Not another shuttle bashing post, but seriously -

[docm]

<font color="yellow">It said that the company knew the plane had a deisgn flaw but still flew with it, ending up in 9 dead</font><br /><br />It's called the "Pollyanna Syndrome"; an irrational optimism in the face of all common sense. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[askold]

frodo - where have you been? What took you so long to sign in and call me a shuttle basher <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> ?<br /><br />I hope you're right - and, by some miracle, this trainwreck of a program comes to an end without killing anybody else.<br /><br />I also hope that NASA learns some engineering lessons, and in the future either does things right or when found to be wrong has the integrity to admit its mistakes and pull the plug on a hopelesly flawed program.

 

[para3]

Or too ignorant to fix. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font size="3" color="#99cc00">.....Shuttle me up before I get tooooooooo old and feeble.....</font></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong><font size="4" color="#ff6600">---Happiness is winning a huge lottery--- </font></strong></p> </div>

 

[para3]

Or too ignorant to fix. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font size="3" color="#99cc00">.....Shuttle me up before I get tooooooooo old and feeble.....</font></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong><font size="4" color="#ff6600">---Happiness is winning a huge lottery--- </font></strong></p> </div>

 

[usn_skwerl]

i dont know what the ET heats up to during launch (does anyone know how hot it gets?), but my wife came up with what seems like a good idea. we're both wondering why something similar to an onion bag (fishnet stocking in appearance, made of polypropylene) mesh isnt used on it to retain any potentially dangerous pieces from falling off. even if its not made of nylon or rayon, it could be fitted around the tank at stacking, posing little risk of shedding itsself while keeping the shuttle from TFOA syndrome. <br /><br />its pretty cheap, as far as the "ouside world" is concerned, but im sure if nasa were to design it, it would probably cost something like $50/sq ft. <br />K.I.S.S.<br /><br />is this, in reality, a feasable idea? it would at least offer some protection for the initial phases of launch, i would think. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[qso1]

spacefire:<br />you don't draw the line, you stand back and reconsider your options. <br />We had an alternative for manned transportation that would have been extremely cost effective to implement, the HL42 + an expendable booster:<br /><br />Me:<br />Indeed, such a vehicle was proposed, NASA always considers its options. One of which was known as the OSP which IIRC, was the last winged vehicle proposed by NASA before it once again met the cost barrier and OSP gave way to capsules. When the three P's (Press, politicians, public) are ready to actually explore space, we will be a step closer to safer space travel.<br /><br />For now, the 3 Ps are content with criticizing what we have and God forbid we should spend an additional half billion on NASA while eagerly wasting hundreds of billions annually on Iraq and deficit spending. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

rocketwatcher2001:<br />I'd fly it in a heartbeat if they'd let me.<br /><br />Me:<br />I guarantee the astronauts continue to feel the same way and for those who have not flown yet, like you, will fly in a heartbeat once assigned a mission. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

pathfinder_01:<br />I think that if NASA had chosen to evolve the shuttle it could get better a lot better.<br /><br />Me:<br />Unfortunately, the 3 P's ensure the NASA budgets are small enough to preclude much useful experimentation with existing designs. NASA couldn't even get shuttle "C" approved and that would have reduced the need for a man in the loop while lofting heavy payloads to orbit.<br /><br />Only option now is for private industry to take over efforts to get low cost access to orbit. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

For the preeminent shuttle critics:<br /><br />The shuttle has flown 115 times with 2 accidents.<br /><br />There were a total of 16 Apollo missions with one major accident and one fatal accident. Was the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn-V booster flawed designs? Or were they simply designs for vehicles that were tasked with doing what had never been done before and is not the shuttle the same? The shuttle is far more complicated than Apollo/Saturn. I don't think it can be said the shuttle is better as a man rated LV than an unmanned LV...but I think the design is quite forgiving. In part because there have been plenty of opportunities for the shuttle to be involved in more accidents than it has. Several RSLS aborts, an abort to orbit, problems discovered and fixed prior to launch. This is the rocket biz folks...inherantly dangerous regardless of design. The astronauts know this and go fly anyway because they also know the very best people that can be tapped for this kind of work are working at NASA and the vehicles are as safe as is humanly possible to design. The astronauts are also smart enough to know that whether you call it Saturn, shuttle, Skeezix...its a liquid propellant controlled bomb.<br /><br />Suppose for a sec that NASA stopped shuttle dead in its tracks after Columbia. Think the astronauts would like that? All this talk about astronaut deaths. How many cops die futilly in the streets every day? How many car accidents are there that result in deaths every day? Where is the call to end air travel when a DC-10 goes down? NASA has evaluated many a concept over the years, they and I have seen many concepts that appeared fatally flawed and NASA rejected them. The shuttle is not fatally flawed. It is however, simply not economically viable.<br /><br />I guarantee any astronaut you ask will say that if we stop a program dead in its tracks, those that died...did so in vain. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[askold]

