Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Drifter1234 on July 27, 2005, 10:00:51 PM
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Big chunks of foam off of Shuttle fuel cells again. Looks like they dodged a big bullet.
Might be last flight of this current program.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=1&u=/ap/20050728/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle
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:eek:
You think after spending $1 billion they could get it right....
But all in all I know alot of people worked there tails off at NASA and this has to be a huge dissapointment to them. Just getting the job done doesn't really cut it with space flight, it's getting it done perfect.
I read in the AV press today that if bad weather arises the shuttle has a 1 in 5 chance of landing here at Edwards. I allready have my spot picked out about 100 yards away from the underun of the runway were you can actually hear the flaps and gears actuating.
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...and you pray it doesn't come in short.
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Any time the astronauts come back alive it is done perfect. It is a miracle everytime it happens, no matter how much attention to detail is invested.
Les
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http://video.msn.com/video/p.htm?t=1&p=News_Tech&i=3f820a52-a735-4629-a1ba-c921cdf08042&rf=
VIdeo
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Well if the anti-science administration would give NASA more funds instead of more work (Moon and Mars landings) then maybe they could afford to do the work that is forced upon them.
Scrap the shuttle build a new vehicle. Anyone wathching the hookup with the ISS???
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omfg
Sweet Jesus Tap Dancing Christ! Jessica Simpson sings that "top gun" hit take my breath away?
edit: oh I miss my time in europe where such things didn't reach us
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Why don't they paint the exterior of the shuttle foam like they did originally. Surely that could add to the bond to help secure the foam, maybe some sort of polymer.
Either way, the shuttle needs to be scrapped and a new vehicle built.
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A problem: We're years away from having a replacement (the Crew Exploration Vehicle plus the SDLV heavy launch vehicle). What do we do, cut the shuttle and then sit back for 5+ years without any access to space? That would be asinine.
The shuttle fleet was due for replacement 15 years ago, but mismanagement and politics have prevented that. That said, there are people willing to go up in it, and work that needs to be done in orbit.
What's really needed is clear and immediate funding for the CEV development, set up commercial contracts for the heavy launch requirement through any vehicle available (either Protons/Ariane V or get a domestic heavy launcher going) as soon as possible.
Use the shuttle as needed until the new vehicle is available, then retire two of the remaining orbiters (keeping one in mothballs in case its neeed). Five years after that, I want NASA out of the launcher business. They can provide 'space traffic control' services the way the national airspace system works through their existing infrastructure, but their role with the CEV should transition to a certification role at best, ala the FAA.
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Originally posted by Wolfala
http://video.msn.com/video/p.htm?t=1&p=News_Tech&i=3f820a52-a735-4629-a1ba-c921cdf08042&rf=
VIdeo
OMG blame Bush....WTG :aok Why don't we just not have them do anything at all give them no goals....wouldnt that be great.
Truth is they've spent a BILLION dollars and don't have ANYTHING to show for it. 2+ years of work and effort.....this launch was a failure.
and no just getting the shuttle crew back doesnt make it a perfect mission if it means they took risks. Risks in space travle or in a vehicle moving 45k MPH. NASA got lucky that this wasn't a repeat of before.
Get the crew back safely.....good job but the "return to flight" was a complete failure.
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ahhh c'mon. craps' been falling of the orbiter and tanks since day one.
now they got a method for repair in orbit. all launches have the juice to get to the station.
ask the astronauts how they feel about it.
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IMHO they need to get rid of the "shuttles" and put in a more efficient way of launching crafts to space. The technology already exists and if I remember it was developed under Willy Clinton , that later Gore or Congress or the MOther of Christ herself cancelled, they just need the funding to make a fleet of the darned things.
I agree Chairboy they need to stop being the central space program and start investing in letting companies invest in space travel like the two guys who went into space a couple of months ago :D
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on the problem. Something I heard on Rush Limbaugh today.
It seems that the first few launches used no foam at all. They wanted to decrease the boil-off of H2 and O2 from the tanks, so they insulated them with a spray on foam that used freon (gasp) as a component. This worked well.
Fast forward to the Clinton Administration. Freon is evil. Freon must go! The foam on the shuttle must be reworked to account for the new environmentally-acceptable politically correct world of the Clintons and their left-fringe friends.
This happened about 1995. In 1997, NASA started noticing a much higher (10-20 times higher) loss rate of tiles on the shuttles, using the new foam on the tank.
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Whatever happened to the USAF NASP? Still black?
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Scrap Nasa.
Its all a waste of money now.
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Well so far we have one it's all Bush's fault and one it's all Clinton's falut.
Polyticks aside, the foam didn't work two and a half years ago and one billion dollars later it still doesn't work. Here's an idea. Why not develop a different insulator material. Why not tile the whole main booster.
These things should have been retired a decade ago. It's a shame this country put all it's eggs in one basket and didn't develop a new space vehicle.
At this rate the Chinese are going to pass us up.
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Originally posted by rshubert
Something I heard on Rush Limbaugh today.
Ya lost me right there.
If freon was a critical part, NASA would still use it regardless of the commercial ban. R-12 is still available and used in commercial refridgeration.
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Originally posted by rpm
Ya lost me right there.
You shouldn't dispose of information just because of the source, even though...
Originally posted by rschubert
It seems that the first few launches used no foam at all.
...this information is wrong. During the first two shuttle missions the ET's were painted white. NASA determined that hundreds of pounds of weight and thousands of dollars in preparation work would be saved if the ET's remained unpainted, so since #3 they have remained orange, the color of the insulating foam.
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I just hope those brave people get home OK. After that scrap the thing its had its day.
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Scrap a system because of a foam shedding problem? I say shrink wrap the tank and fly.
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Yeah, I was wondering about that. Can they get one of those Christmas tree wrapping machines big enough to slide the fuel tank through and wrap it in plastic mesh? ;)
(http://www.fleximas.co.uk/fleximas/resource/products/gard/xmas_tree.jpg)
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Originally posted by Skydancer
I just hope those brave people get home OK. After that scrap the thing its had its day.
Naaa. Just need to send NASA a bottle of
THIS (http://www.gorillaglue.com/gGlue.html)
I have yet to see its equal let alone anything better.
whatever you use it on stays there. Other areas may break around it but the repair area wont. The bond is incredible.
I keep getting the feeling they keep looking for a high tech solution to a low tech problem
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NASA used to be cool. For the first missions, they used Scotchgard to protect the spaces between the tiles until they could develop an expensive replacement.
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Ya, i saw the pieces come off. that sucks, hope they make it back. It would suck for the astronauts and to go out n have to pick up the debris again.:(