Shuttle mission

[shorty943]

I see the latest news is a 3 day extension to the mission, to check on the damaged tiles.
Whether the hole will hold up in their test facility. Let's hope so, get them all home safe again. Although at a pinch NASA says they can get another shuttle up to them in a month.
Stay onboard the space station for a month.

Hm, I wouldn't mind spending a month up there, not in the least. Better than a month in a damned submarine, at least it's got windows.

[Greg]

I have been watching the flight on NASA TV. No clue yet about how serious problem with the Shuttle is. If there is a big problem and they can't fly that Shuttle home, then NASA will have some major problems with the space station program. The crew should be all right, though.

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

I have been watching the flight on NASA TV. No clue yet about how serious problem with the Shuttle is. If there is a big problem and they can't fly that Shuttle home, then NASA will have some major problems with the space station program. The crew should be all right, though.

Mutter mumble curse.

Bloody NASA TV, doesn't play nice with Linux.


According to local news, no one is worried about crew safety all that much, at the moment. The crew can stay in the ISS, for a month. There is another shuttle, that can be sent up to bring them home. As long as it doesn't get damaged on launch too.
There can't be too many "carport" spaces left though. No problem finding some where to park, but docking? How many docking air-locks have they got up there.

That must be some foam. I whacked a ceramic tile with a piece of foam last night.

Didn't worry the tile.
Maybe NASA could have a look at my tiles.

[mikedelaney16]

Originally Posted by shorty943

That must be some foam. I whacked a ceramic tile with a piece of foam last night.

Didn't worry the tile.
Maybe NASA could have a look at my tiles.

I'm pretty sure your whack didn't produce an impact velocity of several thousand mph though.

[shorty943]

Yes, that thought had crossed my mind too.

But, what the hell.

[Greg]

They said the impact velocity was about 300 ft/sec, but the mass of a chunk of foam traveling at that speed wouldn't have made a hole that big, so they're still puzzling over that one.

During the EVA to install the new CMG today, they told the crew that they are going to try to clear the anomaly by analysis. They'll do EVA #3 as planned (#2 was today) and the tile repair, if required, won't be before EVA #4.

I'm not too worried about the crew either, because they have the option of catching the next flight. It's the irreplaceable Orbiter that worries me.

They need that vehicle to finish building the space station. Some of the coolest parts are still on the ground taking up space at the space station processing facility. And besides, even if it suffers from a critical design flaw, the Space Shuttle is still the most incredibly cool flying machine yet.

I don't know what would be the impact of launching a rescue mission. They could launch with the next payload and just 2 pilots and hence avoid missing an important assembly flight, but the current crew aren't trained in the mission.

[Greg]

Oh... and just so that they won't be nameless and faceless, here are the seven crewmembers of STS-118:


Left to right: Mission specialists Richard A. (Rick) Mastracchio, Barbara R. Morgan, Pilot Charles O. Hobaugh, Commander Scott J. Kelly and mission specialists Tracy E. Caldwell, Canadian Space Agency's Dafydd R. (Dave) Williams, and Alvin Drew Jr.
Credit: NASA.

[shorty943]

Nice photo that one, isn't it. Pretty lady, Dr. Caldwell, very bright lady.

Digression complete.


300 ft\sec. Pretty standard rifle muzzle velocity, I don't see a chunk of "Styrofoam" doing that much damage to a ceramic tile. Okay, not your common or garden variety terracotta kitchen tile, or your Handy Dandy Foam Cooler, or Esky, as we call them. But still it has to be tougher than a chunk of foam.

Sack the bloke that insulates the fuel tanks? Three out of the last four launches, this has happened. Something or someone is faulty, loose it.

And as for the flying machine. Oh yes indeed, I started in a Cessna 150 Aerobat, flying instructor was RAAF fast jet pilot. My best is 500 kn, at FL35, in a Boeing 727-200.
Do you have any idea how much I'd like to fly big beautiful white bird.

I'm having trouble typing, just thinking about that lurch backwards, then that arse kicking boost. Oh how I would love to fly that craft.

So, NASA, bring them all home safe please.

[Greg]

It's a problem with the basic design for the fuel tank's insulation. With cryogenic fuel inside, water vapor from the atmosphere condenses and forms ice, which forces the insulation to debond from the tank. It's especially a problem for the Space Shuttle because the Orbiter is mounted to the side of the tank instead of on top where it ought to be. That's why NASA will stop flying the Space Shuttle in 2010 even in the new Crew Exporation Vehicle isn't ready.

[shorty943]

Surely, they are twin hulled, at least, vacuum sealed a la "Thermos flask"?
Something a little more advanced than 3M Quick Grip for adhesive?
And they still can't keep her shirt on.

I know her fuel, LOX and the beach bums favourite chemical
Hydrogen Peroxide.
Lox I know from carrier work.
Saw an aircraft handler drop, a fighter jet LOX cylinder once. Instantly opened an 8 foot long crack in 2 1\2 inches of armour plate flight deck.
And the other one lives in my first aid kit for wound cleaning.

