles during its last take-off. So here are some of these pictures" The pictures are pretty amazing and make the urgency of this whole thing much more amazing.

How long has this been happening?

[GodfatherofSoul]

This kind of damage MUST have been occurring throughout the history of the program. And, if it has been NASA would have been aware during the regular retiling of the Shuttle. My question is why wasn't the ice impact problem wasn't addressed long ago.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[arkham6]

Very good point. I remember back in the early 80's news reports of the shuttle coming back with 1/3rd of the tiles being gone due to faulty glue. Even when they didn't need to repalce the tiles so much, I'm sure they HAD to go over every inch with a fine tooth comb, and I'm sure that more than once they found some with holes from damage, either ice or micrometers. This whole "omg teh tiles have holes in them' thing is a reaction to the columbia disaster, and a way to show the media that 'yes, we are aware of the issue'.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Turn in your geek card. It wasn't the 80's, and the shuttle wasn't coming back because it hadn't been to space. It was the Enterprise, it was the 70's, and it was during the development of the shuttle.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[tgd]

But his overall point is quite correct -- every single shuttle mission came back with missing and damaged tiles.

Most of the shuttle is not under the same level of thermal load as the front edges of the wings during re-entry. Columbia got unlucky that the damage was at the worst possible spot.

Its a bad design, but the whole shuttle is an awful design. Most of the time it works, though.

IMO, this is a reaction to Columbia and a dramatically reduced interest in the shuttle program. For ten years launches barely got reported. Its nice (for the continuance of the shuttle program) for people to be talking about it.

Plus, for those who haven't seen a shuttle tile up close, they're not very big. Thats not a six inch gash in there.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[tgd]

If you think that hundreds of engineers sitting down and designing it is how the Shuttle came into existance in the early 70's, you should go read up on some history of NASA.

The shuttle design (and the program) is one set of bad decisions after another made for corporate welfare and political reasons shoehorned through Congress based on a huge number of known lies (like the shuttle-launch-a-week they claimed they'd have). It was continued as a way of getting to the Space Station, even though the construction of it was delayed 15 years.

There were dramatically better designs considered during the 70s that would've been cheaper and more reliable, but wouldn't impact various Senator's home states as much. There were bad decisions made even after the Shuttle was picked (using aluminum skin not titanium, which is why the heat shield is needed anyway).

Seriously. Read some histories of the shuttle program. You'll learn why it happened and not the Apollo-based Mars mission, why the Saturn V (and future solid fuel boosted versions) were dropped in favor of a much more expensive per pound STS.

NASA has smart engineers. Thats why the design for the shuttle's replacement looks nothing like the shuttle. Its also a big reason why the Buran was killed in the USSR, and the Soviets/Russians dominated manned space flight for 25 years.

Re:

[DreamCoder]

References? Oh wait, this isn't wikipedia...

Re:

[FLAGGR]

Wow, angry much?

Richard Feynmans report was pushed into the appendicies of the full report. Personally, I don't think it is dry, but to each his own.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[moosesocks]

Right on all accounts apart from the last one.

Buran was dropped due to a lack of funds because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which left their space program strapped for cash.

Although Buran was essentially a copy of the Shuttle, the Soviet engineers were able to surmise its shortcomings and address those issues. For starters, it wasn't as vulnerable to the mess we had with Columbia, and are having again with Endeavour.

The crew compartment was supposedly reinforced and structurally isolated from the rest of the ship, suggesting that a Challenger or Columbia type disaster could have been potentially survivable.

Buran was launched piggybacked on an Energia booster (which is the closest thing Russia had to a Saturn V) -- economies of scale suggest that this would have been cheaper in the long-run, not to mention that it kept a large multi-purpose launch vehicle in Russia's "arsenal", something which the US currently lacks (not to mention that an Energia could have sent up huge portions of the ISS in one go, rather than expensively constructing it bit by bit as we are doing now.

Buran could fly and land automnously. The space shuttle gained this ability only recently, and to my knowledge, it's never been attempted. This combined with the continuation of the Soyuz program hypothetically allows the crew to stay aboard Mir/ISS, and return via a Soyuz capsule, while the Shuttle lands on its own in the case that it was damaged during takeoff, and would be risky to land.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if NASA uses a similar strategy to get the crew of Endeavour home.

It still wasn't a great idea all in all, but it made a hell of a lot more sense than the Shuttle does. Kliper [wikipedia.org] looks very promising at the moment, and may be a "best of both worlds" compromise between traditonal capsules and shuttle-type craft.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[icebrain]

It's more like the engineers got hamstrung by the Air Force and the beancounters. Original shuttle plans called for a fully-reuseable vehicle with a more robust thermal protection system. The beancounters promoted the half-disposable design we have now, claiming it would reduce costs, and contrived studies to show that it would be much more reliable than it actually turned out to be. They also screwed around with the budgeting, eventually causing even more cost overruns, delaying the development, and forcing compromises that made the vehicle less safe.

