STS-120

Greg · 10-23-2007, 04:39 PM

STS-120 launched today, right on schedule at 10:38 AM CDT. It's carrying the "Harmony" node for the space station, which I believe is the last permanent U.S. segment in the assembly sequence. Harmony will allow them to attach the Japanese and European modules at the front of the International Space Station.

I was at a meeting at JSC just before the launch. We got done just in time to turn on the television and watch. That was fun! It was the first time in this millenium that I've been on site at JSC for a launch!

shorty943 · 10-25-2007, 09:13 PM

I watched the Chinese Moon launch yesterday on the news, right after that was the footage of STS 120.

Lots of traffic up there at the moment.

One thing I have noticed, is the apparently, much cleaner burning engines than the NASA jobs. Both the Russian and the Chinese rocket motors.
Any idea what the "other" teams use to launch, Greg?

Greg · 10-26-2007, 01:18 AM

The smoke trail you see behind the Space Shuttle is from the solid rocket boosters. Most of the white stuff you see is aluminum oxide. At liftoff, though, what you see is huge clouds of steam because the exhaust from the rockets vaporizes the water from the water deluge system that floods the launch pad just before SRB ignition. The water is there to cool the launch pad, bein's't'how it's kind of expensive and they don't want to melt it.

shorty943 · 10-27-2007, 12:16 AM

Steam I understand. Pad cooling, got it.

Aluminium Oxide? In combination with certain other Oxides, that is interesting stuff. Not for the un-educated to play with.
Could you explain that a little further please, Greg. Oooh, wait a minute, SRB, it's not combined with Iron Oxide is it?

Greg · 10-27-2007, 12:37 AM

Yup, there's teeny tiny bit of iron oxide, less than half a percent. The iron oxide is a catalyst of some kind.

The SRB uses ammonium percholorate for its oxydizer and powdered aluminum for its fuel. If I recall correctly, there's four times as much oxydizer as a fuel and they make up about 90% of the weight of the fuel. The rest of the weight is binders (some kind of polymer, maybe Jell-O), flavorings, colorings, and preservatives.

The Space Shuttle Main Engines (the three engines attached to the Orbiter) are fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen carried in that big external tank. The LOX and LH2 burns to water, so the Space Shuttle is basically a steam engine.

Erm... that would be thirty six million horsepower steam engine!

shorty943 · 10-28-2007, 11:42 PM

""Erm... that would be thirty six million horsepower steam engine!""

Oh, my. How do I get to test drive that beauty.

The steam engine, gives all of its power all of the time.
Opening the throttle only make it come out faster that's all.

I LOVE steam engines.

Er, Greg. That "fuel" mix, (and others of a similar composition), is known to me, for other, more military uses. The Orbiters engines are good, but the SRB's are very dangerous things.

And the Drag strip boys reckon a bit of Nitro-Methane is bang juice. Ha, it is to laugh.

Greg · 10-29-2007, 12:30 AM

As the Shuttle program manager, Bob Thompson, put it: The Shuttle's solid rocket boosters are just a pair of big JATO bottles.

You don't get nearly the specific impulse from them as you do from the LH2-LOX engines but they are incredibly reliable and beautifully storable. When you light 'em, they scoot!

I have a really naive question about steam engines: Do you have to let off all the pressure in the boiler to add water to it?

Miros1 · 10-29-2007, 01:03 AM

I think so. I seem to remember seeing pictures of steam locomotives venting their steam near water towers. However, that might be avoidable with newer technology.

If we don't have an answer by next summer, I volunteer to go ride the Arcade & Attica choochoo and ask!

The answer is actually No. http://www.history.rochester.edu/ste.../Chapter1.html

Quote:

Savery's method of supplying his boiler with water was at once simple and ingenious. The small boiler, B, is filled with water from any convenient source, as from the standpipe, S. A fire is then built under it, and, when the pressure of steam in s becomes greater than in the main boiler, L, a communication is opened between their lower ends, and the water passes, under pressure, from the smaller to the larger boiler, which is thus "fed " without interrupting the work. G and N are garbagecocks, by which the height of water in the boilers is determined; they were first adopted by Savery. Here we find, therefore, the first really practicable and commercially valuable steamengine. Thomas Savery is entitled to the credit of having been the first to introduce a machine in which the power of heat, acting through the medium of steam, was rendered generally useful.

Now someone give me a reason to go ride the choochoo!

Greg · 10-29-2007, 05:00 AM

Because maybe the choo choo guys can explain why the heck vBulletin insists on changing "STS" to "Sts"?