Now that’s what I’d call a tour de force post. You’ve hit on all the major misuses of logic - bravo.<br /><br />“The shuttle has flown 115 times with 2 accidents. There were a total of 16 Apollo missions with one major accident and one fatal accident.†This is an example of misdirection – my assertion has nothing to do with statistics. My claim is that the shuttle’s problems are the result of bad engineering and bad decision making, and I’ve cited references to substantiate my claim – you can Google hundreds more. In the past, NASA has made engineering mistakes, taken its lumps and fixed them. Not the shuttle – the engineering mistakes remain (the ET) and band aides are applied. Nothing to do with statistics.<br /><br />“Suppose for a sec that NASA stopped shuttle dead in its tracks after Columbia. Think the astronauts would like that?†This is a non sequitur – I’m not arguing that astronauts aren’t brave; or even death defying. If you offered free rides on the shuttle tomorrow you’d probably get 10,000 people in line. That has nothing to do with its engineering flaws.<br /><br />“How many cops die futilely in the streets every day? How many car accidents are there that result in deaths every day?†This is an ignoratio elenchi – the fact that many cops and vehicle drivers die every day has no bearing on the engineering mistakes of the shuttle.<br /><br />“I guarantee any astronaut you ask will say that if we stop a program dead in its tracks, those that died...did so in vain.†This is called throwing good money after bad. Johnson and Nixon used it – “we can’t pull out now; what about the thousands of American soldiers that died to keep Vietnam free?â€. Bush uses it – “we can’t pull out now; what about the thousands of American soldiers that died to keep Iraq free?â€. <br /><br />Can we just stick to the engineering issues of the shuttle?

 

[frodo1008]

Almost everything that NASA does has some flaws in it, including your robotic programs (like we never lose one of those either now do we?).<br /><br />This is NOT because of a lack of competence on the part of NASA (not even such a lack on the part of congress). It is simply because almost everything that NASA does is being done for the first time! The learning curve for all space efforts is very very short!<br /><br />Heck, we still get recalls on automobiles, and they have built hundreds of millions of them (if not billions) over the years since the invention of the automobile. <br /><br />And space itself is the harshest environment for both robotics and human beings to operate in that we know of. <br />However, the benefits for the future of mankind are so great that ANY risk is well worth it and anybody that ends up paying the ultimate personal price for this future certainly has not only NOT died in vain, but has died not only a present hero but a hero for the future generations of mankind!!<br /><br />If you didn't think it was worth it then why even post on a site like space.com??

 

[askold]

Why doesn’t anybody hear what I’m saying? I’m not saying that space flight (human or robotic) is free of unknown risks. I’m saying that the shuttle is a known risk and NASA is playing Russian roulette with the astronauts lives.<br /><br />NASA in March 2006:<br /><br />Shortly after liftoff of Discovery on July 26, 2005, launch video showed a piece of foam that weighed about a pound falling away from the external fuel tank.<br /><br />NASA Administrator Michael Griffin ordered that engineers fix the problem before another shuttle flight.<br /><br />"Just to make it perfectly clear to you, foam will still come off the tank after we have done all these mitigation efforts," Hale said. "What we have done is worked off all large pieces. We believe the pieces that come off will be small, definitely smaller than a matchbox.<br /><br />Endeavor August 2007:<br /><br />About the size of a baseball, the debris was initially thought to be ice before engineers shifted on foam insulation. But it may actually have been foam, ice or a piece of ablative material a bit denser than foam, Shannon said.<br /><br />Matchbox? Baseball? What’s the engineering standard? It’s constantly shifting. This isn’t engineering!<br />

 

[usn_skwerl]

which is why i mentioned the onion bag concept...see bottom of page 3 <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

Onion bag wouldn't work<br /><br />Extra weight, too hot, if would flail in the air stream. And it can't be tested

 