The Air Force wanted manned space capability, and offered to help pay for the development if they got some say in the design and were allowed use of the shuttles when built. The USAF insisted on a larger payload bay (60ft long, as opposed to NASA's 40ft plan), which obviously made the vehicle larger. They also wanted the ability to land at the launch site after a single polar orbit, requiring 1000+ miles of crossrange. This led to the heavier delta wing and higher reentry heating loads.

We wound up with a vehicle that was larger, more expensive, and less safe than we should have. The engineers did the best they could under the political mandates they were given.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[Gr8Apes]

The half-disposable design was a direct result of the military's insistence on increasing the payload carrying capacity by an order of magnitude combined with cutbacks in original funding targets. The increased size caused other design issues for re-entry and landing. It was also to have been replaced roughly 10 years ago.

Hence you have the bloated obsolete pig we use today.

Re:

[icebrain]

Hubble is believed to be based on the same "chassis" as the contemporary US spy satellites (KH-11, I think). Those were launched on the larger Titan vehicles, and Hubble could have been as well, had the choice of launch vehicle not been dictated politically. US policy up until Challenger dictated that all US satellite launches (including commercial ones) would shift to the shuttle, in an attempt to justify the program and boost the flight rate closer to that originally projected, and so Hubble was adapted

Re:

[jafac]

Yes;
The Air Force bears much of the blame.

They wanted to be able to launch NRO payloads, and with the Keyhole platform, that meant the larger cargo bay, and "high-inclination" orbits, (ie. Vandenberg. . . ie "cross-range capability"). Well, Thiokol never delivered on the SRB's that would have given the cross-range capability, so that was the first thing to get shitcanned. So the Air Force was already screwed there, and for much of the 1980's could not launch NRO payloads into high-inclination orbits.

Then C

Re:

[jafac]

The Vandenberg capability was based on Thiokol being able to deliver a more powerful SRB. They failed. That's why they built a launch facility, hell, even a VAB, and a widened road to haul the shuttle from the airstrip to the VAB, and they built an SRB reprocessing facility, including a new pier for the recovery ship.

Vandenberg was ramped up to process Shuttle flights - they previously didn't even have ANY manned spaceflight capability at all. They built all that out. And Thiokol blew it.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[Retric]

The problem with the shuttle is not any specific design decision it's the overall design goals which the "top-end engineers at NASA" had little to do with.

"The crucial factor in the size and shape of the Shuttle Orbiter was the requirement that it be able to accommodate the largest planned spy satellites, and have the cross-range recovery range to meet classified USAF mission's requirement for a one-around abort for a polar launch." The most obvious bad design decision was to send cargo up in a manned mission. Manned vehicles cost a lot more per pound sent to space than unmanned so mixing the two increases the cost of sending stuff to orbit with zero real gain. The other issue is the requirement for a polar orbit. (Think Russia) Getting people to space is hard but doable getting people to space and a polar orbit is a much harder task that is a waste of resources 99% of the time.

Second "Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10 years' operational life." However, Discovery was built in 1985 its last flight is scheduled for 2010.

If you want a cheep reusable rocket rebuild the shuttle with 5% its cargo capacity, a slow reentry, and skip the polar orbit concept and you get a much larger safety margin and a much less extreme operating environment and a lower cost per person to orbit.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Both of the deadly shuttle accidents are directly attributable to the side-by-side nature of the orbiter and the fuel tanks and SRB's. This design should have been discarded. If the shuttle were stacked vertically, these particular failures would have been impossible.

Re:

[igjeff]

Actually, some of the comments are that there is at least a perception that ice damage has increased since the return to flight after Columbia.

The thought is that since they've added an extra hour into the countdown after the external tank is fueled that there is a longer time for ice to build up, and then a great tendency for it to break off and smack the orbiter.

Oh, and for another tidbit. Ice, since its denser, and heavier than the insulating foam, is a bigger problem than the foam is when it breaks off

wrong

[everphilski]

Oh, and for another tidbit. Ice, since its denser, and heavier than the insulating foam, is a bigger problem than the foam is when it breaks off. It takes a smaller chunk of ice to break off and smack the orbiter to cause an equivalent amount of damager to a larger chunk of foam.

Foam does more damage than ice. Ice is dense and keeps its velocity high, which translates to a low velocity relative to the shuttle. Foam on the other hand is much less dense and slows down very quickly, translating to high velocities relative to the shuttle.

