Columbia shuttle lost Part II

[Solver]

Continued from http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...postid=1686995

[DarthVeda]

So with some American money going into the project, could the Buran be feasibly made flight-ready? I mean it's got a payload 5x greater than the American Shuttle...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

5x? That thing must be massive. A lot more expensive too, for sure.

[Solver]

(So much easier to follow this thread now )

Why not? I believe that, if American money is invested, everyone will be happy. A win-win situation.

[Dinner]

I doubt the U.S. would put any money into the Buran. They'll spend the money on the X-38 first unless something goes very wrong with that program.

[DarthVeda]

The american shuttle carries something like 23 tonnes of cargo, while the Buran can carry about 100 tonnes. This is accomplished because the Buran doesn't have the main engines on the shuttle vehicle like the American shuttle does, they are in the main booster rocket.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

The russians just launched a cargo rocket from the Baikonur Facility to meet up with the ISS

[Serb]

Oerdin,
Just in case if you are interested it's official Buran's cite: (just look on old pictures)
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm

[Dinner]

The site has some cool pictures on it. It will be interesting to see if anything ever comes from it but I'd say the Buran will never see a manned space mission. It's a generation behind now and the future of manned space flight will be craft like the X-38 which don't need the external boosters and fuel tanks. since the boosters and tanks won't be destroyed each time the X-38 is supposed to be much cheaper to opporate then a convential shuttle layout. Cheaper=better.

[DanS]

The US won't put significant development money into Russia, no matter how compelling the design is. The US government is even very wary of transferring any launch technology to private businesses in the US.

[Solver]

Manned spacecraft is a whole different issue. We are actually going to need some very new types of craft it we want REAL manned missions to other planets, such as Moon or Mars. Mars manned mission is possible, but VERY expensive, while the Moon one seems quite OK.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Boris - the mission patch

[Serb]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The site has some cool pictures on it. It will be interesting to see if anything ever comes from it but I'd say the Buran will never see a manned space mission.

Sure, the program was frozen. The cost of cargo delivered by one-time rockets is three times cheaper than cost of cargo delivered by reusable rockets such as Buran or American SS.

[Serb]

Originally posted by DanS
The US won't put significant development money into Russia, no matter how compelling the design is.

Of course, as I see it, US will stop its shuttle launches until its find out the reason of catastrophe, then it will continue SS program.

[Solver]

Of course, as I see it, US will stop its shuttle launches until its find out the reason of catastrophe, then it will continue SS program.

At least that's what happened after Challenger.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Heres an interesting article on the tiles.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. *—*The thermal tiles that have come under suspicion in the Columbia disaster seem almost absurdly brittle for something that is supposed to protect the spacecraft from the extreme heat and other rigors of flying into and out of orbit.

The tiles can shatter under finger pressure. In fact, the shuttle cannot be launched in a rainstorm because water droplets smacking into the ship as it hurtles toward orbit can damage the tiles.

Two decades ago, however, space engineers persuaded skeptical experts that the fragile silicate foam tiles could protect the shuttle from thousands of degrees of heat during re-entry and stay firmly glued to the wings, underbelly and nose of the space shuttle.

The tiles were lightweight and they resisted heat better than any other known material.

NASA engineers impressed skeptics with a simple demonstration: The corner of a one-foot square of the tile could be heated red hot with a blowtorch while being held barehanded at the opposite corner. Take the blowtorch away, and the heated section cools within seconds.

Yet, the tiles were so fragile that skin oil from an uncovered hand is enough to damage the surface. A dropped tool could leave a deep gash. Drop a tile while installing it, and it had to be discarded.

Never before had someone tried to coat an entire aircraft with such materials, so NASA and its contractors had to invent new ways of installing the tiles. First they decided how many were needed -- more than 24,000. Then each tile had to be designed individually to fit a specific spot on the uneven, curving surface of an aircraft. Eventually, a computer drew up a complex pattern, like a jigsaw puzzle, and gave each tile an individual number, shape and location.

Each tile had to installed by hand. Workers wore gloves and hair nets and took care to make sure their pockets were empty. Dropping a coin from a few feet would have been enough to destroy a tile worth hundreds of dollars.

Once a tile was installed, how could the engineers be sure it was glued on strongly enough? They invented suction machines that tugged against each tile, testing the adhesive. This often had to be done more than once for each tile.

Eventually, the tiles were installed, and Columbia, the original space shuttle, first flew in April 1981.

The tiles proved their worth. They protected the hull of the shuttle and, contrary to forecasts, did not shatter as the craft came through the atmosphere.

But some experts now speculate that Columbia may have been destroyed because some fragile tiles were damaged, exposing the craft's left wing to superheated gases of re-entry.

Norm Carlson, a 38-year-veteran of NASA and a former operations chief at launch control at the Kennedy Space Center, said he believes that damaged tiles are "the No. 1 candidate" for the cause of the tragedy.

Carlson said Columbia would not have been destroyed from the failure of a single tile -- it would have taken a whole group. But he said it is possible that if one tile pops off, others may follow, ripping off like a zipper coming open.

He recalled that after an earlier shuttle flight, engineers found that a single tile had slipped off, exposing a body flap to the torrid gas of re-entry.

"It melted the aluminum underneath just like a welding torch," Carlson said. But the damage was limited to a small spot and the mission was not endangered.

----------
On the Net

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77311,00.html



The article says that to create catastrophic damage, more then one tile would need to come off. If that piece of foam hitting them did not sufficiently damage the tiles (nasa's analysis) then what if a peice of space junk hit the wing during the mission and no one noticed. That could effectivly take out quite a few tiles

[Gatekeeper]

I take it that design engineers have yet to come up with something other than these fragile tiles that offers better protection?

Gatekeeper

[DanS]

Of course, as I see it, US will stop its shuttle launches until its find out the reason of catastrophe, then it will continue SS program.

Serb: Yep, as I see it, the Shuttle will be off line for a half year or so. Then we'll restart it and limp through on the program for another decade or so.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Does anyone have a link to the radar image of Columbia? Its the one with the big streak of red on the map.

[Evil Knevil]

Just a quick bit of unpleasantry.

What do Tony Blair and the Columbia crew have in common?

They've both had trouble with their left wing.

[Az]

Wait a sec, is standard rocket launch cheaper than via Shuttle? wtf would one use a shuttle?

[Eli]

Originally posted by Azazel
Wait a sec, is standard rocket launch cheaper than via Shuttle? wtf would one use a shuttle?

One of the reasons is science missions just like on this one. You cant make them on an unmanned rocket.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

here are some challenger jokes. Quite tasteless.

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/88q3/16840.12.html

[Eli]

Q: When the next shuttle launches into space, what will the senior
controller say?
A: "72, 73, 74 BOOM! - Just kidding guys!"

must ... not... laugh. must... not ... laugh.

I cant.

[Docfeelgood]

N.need

A.another

S.seven

A.astronauts

[Odin]

You know, I have a crazy idea. Lets have private companies do the earth orbit suff and let NASA concentrate on space stations, space telescopes and space exploration.

Plus we should triple NASA funding. I WANT TO GO TO MARS AND LOOK FOR LIFE!!!

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
here are some challenger jokes. Quite tasteless.

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/88q3/16840.12.html

uhm, i remember one:

"houston, this is the challenger. everything fine, lift off ok. we'll now let the woman pilot..........."

(sorry to all who don't feel like laughing)

[Lawrence of Arabia]

[Solver]

Dunno, for some reason I found the jokes pretty tasteless...

[Docfeelgood]

How do you git rid of your teacher?






you challenger her!



What color were her eyes?

blue!

one blew this way and one blew that away!