Greg · 10-29-2007, 05:05 AM

Aha! It was the "prevent shouting" option under Message Posting and Editing options.

shorty943 · 10-29-2007, 08:42 AM

Lady M is correct again.
Although, in our more modern times, we use high pressure pumps, to "feed" water into the boiler.

That venting was just that, a slow safety release, whilst not using much steam. Usually via the Drive Wheel cleaners.
Sadly necessitated, by the nature of the coal fire. Oil or Gas fired furnaces are much more reactive to heat input. Shutting the fire down, cools the furnace quite quickly, compared to trying to rake and cool a bed of white hot coal.

I have one for you too, if your field is aerodynamics.

I have had an idea for a chord aspect changing wing.
Or, maybe it was a little residual "something" in the water pipe from Marakesh, last week. It's good when friends return home from overseas.

Greg · 10-29-2007, 05:07 PM

That 'splains my question about steam engines. I was wondering how the heck you could replenish the water in the boiler without losing all that lovely pressure.

What was the question about changing the chord of the wing? Or was it changing the aspect ratio?

shorty943 · 10-29-2007, 11:16 PM

With the really high pressure boilers, over 1,000 PSI operating pressures, the pumps are actually driven by steam turbines themselves.

On the wing question.

I think it is more of a chord depth question.
I had an idea, for light or ultra-light craft at least, that a form of snail-cam adjustment lifting a "dummy" spar-top-plate, may be able to raise a flexible upper wing skin, to change the wing shape to augment lift. Not by much admittedly, but it doesn't take much to alter the lift \ drag ratios.

It is just a pipe dream sport aircraft that is still in that embryonic mind game stage. Looks oddball in my minds eye, bubble cockpit like a Robertson chopper, bi-plane shoulder wing, "stagger wing Beechcraft" like of course, enclosed pusher prop spinning in a venturi thrust tube.
A low speed experimental "cold air jet".

Or a crash and burn.

Greg · 10-31-2007, 05:39 PM

Hmm.... there are flaps and leading edge slats and swing wings today. I'd guess you're thinking of something that will deform a flexible skin on the wing, eh?

shorty943 · 11-03-2007, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg

Hmm.... there are flaps and leading edge slats and swing wings today. I'd guess you're thinking of something that will deform a flexible skin on the wing, eh?

Oh, I know about all those wonderful aerodynamic aids. Roller rotating Leading edge slats, "Fowler" type retracting flaps, wingtip vortex deflectors, airflow guide fences.
I just wanted to look at it from Dr De Bono's point of view. Lateral thinking.
If you don't have the means to make it one way, is there another way it can be done?
As a lift augmentation device for take off and landing, for ultra-lights at least, it should be feasible to do. Flexible fabric wings abounding. Or maybe not.
It goes back to an article in an older American Experimental Aircraft magazine.
Like I said it was just a curiosity sort of question. One of those, I wonder, kind of things.

Greg · 11-05-2007, 01:00 AM

I haven't been keeping up with the reportage here! Yesterday the STS-120 crew did a really adventurous EVA where they had a guy on the Oribter Sensor Boom on the space station arm, with the big robot arm extended to its full reach. They were stitching together a broken solar array. The folks in the mission control center came up with the ideas and planned all the details in just one day! I think you'd have to be there to fully understand just how incredibly impossible that whole thing was, but it worked!

It's really amazing to think that they couldn't have done it if the space shuttle hadn't been carrying the Orbiter Sensor Boom, or if the space station arm were shorter, or they hadn't happened to have a HUGE crew aboard the space station right then. Wow!

Miros1 · 11-05-2007, 04:05 AM

I knew about the broken solar array, but didn't realize all the technical bits to fixing it. Did I hear something about 2 guys being out in suits for 8 hours? I'd think that would give you acrophobia, claustrophobia, and agoraphobia all at once!

Greg · 11-05-2007, 05:18 PM

Yup, the EVA was nearly 8 hours long. They were really pushing the limits on that one.

And yes, people have reported feeling all those phobias in space suits. Claustrophobia is especially a problem; not everyone can wear a space suit. I don't think I could; never tried it.

Miros1 · 11-05-2007, 07:48 PM

Given that one of the symptoms of claustrophobia is an inability to wear the mask to a CPAP machine, I definitely don't have that. Weirdly, an alternate mask used by people with claustrophobia covers the whole head; the description gives me the image of ... a spacesuit helmet. When I go get my next replacement mask (mine is failing to seal against my face properly), I'll ask to see one.