Remember, kinetic energy = 0.5 * mass * V^2. Velocity is what kills, not mass.

Re:

[igjeff]

Ok, I'll buy that as being possible.

Only parroting comments I heard from folks while watching NASA TV (I've been playing with multicast on our network and NASA TV is a nice good stream to multicast around). Perhaps I should've clarified that statement as also being comments that I had heard from relatively authoritative sources...I don't mean to make any claims of absolutely truth on it.

There were also some references (if I remember correctly) to the velocity of whatever substance impacting the orbiter was

Re:

[everphilski]

That's not to say that ice does not cause damage; just that the physics of the flow field cause the foam to be more damaging contrary to intuition. It is pretty much consensus that a suitcase-sized piece of foam did Columbia in, and most sources I've heard this week are citing foam although I have heard ice thrown around.

Re:[AC]wrong

[everphilski]

It isn't momentum, again, it is kinetic energy that causes damage, KE = 0.5 * m * V^2. The velocity, squared, overcomes the density difference in short order. Again, go do some research on Columbia. It is consensus that foam did the damage.

Re:

[geekoid]

Don't try to explain physics to these dorks, they won't get it. Most of them consider /. the intellectual part of their day, right between belittling users and arguing if Batman could REALLY beat up Superman.

Re:

[Thuktun]

Foam does more damage than ice. Ice is dense and keeps its velocity high, which translates to a low velocity relative to the shuttle. Foam on the other hand is much less dense and slows down very quickly, translating to high velocities relative to the shuttle.

This argument makes no sense to me.

Ignoring air resistance, which won't be much different for similarly-shaped pieces, once detached from the shuttle, pieces of ice and foam would accelerate towards the ground at the same rate. The shuttle continues to accelerate upwards at the same rate relative to the two. Ice has higher density and would thereby accumulate consequently higher momentum and greater kinetic energy than the foam. Since ice is also much harder and would deform less, it would clearly be th

Re:wrong

[everphilski]

Ignoring air resistance, which won't be much different for similarly-shaped pieces, once detached from the shuttle, pieces of ice and foam would accelerate towards the ground at the same rate.

You can't ignore air resistance at low altitudes (the impact happened in the first 2 minutes) at supersonic speeds! Acceleration due to gravity is negligible due to the timeframe, we are talking fractions of a second. So for similarly shaped pieces, the drag force will be similar. The lighter piece, foam being much lighter than ice, will slow down very quickly. Now we approach the shuttle which has not slowed down. We have a large speed differential between the foam and the shuttle, whereas between the ice and the shuttle, there is very little speed difference.

solve the old fashioned way with a snowball fight

[viking80]

Lets solve this the old fashioned way with a snowball fight. Everyone on the 'foam is the cause' over to the left tile castle, and start throwing the foam balls. Everyone on the 'ice is the cause' over to the right tile castle, and start throwing the snow balls.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

Is it possible to find a way to launch the shuttle with the belly facing AWAY from the main tank? That way any impacts from ice or foam would strike surfaces not critical for reentry.

Re:

[smooth wombat]

Sure. Just open the cargo bay doors, mount the tank to braces on the inside and you'll solve the problem.

Granted, you won't be able to carry any cargo but at least you won't have to worry about falling bits of foam striking surfaces critical for reentry.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

Seeing as they have figured out how to attach the braces without compromising the heat shields I would guess engineers could figure out a way to do it without eliminating the cargo bay.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

Is it possible to find a way to launch the shuttle with the belly facing AWAY from the main tank?

Sure, if you redesign the entire thing. That tail sticking up kinda screws that idea.

That way any impacts from ice or foam would strike surfaces not critical for reentry.

'Non critical'. Like the windshields, flight controls, thinner skin of the body. Non critical stuff like that.

Re:

[Hoi Polloi]

Or moving the tank up past the tail fin and protecting only vital areas such as the cabin. The windshield is already heavily reinforced to protect against small orbital debris. You have to think of unconventional alternatives sometimes.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

Or moving the tank up past the tail fin and protecting only vital areas such as the cabin.

Again, you'd have to redesign the whole thing. The belly of the ship is like the frame on your car. The strongest part. You couldn't bolt the axles of your car to the roof, flip it over, and drive around. The roof would collapse. Similarly, you couldn't bolt the tank to the top skin of it, without major redesign.

The best way would be scrapping the side-by-side design altogether, and going with a stack. Which they a

Re:How long has this been happening?