[usn_skwerl]

it doesnt literally have to be onion bag....obviously chainmail is out of the question, but it sort of offers a reference too.<br />- extra weight, in the order of 100-200 lbs? <br />- too hot? how hot does the ET skin get durig launch?<br />- may not necessarily flail, as i mentioned, it could be fitted at stacking, around/between shuttle, SRB, PAL ramp, etc. i think it would be of little consequence to drag, and would only have to be from below the nose cap, to each SRB (or all the way around the tank if need be), to approximately the fwd (diagonal) strut on aft mounting point of the shuttle, thereby reducing weight/drag to some extent, as well as adding at least some level of protection. <br />- it can be tested in controlled conditions; i.e., melting point, corrosion, thermal fatigue, tensile strength, coef. drag, etc. <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

the foam gets charred<br /><br />wrt testing, I mean in place. <br /><br />It would be much heavier<br /><br />Unless it is attached every few inches, it is going to flail

 

[kdavis007]

Nope... It just another bash human in space post..

 

[jaxtraw]

"I’m saying that the shuttle is a known risk and NASA is playing Russian roulette with the astronauts lives."<br /><br />Most everything in life is a known risk. There are statistics published here in Eurobritain every year detailing deaths, they're normally reported as fun reading "light" news. I remember reading a surprisingly high number of people (in the 10s) died from accidents involving tea cosies. Tea cosies kill. We'd better ban them then.<br /><br />It's not a question of known risks. It's a matter of acceptable risk. Most people take the risk of using a tea cosy, having weighed up the benefits of keeping their teapot warm against the risk of a bizarre tea-cosy related accident (they never say how the cosies kill by the way, I'd imagine it's something to do with the cosy slipping off and hot tea boiling a child beneath, or something).<br /><br />People take a very high risk every time they get in a car, or on a plane, or on a boat, or on a train, or eat green eggs and ham. They do so because they do a cost-benefit analysis and conclude that the risk is worth the benefit.<br /><br />Being an astronaut is risky, but there are many more people beyond the astronaut corps who'd take that risk (of being attacked by a deranged love-sick fellow astronaut stalker for instance) for the chance to get into space.<br /><br />How acceptable a risk is is entirely a matter of taste. Some people wouldn't get on the shuttle if the risk of an accident were one in a billion. I'd get on it personally with the current risks. You can't objectively calculate an acceptable risk level. You can only calculate the risk, then let people make their own decision.

 

[frodo1008]

So what do you propose that NASA do about these terrible and risky engineering problems at this late date in the shuttle program?<br /><br />There is not enough time left in the program to even begin to guarantee the foam problem is and even can be totally solved. And even if it could be there are still other problems in such a complex system as the shuttle that could indeed bring another shuttle down.<br /><br />So the ONLY answer that you can then propose is for NASA to abandon both the shuttle program AND at the same time by not finishing the ISS indeed make that station as totally useless as many on these boards believe it to be anyway! <br /><br />Of course, this would then guarantee that NO Other space program on the Earth would EVER want to deal with NASA or the US ever again! To say nothing of having then wasted some $200 billions (considerably less than Iraq, but still a very substantial sum) of the taxpayers money, thus guaranteeing that congrss would kill NASA for all time.<br /><br />Now, if you think that even the robotic programs that you so admire would survive this, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to offer to you for sale! <br /><br />Other than pure commercial and government satellites, and perhaps, just perhaps pure private space tourism (and maybe, just maybe some kind of robotic program by NSF) there would not even be a reason to continue this particular site either!<br /><br />Basically, NASA has the bull by the horns and there IS no other choice for NASA, but to continue the programs in place at this time, and indeed they have already done the only positive thing that you have asked for on this thread: that is to eliminate the particular foam problem by going back to a launch system that puts the human occupied capsule ahead of any such danger!<br /><br />So, as I said, (and you choose NOT to answer), this particular thread is totally moot to the future of the American space program!! <br /><br /> <br /><br />

 

[docm]

<font color="yellow">....there IS no other choice for NASA, but to continue...</font><br /><br />Paraphrasing Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /><br /><br />One of the major reasons given in the pressers for the ISS was microgravity crystal growth, theoretically a means to grow perfect ones for medicine and industry. That job went bye-bye last week when a cheap means to do it <i><b>on Earth</b></i> was discovered.<br /><br />Other than 'because it's there' and to keep the contractors busy what else is there that can't be done with the existing facility now that there's no need for crystal growing? <br /><br />Exploration isn't done by flying in circles.<br /><br />No need for the ISS in doing a Mars mission.<br /><br />Research into gravity simulation is gone with the canceling of the centrifuge.<br /><br />Hell, so many modules have been canceled what remains of the original mission is a "jackrabbit" - a moving target. <br /><br />Isn't the real mission of ISS at this point is just to get built? Is that really a good reason to risk lives flying a fatally flawed system? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