Acrophobia, yes, I have that in spades!

Greg · 11-05-2007, 11:49 PM

Kathy Sullivan experienced acrophobia when she exited the Space Shuttle airlock and looked at the Earth. Suddenly, Earth was down! The feeling only lasted for a few seconds but she said that for her it was quite a dramatic moment.

Of course, someone who experiences severe claustrophobia from wearing a space suit is stuck; just can't fly in space. Even the IVA crew has to be able to wear the launch and entry suit.

Agoraphobia is less common but some crewmembers experience if they're inside thinking about the vastness of the universe or outside doing high work far away from the mother ship. Oddly, none of the guys who flew the MMU ever mentioned it, at least not where I could hear. Neither did any of the Apollo astronauts on the moon. Maybe walking on the moon is close enough to home that you don't make an emotional connection, or maybe they had just trained the emotional response out of themselves by the time they got there.

10-23-2007, 04:39 PM	#1
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	STS-120 STS-120 launched today, right on schedule at 10:38 AM CDT. It's carrying the "Harmony" node for the space station, which I believe is the last permanent U.S. segment in the assembly sequence. Harmony will allow them to attach the Japanese and European modules at the front of the International Space Station. I was at a meeting at JSC just before the launch. We got done just in time to turn on the television and watch. That was fun! It was the first time in this millenium that I've been on site at JSC for a launch! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know? Last edited by Greg : 10-29-2007 at 05:02 AM.

10-26-2007, 01:18 AM	#3
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	The smoke trail you see behind the Space Shuttle is from the solid rocket boosters. Most of the white stuff you see is aluminum oxide. At liftoff, though, what you see is huge clouds of steam because the exhaust from the rockets vaporizes the water from the water deluge system that floods the launch pad just before SRB ignition. The water is there to cool the launch pad, bein's't'how it's kind of expensive and they don't want to melt it. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-27-2007, 12:37 AM	#5
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Yup, there's teeny tiny bit of iron oxide, less than half a percent. The iron oxide is a catalyst of some kind. The SRB uses ammonium percholorate for its oxydizer and powdered aluminum for its fuel. If I recall correctly, there's four times as much oxydizer as a fuel and they make up about 90% of the weight of the fuel. The rest of the weight is binders (some kind of polymer, maybe Jell-O), flavorings, colorings, and preservatives. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (the three engines attached to the Orbiter) are fueled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen carried in that big external tank. The LOX and LH2 burns to water, so the Space Shuttle is basically a steam engine. Erm... that would be *thirty six million horsepower* steam engine! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-28-2007, 11:42 PM	#6
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	""Erm... that would be thirty six million horsepower steam engine!"" Oh, my. How do I get to *test* drive that beauty. The steam engine, gives all of its power all of the time. Opening the throttle only make it come out faster that's all. I LOVE steam engines. Er, Greg. That "fuel" mix, (and others of a similar composition), is known to me, for other, more military uses. The Orbiters engines are good, but the SRB's are very dangerous things. And the Drag strip boys reckon a bit of Nitro-Methane is bang juice. Ha, it is to laugh. Last edited by shorty943 : 10-28-2007 at 11:49 PM.

10-29-2007, 12:30 AM	#7
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	As the Shuttle program manager, Bob Thompson, put it: The Shuttle's solid rocket boosters are just a pair of big JATO bottles. You don't get nearly the specific impulse from them as you do from the LH2-LOX engines but they are incredibly reliable and beautifully storable. When you light 'em, they scoot! I have a really naive question about steam engines: Do you have to let off all the pressure in the boiler to add water to it? __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-25-2007, 09:13 PM	#2
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	I watched the Chinese Moon launch yesterday on the news, right after that was the footage of STS 120. Lots of traffic up there at the moment. One thing I have noticed, is the apparently, much cleaner burning engines than the NASA jobs. Both the Russian and the Chinese rocket motors. Any idea what the "other" teams use to launch, Greg?

10-27-2007, 12:16 AM	#4
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Steam I understand. Pad cooling, got it. Aluminium Oxide? In combination with certain other Oxides, that is interesting stuff. Not for the un-educated to play with. Could you explain that a little further please, Greg. Oooh, wait a minute, SRB, it's not combined with Iron Oxide is it?