[SomeGuyTyping]

from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_extern al_tank):

Development of the ETs thermal protection system has been problematic, and has proven a fatal weakness to shuttle mission safety. NASA has had difficulty preventing fragments of foam from detaching during flight, ever since a 1995 decision to remove chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-14) from the composition of the foam in compliance with an Environmental Protection Agency ban on CFCs under section 610 of the Clean Air Act. In its place, a hydrochlorofluorocarbon known as HCFC 141b was certified for use and phased into the shuttle program. The "new" foam containing HCFC 141b was first used on the aft dome portion of ET-82 during the flight of STS-79 in 1996. Use of HCFC 141b was expanded to the ETs acreage, or larger portions of the tank, starting with ET-88, which flew on STS-86 in 1997.

Re:

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I'm not saying I'm smarter than NASA scientists, but why don't they put some sort of protective layer on top of the tiles for launch, which later gets shed either in space or during re-entry?

Re:How long has this been happening?

[Mr. Slippery]

environmentalist groups got their way and now we have a riskier space program.

This point about how the foam insulation process was changed has come up many times in discussions about the damage to Endeavor. And it's wrong.

It has its origin in one of Rush Limbaugh's lies [mediamatters.org]. As it turns out, the foam that dealt Columbia the death blow was the old-style CFC foam. The problem was in the hand-spraying application method used on that area, which left gaps and voids in the foam.

Yes, when they first started using the CFC-free foam in 1997 there were some problems seen. Changes were quickly made to improve the adhesion.

There were also plenty of problems with the CFC foam - "popcorning" from trapped air bubbled was noted in 1995 [newscientist.com], while in 1992 Columbia was struck by a large piece of foam, ripping a 12cm gouge in the tiles. Both of these were before the switch to CFC-free foam.

Re:How long has this been happening?

[Moridineas]

Did you even read what you linked to?

Limbaugh says "there's a theory going around" and after explaining it says "a lot of people are beginning to think that the banning of Freon actually caused the shuttle accident, the Columbia shuttle accident, two flights ago. And I'm inclined to believe it when I hear this." This was on August 3rd, according to media matters. At this point the NASA report had not been released yet--it wouldn't be fully released for months! There was nothing to lie about!

Can someone really "lie" when they say "there's a theory I'm inclined to believe" ?

But I suppose it's just much easier to hysterically claim that Rush Limbaugh both originated the theory AND lied about it that to actually read your own link though!

Endeavour:

[kaleco]

"it's just a flesh wound"

Re:

[superstick58]

"I've had worse!"

Re:Endeavour:

[ashitaka]

"No it isn't!, Your wings come off!"

Riding the TGV to hell.

Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[TripMaster Monkey]

On NPR this morning, I heard that NASA was actually debating whether or not to even address this, as they did not want to go to all the trouble and spoil the shuttle's schedule.

This sounded especially insane to me...if NASA loses another shuttle because of this same tile-damage problem, and because they couldn't be bothered to take the time to fix the problem when they could have, it will be the end of NASA.

Re:Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[datan]

maybe we should leave the rocket scientist stuff to real rocket scientists...

Re:

[russ1337]

>>>... maybe we should leave the rocket scientist stuff to real rocket scientists...

I dunno. I think the Slashdot crowd would make for interesting space program management.

Couldn't be much worse....

Re:Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[Anonymous Coward]

It always amuses me how the masses sitting on the sidelines always feel they can do better then the trained professionals. I'm assuming you've already done the calculations between risk of the loss of them doing a spacewalk vs tile damage, where the tile is positioned, and taken into account the fact before Columbia that tiles fell off without incident. I could be wrong, but I'm just as qualified as you are. So is the guy I bought a hotdog from yesturday for that matter.

This would be like my mom telling me she can do computer support better then me. She's a smart lady, but her KNOWLEDGE level when it comes to Computers is low.

Re:

[Stormcrow309]

As a trained project manager,I have to take issue with this statement. I do think that NASA suffers from management who makes risk calculations with too much consideration of 'the schedule' verses the risk of life. However, NASA has done a valid risk mitigation step by examining the shuttle after takeoff and trying to determine what to do. Most sensible people can do the risk management required by asking a few questions. What is the risks? What are the chance of those risks being realized? How can we mitig

Re:

[pragma_x]

I think the Slashdot crowd would make for interesting space program management.

Poll: Preferred Shuttle Heat-Shield Repair Technology

• NASA developed tile repair goo
• Spare heat-shield tiles
• Switch to ablative shielding instead
• Inanimate carbon rod
• Modulated tachyon pulse
• Whatever Cowboy Neil had for lunch

That was the problem

[ipjohnson]

the rocket scientist weren't allowed to do there jobs before smart ass.

Re:Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[grommit]

You do realize that the Shuttle has landed many times before the Columbia disaster with whole tiles missing. This most likely is a non-issue although I'm glad NASA is treating it seriously. Besides, these tiles are on the belly of the orbiter. The damaged RCC panels on Columbia were on the leading edge of a wing where there are greater temperatures on reentry.

