Columbia shuttle lost Part II

[Tolls]

Deep Space One was a fantastic success, but nothing it tested dealt with humans in space.

That's the sort of thing the ISS and STS deal with (when they do science anyway).

As for repairing tiles, I can't see how they can do that. It's been looked into (a repair kit was on one of the early flights), but it was decided that it would be unfeasible to actually do a repair up there. Working on the ISS (and fixing Hubble) has shown how awkward it is building stuff up there is, and that's dealing with pretty solid objects...the tiles wouldn't hold up to being trodden on by a clumsy astronaut in a bulky spacesuit.

...and in any case we still don't know if this caused the trouble.

[Kramerman]

Anybody know why they use tiles? The tiles are custom fitted for each individual spot on the shuttle, no 2 tiles are the same. I just thinkk it seems like it would be much sturdier/cheaper to build if instead of tiles, large 'pieces' were used. Something made out of that same material, but many times larger in area, so less are needed. But im sure there is a reason why they dont do this.

Lawrence: Do you mind telling me and NASA how you propose to be able to work on systems (critical systems mind you) that are underneath the tile? You would just replace one bad design flaw with another.

Maybe not a large sheet likethis, but a few big sheets. To work on systems on the underside, the sheets could just be removed and then replace later, right?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Our method of space travel is very primitive I just noticed. Our obiters cannot go to the moon, some of them cant even reach the space station. We have no reliable way of functioning outside of them for long periods of time, and space walks are very risky and take a long time to accomplish very little. I say quardruple NASA spending and slash agricultural subsidies and military spending.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tolls
"So if debris hits a shuttle in the future, I believe the shuttle has to be brought down without a crew. This means that we are going to have to use the space station as rescue platform and provide it with alternative means of getting the crew back. "

Which means no missions to fix satellites, or deploy satellites...something I can't quite see them doing. It's one of the great advantages of the shuttle, to be able to go up there and upgrade, say, Hubble.

Deploying satellites should be a job of unmanned rocket launchers. As to repairing satellites such as the Hubble, all that needs to be done is for the shuttle to have enough fuel to maneuver into an orbit with the ISS. If this is infeasible, then we should have a one or more Soyuz spacecraft standing by ready to launch a rescue mission.

If crew safety really is NASA's job number one, one truly needs to provide a system to bring the astronauts down while leaving the shuttle in orbit for some future repair or for an unmanned re-entry. The thing I find so unacceptable to what happened to Columbia that there was nothing whatsoever we could do to rescue Columbia or its crew once the damage to the tiles was done. This is unacceptable.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

If the damage was done exclusivly by the piece of foam. Which NASA is starting to say couldnt be possible.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
If the damage was done exclusivly by the piece of foam. Which NASA is starting to say couldnt be possible.

There is a current article on how much space junk there is out there today and that on an average mission, the shuttle is hit by about 50 different pieces of space junk. They are not discounting the possibility that is Colombia was hit by something largea.

A lot of the space junk appears to be from booster rockets that were used to launch satellites into space. When earlier I said that using rockets to launch satellites was a preferred way of getting them into orbit, I now reconsider this. Putting so much space junk up there is really hazardous. We have to start thinking about clean ways of launching satellites. Otherwise the space around the Earth will become too hazardous for any manned missions.

[The Mad Monk]

Even if the damage wasn't done by the foam, the fact remains there was no way to save the crew under the given circumstances. This must be corrected.

One solution would be to use the ISS as a transfer point. Shuttles would go to the ISS exclusively, and there would be orbital-use-only vehicles parked there (and fueled and serviced there) that would do the actual satelite placement-retrieval-repair work.

[Kramerman]

A lot of the space junk appears to be from booster rockets that were used to launch satellites into space. When earlier I said that using rockets to launch satellites was a preferred way of getting them into orbit, I now reconsider this. Putting so much space junk up there is really hazardous. We have to start thinking about clean ways of launching satellites. Otherwise the space around the Earth will become too hazardous for any manned missions.

Its hard for me to imagine how space junk could truley clutter all that space that surrounds the earth... that is a great volume of space. Micro-meteors (by which i mean meteors from the size of grains of sand and smaller) I would think would be a larger threat to the shuttle.

This problem could be corrected, possibly by creating someway to get the space junk's orbit to decay enough for it to fall out of orbit and back into the earth's atmosphere where it can be burned up, or for it to continue out into the void of space. I dunno how this could be done cheaply, however. Perhaps an occasional shuttle mission could use radar to locate larg pieces of debris, and go 'garbage hunting' or something, to make orbit a safer place

Kman

[The Mad Monk]

On an early shuttle mission, a viewport was impacted and pitted by a chip of paint. Imagine that same chip slicing across a wing's tiles...

[Tolls]

"Anybody know why they use tiles? "

These tiles are fragile...larger slabs would be even harder to stick onto the shuttle without damaging them.

"If this is infeasible, then we should have a one or more Soyuz spacecraft standing by ready to launch a rescue mission."

Soyuz is unable to achieve certain inclinations due to the location of their launch site. I don't think Hubble is one of them.

"We have to start thinking about clean ways of launching satellites. "

The shuttle does not leave space junk behind...

"One solution would be to use the ISS as a transfer point. Shuttles would go to the ISS exclusively, and there would be orbital-use-only vehicles parked there (and fueled and serviced there) that would do the actual satelite placement-retrieval-repair work."

Which is not feasible at the moment since we have no such vehicle...which means we are left with the shuttle until such a system is in place. Shutting down manned flight until a system like that is built is simply a no-no.

Once again I will say that spaceflight (and the shuttle) is not the death trap that some people seem to think it is after last Saturday...placing severe restrictions on operations due to that accident is no the way to go.

[The Mad Monk]

Obviously, we will make do with what we have (walking the tightrope without a net) until the system is in place; in fact, we'll probably need the shuttle to put the system into place.

We do have to make it a priority.

[Tolls]

I'd be all for that, since that would make our presence in space even more secure...there are a lot of problems with that, though, and I don't know how feasible it would be. What fuel you would use (I'm not sure the ISS residents would be too keen on having a large bomb strapped to their flimsy home) is a biggie.

[Ned]

A high res AF photo of the shuttle over New Mexico show serious left wing structural damage.

"Meanwhile, a respected aerospace publication reported Friday that an Air Force tracking camera somewhere in the Southwest captured high-resolution images of Columbia, taken about a minute before the shuttle broke apart, showing serious structural damage to the left wing near the fuselage.

Aviation Week & Space Technology cited sources close to the investigation.

Lt. Kelly Jeter, a spokeswoman for Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, confirmed that the base turned over photographs to NASA.

"One of our telescopes got some shots of it going over," Jeter told The Associated Press late Thursday. She said NASA had instructed base officials not to comment further.

Air Force Lt. Col. Rob Koon said that the Air Force turned over both still photos and video to NASA. He gave no details.

Kirtland has a high-resolution telescope that photographs satellites orbiting earth. The Starfire telescope can recognize features as small as one-foot long on a satellite 600 miles away, base officials say."

[Dis]

well I would like to see these pictures. It was dark out and I can't see how they got a good picture.

It technically began breaking apart over California and Arizone. A Reno guy and the guy from Flagstaff Arizone got some good video of what appears to be some chunks coming off the shuttle. But it was dark out when it flew over my part of the country.

[Ned]

And now they say they have a photo of a blue lightning strike hitting the shuttle when the shuttle was above San Francisco in the so-called ignorosphere. The science of such strikes at that height are unknown.

NASA simply has to release these pictures.