SMOKING GUN: ET foam treatment WAS changed due to CFCs!!!

[frodo1008]

The amount of direct and indirect technological invention that has been either discovered in direct support or generated in support of the space program in this country is astounding! Heck, NASA itself has a group that looks at the literally thousands of different patents and other innovations developed by NASA. And then through NASA cooperative groups informs various industries of these innovations and inventions. And yes, the military does this also, but on a budget about 30X NASA's. I realize that an essential military does far more than just such dissemination of information, but I don't think they do it one bit better than NASA does.<br /><br />There have been attempts made to see about how much this has actually been worth to the economy of this country. These estimates (by other than NASA) have come out to anywhere between 4X NASA's budget to some 14X NASA's budget. And this is just the relatively direct technological innovation. It is anybodies guess how much the total would be if you included the push for the micro electronics that satellites that were originally put up in support of such activities as NASA's in the 1060's and since.<br /><br />Over all, NASA has led the technological revolution of the last century, and is going to continue into this century. This alone makes NASA the most valuable agency in the federal government. The very nature of the kind of problems that the social programs try to solve has made it almost impossible for them to give this kind of return. And they do fail to do so. After all, have we really won the war on poverty yet? Just go out onto the street and ask some homeless people!<br /><br />However, NASA has usually accomplished what it set out to accomplish. You may not always agree with those particular accomplishments and even the overall goals, but they at least do them. Something that congress certainly can't seem to manage!<br /><br />The ONLY major manufacturing industry that this country still leads the world in

 

[4p0110]

I agree that the taxpayer's money should not be wasted, however, I think that since NASA has realized that the foam had a problem. Why haven't they just coated the shielding tiles in Shear Thickening Fluid? Or better yet, why not just re design the tank to use a better fuel that won't build up as much ice?

 

[baktothemoon]

"why not just re design the tank to use a better fuel that won't build up as much ice?"<br /><br />Like what? If they don't want ice than they can't use liquid hydrogen or oxygen or any other condensed gas. There goes their main fuels, so what's left?<br /><br />"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy

 

[drwayne]

What better fuel/oxidizer do you have in mind? Of the two, I think the oxidizer is going to be your issue - its hard to do safely better than LOX.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[baktothemoon]

"I am very adamant that OUR tax money is spent responsibly and effectively."<br /><br />First of all, those tax dollars can be spent for nothing more responsible than ensuring that our astronauts have a safe ship to fly in. That is why we are doing RTF. Two, you've really sidetracked your own post by posting this tirade that has hardly a thing to do with your original post. We didn't really have a choice about eliminating the CFC's, since it would be hypocritical of our government to eliminate them from everything but our shuttle. Big government did not kill Columbia, flying chunks of foam killed it, which brings me to my next point. You said in your first post that they tried the new chemical on the acreage foam and noted more foam loss. This implies that they were observing foam loss more closely and saw how much fell off. The piece that hit Columbia was the largest to ever fall off,this means that the foam that fell from changing the chemical was still substantially smaller than what killed the shuttle, and that NASA did not see any big enough to be a threat. So nothing that could have killed a shuttle was ever seen since nothing Columbia sized was seen, so did NASA still make a wrong decision? Plus, the foam that destroyed Columbia was not acreage, it was hand applied foam from the bipod. This foam was prone to imperfections from being hand applied that were unrelated to the different non CFC chemical. The foam was prone to internal voids, and that is what caused it to fall off, not necessarily the non CFC chemicals. The same goes for the PAL foam. You cannot conclusively say that changing the CFC chemical to non CFC alone killed the shuttle when there are multiple factors and circumstances that must be taken into account. <br /><br />"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy<br /><br />

 

[drwayne]

It has been pointed out before, but I am not sure on this thread, that the area that came loose on Columbia was actually the old foam formulation, not the new one.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

If that is true (perhaps someone with connections like shuttle-guy could confirm, yes or no) then that is an OUCH! for the purposes of this thread (as my three year old grand son would say)!

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Shuttle does not use the exemption anymore. They have completely switched to using HCFC 141b blown foam all over the ET, as was detailed in my original post. It is an inferior application process.<br /><br />The only people here with a political bias are those who are ardent NASA apologists and are taking their stooge duties to absurd levels of "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil". Particularly those whose bread and butter is a NASA paycheck, and there are enough of them here, their opinions should be the ones immediately suspect for motives, not mine. I'm a concerned citizen who wants a space program done right, not one that wastes billions of taxpayer dollars kowtowing to unions, politicians and luddites.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />All right, knock it off. I'm sick and tired of this: people making unfounded accusations that the other side's contrary claims are the result of being on the payroll of a conspiracy to hide the truth, or accusing the other side of political bias merely because they presented a fact which you find inconvenient. You just complained about someone using the same sort of attack against you in another thread, so it's especially irksome to see you use it here.<br /><br />I don't get a paycheck from NASA. I have never worked on a NASA project. And I maintain that you are wrong about the foam. As many have pointed out to you, there is considerable evidence that they use different types of foam for different applications. There is no evidence that all of the foam is of the new type, nor that the new application process is to blame for foam loss. In fact, the evidence leans more towards the conclusion that there is no correlation.<br /><br />You don't have to believe people when they reach a different conclusion about the Shuttle. But you do have to treat them with respect. Calling them names just becuase they don't agree with you and then making unfounded accusations about their <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

Thank you calli. I said the same thing but it does have more authority coming from you. At any rate as I also said I don't know of any poster here that gets a direct paycheck from NASA. Even shuttle_guy works for Space Alliance which while certainly associated with NASA is not NASA itself (just as when I worked for Boeing Rocketdyne).<br /><br />Right from the kind of title given to this thread I knew it was going to be trouble. The same kind of thing does occur over on free space all the time! I know this as I am one of the few here masochistic enough to post there as well as here!<br /><br />Thanks again, You are the Best on these threads!<br />