I don't think you realize the inherent danger in attempting to fix these either.

Re:

[YGingras]

Can't they plug the hole with some kind of high-tech epoxy goo? I'm sure that avoiding the extra air turbulence that this hole will generate can't hurt.

Re:Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[jafac]

I still feel strongly that they should attempt a repair, in this case.

First and foremost - if there is a small chance of catastrophic loss of vehicle, then measures should be taken to prevent that.

But Secondly - and possibly more importantly; how many more shuttle flights will there be? What if there is more serious damage on the next flight? And we still have never tested the repair techniques?

I think that this damage is a perfect opportunity for NASA to do what it does best: testing new aerospace technologies - and in this case, repair of shuttle heat-shield damage. The repair job will be a great opportunity to learn new EVA skills and techniques. After the shuttle is safely down, the repair job can be studied, and evaluated for how it held up during re-entry, and I think that is valuable science that wouldn't otherwise be done.

To *not* repair this damage, is short-sighted in two ways: It's hoping that the damage to Endeavor isn't fatal, and it's hoping that the next mission to get damaged, also does not require repairs, and if it does, that we will get the repair right the first time, when we've never ever done anything remotely like it before.

Re:Err on the side of caution...don't you think?

[Richard W.M. Jones]

The tile was then passed from student to student. As I said above, it was as hard as ceramic and as light as styrofoam. Even if an astronaut hit a tile deliberately with a sharp instrument, it is unlikely they could damage it.

I'm not sure what your teacher was showing you, but the Shuttle tiles are quite definitely fragile. See these articles:

If by any chance you do need to contact the tile with your hands, we would require only gentle hand reaction alone. We want you to distribute the load over several fingers or the backs of the fingers. Source [spaceflightnow.com]

[The tile is] a rather soft piece of material. You can easily scratch it with your fingernail. It has ... a very thin layer of fiberglass on the outside. It's a fabulous insulator and NASA gave it to us to use as an insulator for an experiment we were doing. We were working at high temperatures and needed an extremely good insulator. So I had this tile sitting on my desk and it was a curiosity all along. And then it became much more meaningful when I realized that, gee, it wouldn't be very difficult at all to damage this. I could probably, with my finger, break through it. Source [princeton.edu]

The only known technology in the early 1970s with the required thermal and weight characteristics was also so fragile, due to the very low density, that one could easily crush a TPS tile by hand. Source [wikipedia.org]

Rich.

Re:

[Lumpy]

greater tempreatures AND pressure differentials. at the leading edges the pressure differential from outside the wing to the inside is HUGE a gap will cause the heat to be sucked into the wing area. Basically the problem happened because everything that could have gone wrong and caused the failure, happened. It was bad damage, and was at a location that enhanced the problem during reentry.

Honestly it could be fixed with a loss of payload capacity, put in an emergency ablative system in place, a set of mi

Re:

[everphilski]

They are in the wind tunnel doing test studies on a similar gouge crafted from the laser data taken on Monday. The Shuttle people know what they are doing. You have to remember, this gouge was downgraded from the size stated earlier this week, its only about the size of a business card, half the size that was being reported on Monday and less a quarter of the size that was thought to have dealt Columbia in.

You also have to consider position. This is at the very rear of the vehicle. Reentry heating evironm

Re:

[couchslug]

"it will be the end of NASA."

Good. Space exploration is more important than a few casualties. If we must lose a Shuttle to dump that idiotic program, than that's what it takes. It's time we got rid of the desire to shove humans out in front of unmanned systems, but people are stupid so it may take a bloody nose.

NASA can turn into something else, because the people running it have the wrong priorities.
We don't need meat in space right now because it is a drag on techno-evolution.
Manned systems must have slow

Re:

[markov_chain]

it will be the end of NASA.

Or the end of the space shuttle, which wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Re:

[TripMaster Monkey]

They could have lost astronauts during the EVA to fix the Hubble, but they went and fixed it just the same.

So, are you saying preventative maintenance to help raise the odds of all the astronauts coming home safely is less important than a telescope?

Re:

[catbutt]

I'm sure they have consistant ways of calculating costs vs benefits vs safety, that are better than your simplistic, knee-jerk intuition.

If we viewed it as all black and white, and safety trumped everything, we'd never go into space, right? But even if only calculating safety, it may well be that in this case, the best decision is to not fix it. Since this has happened many times before on the shuttle belly, they've done the math, and they have calculated that the risk is minimal to non-existant. Meanw

Is it so urgent?

[FishWithAHammer]

Perhaps I'm missing something (and I'm sure I am), but perhaps this is something of a blessing?

