Space Shuttle Bird Plinking - Call PETA!!!

[Wolfala]

Shuttle blasts off - bird hits the ET on the way up, roasts a few others on the way out.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=eCY0ejfxeZY

[nirvana]

Good post.

[Yeager]

Thousands upon thousands  of birds have died as a result of NASA.

DEATH TO THE HITLERS NASA!!!!!!

[lukster]

He won't have the guts to do that again.

[Furball]

bit stupid launching it when there are birds about like that - seen what a bit of foam hitting the shuttle can do.

they should fire off a device like they do at airports to scare em off.

[OOZ662]

Hunks of crap falling off shuttles isn't really that rare. This is from the entry for STS-114, the mission pictured.

Originally posted on WikiPedia
Around 2.5 seconds after lift-off, a large bird struck near the top of the external fuel tank, and appeared in subsequent video frames to slide down the tank. NASA did not expect this to hurt the mission because it did not hit the orbiter, and because the vehicle was traveling relatively slowly at the time.

A small fragment of thermal tile, estimated to be around 1.5 inches (38 mm) in size, was ejected from an edge tile of the front landing gear door at some point before SRB separation. A small white area appeared on the tile as the piece detached, and the loose shard could be seen in a single frame of the video. It is unknown what object (if any) struck the tile to cause the damage. The damaged tile was inspected further when the images from the umbilical camera were downloaded on day three. Engineers requested that this area be inspected by the OBSS, and flight managers scheduled the operation for July 29. This represented the only known possible damage to Discovery that could have posed a risk during re-entry.

Some seconds after SRB separation, a large piece of debris separated from the Protuberance Air Load (PAL) ramp, which is part of the external tank (see animation, above right). The debris was thought to have measured 24 to 33 inches (610 to 838 mm) long, 10 to 14 inches (250 to 356 mm) wide, and a few inches thick – and to weigh about half as much as the piece of foam blamed for the loss of Columbia. Fortunately, it did not strike any part of the Discovery orbiter. Images of the external tank taken after separation from the orbiter show multiple areas where foam insulation was missing.

Around 20 seconds later, a smaller piece of foam separated from the ET and apparently struck the orbiter's right wing. Based on the mass of the foam, and the velocity at which it would have struck the wing, NASA estimated it only exerted one-tenth the energy required to cause potential damage. Laser scanning and imaging of the wing by the OBSS did not reveal any damage.

If you look up other shuttle launches, they have lists of things that go flinging off the shuttle as well. One finally hit something and caused real damage and yes, it was a tragedy, but it isn't a rare occurance.

[Mickey1992]

I can't find the pic, but did you see the bird crap on the shuttle that survived the trip to orbit during the last mission?

[texace]

Speaking of the Orbiter, I had someone ask me off hand at work last week if they were going to replace the Colombia with another vehicle. I'd said the only other Orbiter in existance is Enterprise and I don't think they're going to build another one. Didn't know what to say to that one...

I also learned that Challenger was the first airframe built with the designation 099. o.O Useless trivia, yes?

[OOZ662]

Actually texace, the only non-orbiter shuttle we've build was the Enterprise. It was made for in-atmosphere testing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise