NASA decides not to fix heat tiles on shuttle
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293424,00.html
NASA Clears Endeavour to Fly Home Without Repairs to Heat Shield Gouge
Thursday , August 16, 2007
NASA has decided that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour's belly and the space shuttle is safe to fly home.
Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision Thursday right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty - both in orbit and on Earth.
"Please pass along our thanks for all the hard work," radioed Endeavour's commander, Scott Kelly.
After meeting for five hours, mission managers opted Thursday night against any risky spacewalk repairs, after receiving the results of one final thermal test. The massive amount of data indicated Endeavour would suffer no serious structural damage during next week's re-entry. So how much damage is considered acceptable?
Their worry was not that Endeavour might be destroyed and its seven astronauts killed in a replay of the Columbia disaster - the gouge is too small to be catastrophic. They were concerned that the heat of re-entry could weaken the shuttle's aluminum frame at the damaged spot and result in lengthy postflight repairs.
The space shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003 when hot atmospheric gases seeped into a hole in its wing and melted the wing from the inside out.
Endeavour's bottom thermal shielding was pierced by a piece of debris that broke off the external fuel tank shortly after liftoff last week. The debris, either foam insulation, ice or a combination of both, weighed just one-third of an ounce but packed enough punch to carve out a 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long), 2-inch-wide (5-centimeter-wide) gouge and dig all the way through the thermal tiles. Left completely exposed was a narrow 1-inch (2.5-centimeter) strip of the overlying felt fabric, the last barrier before the shuttle's aluminum structure.
The only way to fix the gouge would have been to send a pair of spacewalking astronauts out with black paint and caulk-like goo, and maneuver them beneath the shuttle on the end of a 100-foot (30-meter) robotic arm and extension boom, with few if any close-up camera views of the work.
The spacewalk would have had added risk, so much so that mission managers did not want to attempt it unless absolutely necessary. Wednesday's spacewalk, cut short by an astronaut's ripped glove, showed how hazardous even a relatively routine spacewalk can be.
Earlier, astronaut Alvin Drew said from Endeavour that he was comfortable with the prospect of flying back to Earth in a gouged ship. Engineers seem confident, he said, "and I trust their confidence that we can get home safely even with the divot that we have in the belly."
"Spaceflight is risky," noted astronaut Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher for Challenger's doomed mission, "but we have all confidence that we're going to be able to do the right thing."
But a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who served on the Columbia investigation board four years ago, Stanford University's Douglas Osheroff, questioned NASA's hesitancy to perform the repairs since they "can only increase their chances of making it down."
I don't see why NASA is going to invent a fix and not use it," Osheroff said. He added: "This attitude of, 'It looks like it's OK, let's not do anything about it,' it seems like the Columbia NASA."
In a poignant reminder of NASA's other shuttle accident, the 1986 Challenger launch explosion, Morgan - Christa McAuliffe's backup - answered questions from youngsters gathered at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Virginia.
The moderator was June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger's commander and the founding chairman of the Challenger center's board. "Barb, we have been standing by waiting for your signal from space for 21 years," she said.
One girl asked if Morgan had a special teacher or mentor when she was young.
"Some of my mentors that have meant more than anything to me are seven very special people who I believe are mentors to you, too, and that was the Challenger crew," Morgan replied.
Morgan closed the teaching session by holding up an emblem of the Challenger crew's mission patch.
Hope this won't be a decision they come to regret! How can the "risk" of a space walk be greater than the "risk" of burning up on reentry? If I was aboard that shuttle, I'd be a little nervous about now. Confidence in NASA? What a joke!
NASA Clears Endeavour to Fly Home Without Repairs to Heat Shield Gouge
Thursday , August 16, 2007
NASA has decided that no repairs are needed for a deep gouge in Endeavour's belly and the space shuttle is safe to fly home.
Mission Control notified the seven shuttle astronauts of the decision Thursday right before they went to sleep, putting an end to a week of engineering analyses and anxious uncertainty - both in orbit and on Earth.
"Please pass along our thanks for all the hard work," radioed Endeavour's commander, Scott Kelly.
After meeting for five hours, mission managers opted Thursday night against any risky spacewalk repairs, after receiving the results of one final thermal test. The massive amount of data indicated Endeavour would suffer no serious structural damage during next week's re-entry. So how much damage is considered acceptable?
Their worry was not that Endeavour might be destroyed and its seven astronauts killed in a replay of the Columbia disaster - the gouge is too small to be catastrophic. They were concerned that the heat of re-entry could weaken the shuttle's aluminum frame at the damaged spot and result in lengthy postflight repairs.
The space shuttle Columbia was destroyed in 2003 when hot atmospheric gases seeped into a hole in its wing and melted the wing from the inside out.
Endeavour's bottom thermal shielding was pierced by a piece of debris that broke off the external fuel tank shortly after liftoff last week. The debris, either foam insulation, ice or a combination of both, weighed just one-third of an ounce but packed enough punch to carve out a 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long), 2-inch-wide (5-centimeter-wide) gouge and dig all the way through the thermal tiles. Left completely exposed was a narrow 1-inch (2.5-centimeter) strip of the overlying felt fabric, the last barrier before the shuttle's aluminum structure.