Leave Endeavour in orbit. Compared to the big-mother boosters, the shuttle itself does not require a lot of fuel, and given the smaller size of the next-generation craft we're looking at, I could see a use for a "space truck" the size of Endeavour, even after the shuttle program does out the door.

Just send up something else to bring them home.

Re:

[Brane2]

There is "only" one problem with that suggestion: Shuttle can't stay indefinitely in orbit.
IIRC it is rated for week or two at the most.

Re:

[Boilermaker84]

It is a resource issue. This mission is 14 days with some additional days in reserve for bad weather issues with landing. That limitation is mostly a crew environment issue (need to generate water and oxygen, have food on hand, etc.)

The vehicle could stay up longer in an unmanned configuration, but still has limited fuel resources to run the OMS. The shuttle just isn't designed to go anywhere but orbit and back.

Re:

[everphilski]

More like a month or two, disconnected from ISS, though it would not be fun. If shit hit the fan, the backup plan is to fast-track the next orbiter for a rescue mission. Or at least that is my understanding.

Re:

[Himring]

I could see a use for a "space truck"

The Space Shuttles are more like "space tubes."

Re:Is it so urgent?

[Chris Burke]

I could see a use for a "space truck" the size of Endeavour, even after the shuttle program does out the door.

Oh sure, but you know how it is. As soon as your buddies find out you have a space truck they'll want you to help move their space sofas into their new space condo.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

The reason for the landing gear part is because that is a 1 shot deal. The Shuttle must be going less than 300kts when the gear is deployed. And there is no 'retract'. Once the gear is deployed, that's it. It can only be raised in ground operations. And you cannot reenter with the gear down. And after reentry, above 300kts you might tear the gear off. If the computer burps at the wrong time, scratch one shuttle.
For just about every other problem, there is a workaround. Fire the reentry rockets at the wrong

Exclusive images?

[jdhutchins]

I wouldn't call those too exclusive.... look at the "3D Video of Endeavour Tile Damage" video on this page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/ind ex.html [nasa.gov]

Neptec's own website, too

[SuperBanana]

look at the "3D Video of Endeavour Tile Damage" video on this page [of nasa's website]

Or on Neptec's own website [neptec.com].

Why can't slashdot accept stories that directly link to the content, instead of forcing us to go through Roland's inane commentary?

Re:

[MobyDisk]

When did NASA start using RealVideo? I thought they used to use standard formats. Yay, my tax dollars at work undermining standards to prop-up proprietary formats.

Exclusive? Yeah right...

[ExE122]

I bet those are pictures of Roland's bathroom floor.

--
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, its called facism.

How big is each tile?

[Ayanami Rei]

It's only two tiles that are damaged, but how big are they in the first place?
They're not done running simulations for the effect on re-entry, but that non-smooth edge between the two damaged tiles in the gouge would worry me no matter the outcome with that much more friction and eddying.

Re:

[jridley]

If they're typical tiles and they haven't drastically changed things from the demo they have down in Florida that I looked at 10 years ago, they're 3 or 4 inches on a side. The NPR story this morning said the gouge was 3" long.

It looks borderline to me. I think they've successfully landed with much bigger gouges or missing tiles in the past, but it probably depends on WHERE the gouge is. If it's in a flat part of the belly, it's probably not a problem. If it's near a leading edge, more of a problem.

Re:

[wytcld]

it probably depends on WHERE the gouge is

Where, and what the turbulence pattern will be there, and how much heat will be directed right to that small spot of bare metal skin. Then there's the question of whether they have good enough computer models to predict that to any accuracy; or whether minute changes in angle-of-approach and so forth render the chances essentially random. Since they have a patch kit, they'll be fools not to use it - unless the patch could itself deform into a funnel channeling the fi

If Richard Feynman were alive today...

[Ayanami Rei]

... he'd be standing on top of a table right now screaming about something, NASA shuttle in space or not. He was a pretty intense kind of guy who could get away with standing on tables, soap boxes, and other tall things.

Re:

[bitfarmer]

... he'd be standing on top of a table right now screaming about something, NASA shuttle in space or not. He was a pretty intense kind of guy who could get away with standing on tables, soap boxes, and other tall things.

True. He was a passionate guy who cared about things like that. He also had startling insight and an annoying habit of being right most of the time.

Direct link to the images.

[roman_mir]

Image 1 [blogsforcompanies.com]
Thermal Image [blogsforcompanies.com]
Image 2 [blogsforcompanies.com]
Image 3 [blogsforcompanies.com]
Image extracted from a video made by Neptec LCS [blogsforcompanies.com]

Re:

[pragma_x]

The thermal images you linked have to be the scariest of the the set. The center of the gash is clearly not insulated as it's a dramatically different temperature than the exposed tile material around it. IMO, it illustrates how bad the situation is better than the optical images we've all become familiar with thus far.

