Posted on 07/27/2005 6:09:10 PM PDT by anymouse
It's one thing to finance an expedition to explore new territory that will create wealth. It's another to create a bloated government bureaucracy that maintains an expensive and useless outpost to grow worms in zero gravity.
The flight back is going to be a real nail biter - could break rating records.
Wish them all the luck!
It is my impression that no one in authority ever raises the issue that it is the CFC free foam itself, and not the application process that is the root of the problem. It's like Cannon law. You can't indicate that the environmentally friendly processes are the real danger. This delay will probably prove mortal to the shuttle and the ISS, but is there a legal way to go back to the old freon foam process or is that forever bared by treaty?
Spending over $1 billion.
Looks like they've spent that $1 billion on a bunch of new cameras to take higher resolution pictures of the foam insulation falling off to prove that the new foam sucks.
Putting it that way sure makes them look stupid. NASA, go back to the old foam.
Thanks, NASA. A real fine piece of work. Who got paid off in this one?
Since I was a little boy, I have dreamed of the day we would hear from the first men to land on Mars.
Now, it no longer matters-I don't speak Mandarin.
Outside of my expertise here. Mission operations (mission control), mission management, and space to ground communications engineering are my specialties. However, I did take a brief detour and was an orbit analyst for a while.
I have been working in the US space program for more than 27 years now. :-)
Not all of us.
Well, this will make the greens happy.
So once again, bowing to the pressure of the eco-whackos is costing lives. I missed this FR thread right after Columbia, but I think its apparent now that it is this shift in foam that is directly responsible for the death of the Columbia crew.
FOAM HAS PLAGUED NASA FOR 5 YEARS
A Yahoo search found this article on the subject from 2004: NASA environmental protection causes deaths
Oh please, I know your qualifications. You're awesome. No two ways about it.
What are your thoughts on the foam and the environmentalists though?
"What part of "test' flight is not understood? She wont fly again until this new data is processed and acted upon. thats the way it works."
E X A C T L Y !
The STS has yet to be deemed "operational" for that reason. This is akin to flight test failures and standowns a la military aircraft. But since the potential failures are so spectacular ans so very PUBLIC, the critics bay like restless hounds.
A lot of people don't realize that the often praised Russian space program has been a great deal more deadly. But then again, they launch and land their systems on the nearly-deserted tundra under some secrecy. To this day.
We launch and land the Shuttle off of a resort coast down the road from freeking Disney! The wailing and gnashing of teeth is nauseating.
If they need to insulate the external tank, why not put the foam on the inside. Nothing has flaked off my thermos in 20 years. They can build the tank with a inner liner attached to the outer wall and pump the insulation in through holes in the sides. There's got to be some lightweight material to make this a weight-neutral solution. The solid rocket boosters (purpose is to lift the tank) can be configured to handle a small amount of additional weight. The performance of the SRBs depends on how the solid fuel is installed.
As I recall, the amount of tile damage was minimal before the new foam. After they changed it, the damage increased by an order of magnitude.
We could always drop out of the treaty, especially since it is based on bogus science.
My mom suggested shrinkwrap. In seriousness, I'm wondering why not. It still would add noticable weight, but such a tactic might help.
Though just going back to the good foam would seem to be the obvious solution. Fark the EPA.
Heh. Great minds, et al.
I'm sure they've spent a lot more than that. What a waste of money.
Yeah, but military aircraft don't take a quarter of a century to develop. That's because most military aircraft are designed by engineers not by the democratic process like the shuttle was.
And it isn't so much about loss of life as it is about cost and reliability.
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