I wonder how many times I am going to have to give this particular post? Every time I do, and it does seem to satisfy at least the more reasonable on these boards, up comes another thread with a whole new set of people that are ignorant of the facts in the matter. But I can't just let it go, so here it is again.....<br /><br />Is the ISS worth its cost?? I have given this particular post time and time again (this time I will save it for future reference), and yet every once in awhile it comes up again!<br /><br />First, the opponents to the ISS keep coming up with this $100 billion cost. This is exactly the same kind of thing that opponents to a whole lot of such programs have done to try (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to kill such programs in the past! This was done while I worked on the B1-A bomber program back in the 1970’s. What the opponents to that worthy program did was to take ALL the development costs, then add the total procurement costs for 100 planes, and then add the estimated maintenance costs for an additional 30 years. So naturally, we were building this $100 billion dollar bomber, and then the opponents could ask: IS this cost worth it? NOT of course saying that they were talking about some 50 years of costs, for an average of some $2 billion per year! In this case they only temporarily set back the program until the Reagan era.<br /><br />And then the opponents to the ISS are now doing the same thing. They link all the early development costs with all the production procurement costs, and all the shuttle flights to the ISS, and then the maintenance costs all the way up till the ISS programmed total life span. So, naturally with this reasoning the ISS is going to cost at least some $100 billion or more! Of course, as the earliest planning for such a station (space station Alpha to Freedom, all before it even became an international project) started in the 1970’s. So by the current close down date of 2015 (and I fully believe that the ISS li

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Exploration isn't done by flying in circles. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />LOL! Well actually it is. In fact you cannot get away with flying in circles since at any time your orbiting something.<br /><br />On Earth were orbiting the sun, the moon orbits earth, Mars and rest of planets orbit Sun, Sun orbits the center of the galaxy, if not something else. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[cuddlyrocket]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>LOL! Well actually it is. In fact you cannot get away with flying in circles since at any time your orbiting something. <br /><br />On Earth were orbiting the sun, the moon orbits earth, Mars and rest of planets orbit Sun, Sun orbits the center of the galaxy, if not something else.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Nearly all orbits are ellipses, not circles! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[frodo1008]

Bigelow modules are still a long way from having either the volume nor the power of the ISS. When companies come to realize the truly fantastic profits that will be made by building a civilization in space, then ANY investment level (after all NASA is just trying to make back some of the investment that many on these boards are always complaining about!) will become acceptable!<br /><br />Heck, if Bigelow can eventually bring his modules down in price to a very reasonable level I can absolutely see NASA or the other partners using them to build up the ISS as was originally planned with such habit modules.<br /><br />Eventually, I can see truly large space stations being built up of reinforced Bigelow modules. Stations that could generate patital gravities by rotational means. But even there many of the constructional methods used will have been pioneered on the ISS! <br /><br />You do have to start somewhere, now don't you! <br /><br />This is besides the simple fact the the US has an obligation to the other partners in the ISS (some partners that quite probably would not have ventured into such a large project without the US and NASA) to finish the ISS to the level that WE said we would! Is the word of the US not worth anything?<br /><br />

 

[docm]

Bigelow just accelerated their schedule for the 2nd time in a year and now plan to have a manned station module, Sundancer (180 cu/meters) in orbit by decades end or sooner. <br /><br />The stations final size will be ~2x that of the ISS; 860 cu/meters vs ISS's current 425 cu/meters. <br /><br />Sundancer: 180 cu/meters<br />2x BA-330: 660 cu/meters<br />Station hub: 20 cu/meters (guesstimate, but if my dividers are right close)<br />Propulsion hub: 0<br /><br />The old completion date was ~2013. How long will ISS have taken?<br /><br />Power: we'll see. They may have lower overhead & not need as much and nothing stops them from mounting a solar array truss to one of its open docking ports.<br /><br />They estimate ~$100m for a BA-330. How much does an ISS module cost?<br /><br />Some of their published configurations are />2,000 cu/meters. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>