I'm convinced. Attempting to land this orbiter without repair would be like attempting the same with the windows open.

Re:

[Dashing Leech]

That's absolutely correct. It's not thermal. If you look at the article or go to the source images on Neptec's site (and caption info), you'll notice it says it's a false-color depth image, meaning the color indicates it's depth below the surface according to the scale on the side. The damage is about 1.2 inches deep and a little bigger than your thumb in diameter.

This isn't really an issue of insulation. It's the disturbance of laminar flow. The laminar boundary layer is actually quite a good insula

A good public debate

[cryfreedomlove]

I like the fact that our society is open enough that this information and this debate is public. There are many governments in this world today who would not allow this information to be released and would make the decision based on cloaked objectives and goals. The USA has its problems (e.g. the stupidity of Iraq) but it sets us apart that this is happening in the open. Nobody is going to get arrested for debating or questioning this intense and sensitive topic.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your comment. It has been analyzed and approved by the NSA and the CIA. A copy of your comment (and your voting record) will be kept on backup indefinately at our Langley VA storage facility.

Without a scale...

[argStyopa]

Without a scale to compare to, the gouge looks HUGE and devastating.

I've heard on the radio that they are discussing a roughly 3" scrape....which, if scaled to the longest axis, is objectively pretty small, but when considered against the turbulence, heat, and pressure that those belly tiles are faced with? It looks huge and devastating again.

Those astronauts have balls of steel if they ride that thing down again.

Re:Without a scale...

[Volante3192]

Astronauts have balls of steel to begin with. Two sets. You're sitting, surrounded by just how much in explosive fuel? Blasted into one of the most uninhabitable climates for human survival. (Ranks up there with volcano caldera and bottom of ocean...) Then set on a 100 mile free fall course to the Earth, the same trip many meteors take, and burn up well before hitting the ground most of the time.

And yet I so want to do it for myself...

Re:

[cyphercell]

Astronauts have balls of steel to begin with. Two sets. You're sitting, surrounded by just how much in explosive fuel?

Smart and Brave, hell the thought of sitting on two sets of steel balls both confuses me and puts fear in my heart.

Of course I'm sure when they're old their sacks hand down to their ankles.

Re:

[192939495969798999]

Don't forget the stomach of steel too... can you imagine what it feels like to be permanently suspended in the "barfy" state that most upside-down roller coasters do for just an instant?

... and built by the lowest bidder (original?)

[argent]

OK, what's the original quote, and was it Shepard or Glenn? Or was this just too good a line for any of the Right Stuff mob to pass up?

"When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.'"

"I felt about as good as anybody would, sitting in a capsule on top of a rocket that were both built by the lowest bidder." (Senator John Glenn, Colonel USMC, Retired)

"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." -- Alan Shepard.

More information

[AkumaReloaded]

More information on the size and use of the anti-heat tiles or High-temperature reusable surface insulation (HRSI) can be found in this article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle_thermal _protection_system [wikipedia.org]

It seems they are not that big, and I do not think one or 2 damaged tiles whould have a massive effect on the safety of the shuttle. However if someone leaked that tiles were damaged (no matter how few tiles) and NASA did not act on it, the public would be outraged. So perhaps NASA th

*Yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are some dinky little low resolution pics. Here's one of Endeavor with the Earth as backdrop [nasa.gov], today's NASA "Image of the day". Yesterday's [nasa.gov] is spacewalking astronaut Rick Mastracchio fixing something outside the space station. Here it is [nasa.gov] taking off, and here's another liftoff pic. [nasa.gov] These are all of the present mission that's still up there inspecting tiles. Here [nasa.gov] is the "Image of the day" gallery. These are bigassed, high resolution pictures, most of them breathtaking.

-mcgrew

Delicate tiles

[electromaggot]

What's interesting is how delicate the tiles are. I saw a presentation by a NASA guy some time ago and I was allowed to hold the tiles. They're extremely light, almost feeling like their core is some kind of foam. The black ceramic layer on top is surprisingly thin.

I asked the presenter specifically about how delicate they felt. He then "flicked"/snapped the tile with his finger/fingernail, which put a sizeable dent into the tile, easily cracking the brittle black layer, and you could see the white foam underneath.

Therefore, it's no surprise to me to see this kind of damage. It probably wasn't even impacted with what could be considered excessive force.

Makes you wonder what kind of tile damage shuttles had -- all those successfully landed shuttle missions -- before such close scrutiny.

Roland Piquepaille?

[LordSnooty]

Blimey, he's done well for himself. All those /. links to his blog did some good.