The Star Lifter and Galaxy, come into Alice Springs Airport, on a regular basis for the "Space Base" at Pine Gap just south of the Alice.
Maybe NASA need a less tropical assembly and launch site?
Somewhere, where the average yearly humidity is in the minus range.
Like, maybe somewhere not too far north west of me?
Like, oh say.
The Simpson Desert.
The Great Sandy Desert.
The Tanami Desert. (pronounced tan a my)
The Great Victoria Desert.

[Greg]

No, it's just a layer of aluminum with the foam insulation sprayed on.

The Saturn V, or rather the SIV-B stage of it, had a twin hull with cork in between as insulation but on the Space Shuttle they tried to save weight and cost. Obviously this was not the best choice, but the designers thought it was a pretty good idea at the time and the program's budget was severely limited compared to earlier space development.

Yes, a less humid launch site would really help. The western deserts of Australia might not be a good choice, though. It wouldn't be very polite to drop boosters on Sydney and Cairns.

[Miros1]

Anyone ever done anything with the idea of taking the external tanks all the way into orbit for space station components?

[Greg]

There has been a lot of discussion and some very weak science fiction written based on using Space Shuttle external tanks as space station modules, but nothing serious.

We don't know what condition an exernal tank is in when it reaches orbit, but we do know that it has been through the worst possible environment. In just a few minutes, the tank has gone from being cryogenically cold-soaked to exposed to about 250°F in sunlight, almost guaranteed to create lots and lots of cracks.

I'm sure it would be useful as scrap metal, though, if we had a use for scrap metal in orbit.

[shorty943]

Originally Posted by Greg

No, it's just a layer of aluminum with the foam insulation sprayed on.

The Saturn V, or rather the SIV-B stage of it, had a twin hull with cork in between as insulation but on the Space Shuttle they tried to save weight and cost. Obviously this was not the best choice, but the designers thought it was a pretty good idea at the time and the program's budget was severely limited compared to earlier space development.

Yes, a less humid launch site would really help. The western deserts of Australia might not be a good choice, though. It wouldn't be very polite to drop boosters on Sydney and Cairns.

As in Styrofoam? There are no words. Saving weight is one thing, but cutting costs can cut safety margins. That, I don't like. Factor of safety of 3. Is the rule at sea. Make it 3 times as strong as the load you need to shift. Want to lift 1 ton? Make your gear strong enough for 3 ton, then NEVER lift over 1 ton with it.
Being only "Ally", I think they may have a problem with some of the super fast particles I read about some time back. It seems they have no trouble at all passing through the hull, the Astronaut, and back out the other side hull almost instantly.
(Is there a market for high tech space "Collanders"? Must be, just tell some yuppy, it is the newest, bestest one, they will beat each other up to have the first most expensive one on the block. You too can have the kitchen collander they use in space. But wait, there's more, for only $99.99 down and 99 payments of only, blah blah blah.)
Boffins (scientists) here are burying sensors deep underground, trying to catch these "Gamma"? particles. Good luck boys.


Oh, I don't know. Drop a booster on Sydney, nah better not. There are some of us who have just about had enough of the "Premier" state, as New South Wales is known, capital city Sydney. Sydneysiders, as they are called, seem to believe the rest of Australia, is only there to provide for Sydney, after all they were the first city. Hohum. But, that is their problem, not mine.
As for Cairns, hmm, my younger sister lives not far south of there, at a place called Mission Beach. Miss that, we should be sweet. She can tend to indignation when all is not her way. On second thought, better miss Cairns by a fair bit. Dear little sister. Big girl, don't make her angry.
But, there is some 2,000 miles between those two places. And, there is a hell of a lot west of there. Or not, depends on how you see deserts.

As an aside.
Your Ambassador was on national news this morning, he has been here a year now, and he is really getting around. Seems to be a decent bloke too, likes his barbies, and a small Aussie wine or three. He'll get on alright here. He seems to like getting out of the cities and meeting the regional people. That can only be a good thing in my opinion.

[Miros1]

If you mean neutrinos, they go so fast nothing including planets can stop them. Fortunately, they're too little to do any damage. They're also very hard to detect. The detectors are built under mountains and such on the theory that the mountain will block everything else, so if they detect anything, they know it's a neutrino.

When they added a second tunnel to the LeHigh Valley tunnel on the PA NE turnpike extension, they built one in the open area between the two tunnels.

[Greg]

Yup, mostly likely they're looking for neutrinos. I saw a television show recently about a fascinacting experiment where they're burying some neutrino detectors deep in the ice in Antarctica.

I don't know of a market for space collanders, but hey, there are folks who will collect anything that has flown in space.

[shorty943]

That's the sneaky little buggers, NEUTRINO's. We may have seen the same show. They are burying detectors under mountains in our southern island state of Tasmania. Hobart, the capital, is the step off point for our Antarctic research station. Mawson Base.

[Greg]

Speaking of the current Shuttle mission, the 4th EVA should be tomorrow unless I missed it.

[Miros1]

However, according to the last report I heard, they aren't going to fix the tiles before coming home...

[Greg]

Yeah, but they have lots of other stuff to do.