The only way to fix the gouge would have been to send a pair of spacewalking astronauts out with black paint and caulk-like goo, and maneuver them beneath the shuttle on the end of a 100-foot (30-meter) robotic arm and extension boom, with few if any close-up camera views of the work.
The spacewalk would have had added risk, so much so that mission managers did not want to attempt it unless absolutely necessary. Wednesday's spacewalk, cut short by an astronaut's ripped glove, showed how hazardous even a relatively routine spacewalk can be.
Earlier, astronaut Alvin Drew said from Endeavour that he was comfortable with the prospect of flying back to Earth in a gouged ship. Engineers seem confident, he said, "and I trust their confidence that we can get home safely even with the divot that we have in the belly."
"Spaceflight is risky," noted astronaut Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher for Challenger's doomed mission, "but we have all confidence that we're going to be able to do the right thing."
But a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who served on the Columbia investigation board four years ago, Stanford University's Douglas Osheroff, questioned NASA's hesitancy to perform the repairs since they "can only increase their chances of making it down."
I don't see why NASA is going to invent a fix and not use it," Osheroff said. He added: "This attitude of, 'It looks like it's OK, let's not do anything about it,' it seems like the Columbia NASA."
In a poignant reminder of NASA's other shuttle accident, the 1986 Challenger launch explosion, Morgan - Christa McAuliffe's backup - answered questions from youngsters gathered at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Virginia.
The moderator was June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger's commander and the founding chairman of the Challenger center's board. "Barb, we have been standing by waiting for your signal from space for 21 years," she said.
One girl asked if Morgan had a special teacher or mentor when she was young.
"Some of my mentors that have meant more than anything to me are seven very special people who I believe are mentors to you, too, and that was the Challenger crew," Morgan replied.
Morgan closed the teaching session by holding up an emblem of the Challenger crew's mission patch.
Hope this won't be a decision they come to regret! How can the "risk" of a space walk be greater than the "risk" of burning up on reentry? If I was aboard that shuttle, I'd be a little nervous about now. Confidence in NASA? What a joke!
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And another teacher is on board!
Can anyone say REPEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!![:(]0 -
I could understand not doing a plate repair job over the top of the crack. Screwing the plate could bust more tile. Gluing the plate would seem logical OR filling the crack up with the heat resistant goo.. Not doing anything at all could be fatal. The heat is going to enter the shuttle on entry. IF the crack becomes larger or a whole area is compromised.. well Columbia all over. 0 -
I went to a space camp and i learned about Columbia and Challenger crash. Columbia had a huge hole on the spot where the most heat goes on it during reentry. This shuttle only has about three-two and a half inch gash on the spot where it gets the least heat so i think but i am not totally sure but it should only do a little damage not crasing like Columbia. I do not think it will be a repeat. 0 -
SOMEBODY at NASA doesn't like teachers!
Seriously, that's got to be a mistake. Maybe
common sense just doesn't apply here.
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Urethane adhesives that hold the windshields in vehicles now came from space shuttle tile holding technology.
All they need is to take one tile....spooge some urethane onto it....do a space walk and smack it over the problem area....upon re-entry the adhesive will hold and protect the area.
....But NASA quit paying people with Common Sense or Rocket Scientists decades ago....those people are dead.
There will be those that say 10 years ago we didn't have the technology to look around the shuttle in Space.......5 years ago there was half as much junk in space in low earth orbit that was a threat to human space travel.
Too much junk up there.0 -
ok if it bugs you all that much they are planning to ditch the shuttle program in 2010 and they want to go back to some thing like the apollo programs rocketswith the capsuls. 0 -
Screw what the ground says. If I were up there I am going out and caulk it up. Seems to me the radio is not coming in too well... 0 -
The Columbia space shuttle got hit by foam on the carbon carbon spot on the wing not on the under belly like it is now. (Carbon Carbon is actually how you spell it it is not a mis-print) 0 -
quote:Originally posted by M44_Kid
ok if it bugs you all that much they are planning to ditch the shuttle program in 2010 and they want to go back to some thing like the apollo programs rocketswith the capsuls.
When does school start? Space camp huh? I bet they put you in the weighless chamber. NASA has and is still continuing to upgrade the Shuttles to a new program. That is old news. Rockwell International , McDonald Douglas have already made prototype units that have failed testing. Back to the drawing board. BTW, I am a retired Aerospace Machinist who made parts directly for NASA. I would be curious what they did tell you was the reason for the Columbia disaster? What did they say Challenger's issue was?0 -
there was a video on youtube that showed an expirement on Columbia disaster and how it hit the wing. I dont remember what they said about the Challenger. But school starts on the 21st.[:)] 0 -
Heat (missing) resistant tile + bottom of shuttle + HOLE + 2300+ ?F re-entry temperature ...
Nah - I don't see a problem, either.
http://www.escwa.org.lb/nfb/index.asp
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BTW the space camp was at the Kansas cosmosphere if you ever get a chance to go there it is in Hutchinson,Kansas they have an awesome museum!![:D] They also have some other stuff to do also that is pretty fun!!![:D][:D][:D][:p] 0 -
If it blows up on re-entry, someone is gonna have some 'splaining to do....
Godspeed to the astronauts0
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