Portrait

[njfuzzy]

Okay, this is a silly thing to point out, but it is driving me crazy. Why on earth does Roland P.'s portrait on ZDNet have obviously drawn-in yellow glasses???

Re:

[Radon360]

When I saw those ugly yellow frames along with the yellow shirt and plastered comb-over, the first thought that crossed my mind was he's gunning for a role in one of those Vytorin commercials (you know, where they compare a person with a goofy wardrobe with some entree). The question is, what dish would they match him up with? A banana split?

Repair Kit?

[Darth Muffin]

As part of reinstating the Shuttle fleet, didn't NASA put a repair kit onboard for just this type of thing? If they say it's not a big deal I'd have to believe them, it's probably a very common occurrence. However, how hard can it be to go EVA and trowel in some space-spackle just to cover their butts?

Ol' Bricks and Wings

[Paulrothrock]

It's sad that we have to do this on EVERY launch when we had developed a perfectly good system where the heat shield was covered for the entire time it wasn't in use.

What, precisely, was wrong with the capsule system that necessitated the development of something that can *gasp* glide to a landing? How have we saved money by building a reusable craft when it costs a billion dollars a launch?

Re:

[geekoid]

"...was wrong with the capsule system that necessitated the development of something that can *gasp* glide to a landing? "

Size, risk, recovery costs. Well, when you calculate the cost of a single use capsule that can make deliveries to the Space Station, launch satellite, used to repair satellites, THEN you can do a cost analysis. Saying we have or have not 'lost' money compared to some non-existent thing, or that using a capsule wouldn't have cost more lives is a logical fallacy.

Re:

[scharkalvin]

At the time of its' design, the Space Shuttle made a lot of sense. The original concept called for full horizontal takeoff and landing with ALL parts being reusable. Due to cost over runs we ended up with the system we currently have. The original idea was to have an air breathing booster taking off from a runway which would fly up to the top of the stratosphere at which point it would switch to rocket power and climb up to a sub-orbital arc and release the orbiter. The 'booster-naults' would then guide

Re:

[Mannerism]

Nay, 'tis not to be. Like Lance before him, he too shall continue to plague the Earth's surface.

Re:

[operagost]

I'm amazed you don't know.

The pictures are pretty amazing and make the urgency of this whole thing much more amazing.

File it under "The Redundancy Department of Redundancy" and move on!

Re:The solution.

[east coast]

We'z gonna fix yo bucket! What we haz right here is a crack in da tile instead of crack in da vile.

Word! Pass dat pipe, homie.

Re:[AC]THIS IS INSANITY!

[everphilski]

Leave the launching to the Europeans, they're the only ones who seem to be able to get it right.

Whens the last time the Europeans have launched humans into space? *crickets* ...

April 10, 2007

[C10H14N2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_TMA-10 [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[everphilski]

Charles Siymoni purchased a ticket on the Soyuz, which is lauched by the Russians.

Russia is a European country.

[C10H14N2]

The vast majority of the Russian population is west of the Urals [wikipedia.org], making them Europeans by definition. Most of those European Russians are Slavic [wikipedia.org], which is by definition also European. So, you're right, a European purchased a ticket on a European-built spacecraft, launched in Central Asia by the Europeans who were the first to put a man in orbit [wikipedia.org], were the first to launch a space station [wikipedia.org] and still hold the record for longest orbital habitation [wikipedia.org], which of course proves that only Americans can succeed at space

Re:

[Volante3192]

Never heard of tiles coming off the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo capsules either.

There's something to be said for that whole 'protecting the heat shield on launch' design. Don't get me wrong, I love the shuttle, and I'm sure they meant very well when it was designed (hell, I'd've gone for it) but now that they've been stuck with it the flaws really start to stand out. Clipper ship in space is right; beautiful lines...but who uses clipper ships anymore?

nothing changed

[everphilski]

Probability of a critical hit doomed Columbia, and it has been protocol to check for damage before re-entry ever since. The media then keeps tabs on Nasa TV and the press conferences and blows it into a huge deal, regardless of severity.

Its like Jim Lovell's wife said in Apollo 13 (rough, sorry, its been awhile): "No one was interested in his transmission, but now that they are up there and in trouble the world is interested?" ... "Get off my lawn! If they have a problem with it they can take it up with J

Re:

[east coast]

Nowadays they spend more money and time examining their own machinery than examining the space.

While I'm sure the holes in the tiles of the shuttle is not part of NASA's plan I think it's actually a very useful part of the mission.

We need to get beyond this whole concept of sending up the best and the brightest and throwing gobs of money at the program. We need to get to the point where we will have establishments (most likely lunar at first) where we're going to have real workers and not just high end e