10-29-2007, 05:00 AM	#9
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Because maybe the choo choo guys can explain why the heck vBulletin insists on changing "STS" to "Sts"? __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-29-2007, 05:05 AM	#10
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Aha! It was the "prevent shouting" option under Message Posting and Editing options. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-29-2007, 08:42 AM	#11
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	Lady M is correct again. Although, in our more modern times, we use high pressure pumps, to "feed" water into the boiler. That venting was just that, a slow safety release, whilst not using much steam. Usually via the Drive Wheel cleaners. Sadly necessitated, by the nature of the coal fire. Oil or Gas fired furnaces are much more reactive to heat input. Shutting the fire down, cools the furnace quite quickly, compared to trying to rake and cool a bed of white hot coal. I have one for you too, if your field is aerodynamics. I have had an idea for a chord aspect changing wing. Or, maybe it was a little residual "something" in the water pipe from Marakesh, last week. It's good when friends return home from overseas.

10-29-2007, 05:07 PM	#12
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	That 'splains my question about steam engines. I was wondering how the heck you could replenish the water in the boiler without losing all that lovely pressure. What was the question about changing the chord of the wing? Or was it changing the aspect ratio? __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

10-29-2007, 11:16 PM	#13
shorty943 Banned Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 805	With the really high pressure boilers, over 1,000 PSI operating pressures, the pumps are actually driven by steam turbines themselves. On the wing question. I think it is more of a chord depth question. I had an idea, for light or ultra-light craft at least, that a form of snail-cam adjustment lifting a "dummy" spar-top-plate, may be able to raise a flexible upper wing skin, to change the wing shape to augment lift. Not by much admittedly, but it doesn't take much to alter the lift \ drag ratios. It is just a pipe dream sport aircraft that is still in that embryonic mind game stage. Looks oddball in my minds eye, bubble cockpit like a Robertson chopper, bi-plane shoulder wing, "stagger wing Beechcraft" like of course, enclosed pusher prop spinning in a venturi thrust tube. A low speed experimental "cold air jet". Or a crash and burn.

10-31-2007, 05:39 PM	#14
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Hmm.... there are flaps and leading edge slats and swing wings today. I'd guess you're thinking of something that will deform a flexible skin on the wing, eh? __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-05-2007, 01:00 AM	#16
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	I haven't been keeping up with the reportage here! Yesterday the STS-120 crew did a really adventurous EVA where they had a guy on the Oribter Sensor Boom on the space station arm, with the big robot arm extended to its full reach. They were stitching together a broken solar array. The folks in the mission control center came up with the ideas and planned all the details in just one day! I think you'd have to be there to fully understand just how incredibly impossible that whole thing was, but it worked! It's really amazing to think that they couldn't have done it if the space shuttle hadn't been carrying the Orbiter Sensor Boom, or if the space station arm were shorter, or they hadn't happened to have a HUGE crew aboard the space station right then. Wow! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-05-2007, 04:05 AM	#17
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	I knew about the broken solar array, but didn't realize all the technical bits to fixing it. Did I hear something about 2 guys being out in suits for 8 hours? I'd think that would give you acrophobia, claustrophobia, and agoraphobia all at once!

11-05-2007, 05:18 PM	#18
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Yup, the EVA was nearly 8 hours long. They were really pushing the limits on that one. And yes, people have reported feeling all those phobias in space suits. Claustrophobia is especially a problem; not everyone can wear a space suit. I don't think I could; never tried it. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-05-2007, 07:48 PM	#19
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Given that one of the symptoms of claustrophobia is an inability to wear the mask to a CPAP machine, I definitely don't have that. Weirdly, an alternate mask used by people with claustrophobia covers the whole head; the description gives me the image of ... a spacesuit helmet. When I go get my next replacement mask (mine is failing to seal against my face properly), I'll ask to see one. Acrophobia, yes, I have that in spades! Last edited by Miros1 : 11-05-2007 at 08:04 PM.

11-05-2007, 11:49 PM	#20
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Kathy Sullivan experienced acrophobia when she exited the Space Shuttle airlock and looked at the Earth. Suddenly, Earth was down! The feeling only lasted for a few seconds but she said that for her it was quite a dramatic moment. Of course, someone who experiences severe claustrophobia from wearing a space suit is stuck; just can't fly in space. Even the IVA crew has to be able to wear the launch and entry suit. Agoraphobia is less common but some crewmembers experience if they're inside thinking about the vastness of the universe or outside doing high work far away from the mother ship. Oddly, none of the guys who flew the MMU ever mentioned it, at least not where I could hear. Neither did any of the Apollo astronauts on the moon. Maybe walking on the moon is close enough to home that you don't make an emotional connection, or maybe they had just trained the emotional response out of themselves by the time they got there. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?