Posted on 02/02/2003 6:35:58 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Again, your repeated ridicule (of myself and others) is unnecessary and getting old. Please refrain from including such comments in future posts. Thanks.
Yes, there IS such a capability, they just didn't have it with them at the time. In fact, a simple repair kit would be easy to assemble.
You'd need several sheets of tile material, enough to make many tiles if need be. You'd need a bonding agent that will cure in a vacuum, perhaps a 2-stager like epoxy. And you'd need to know the exact shape and dimensions of each tile, info that could easily be stored in .pdf files on a CD. And you'd need a tool to cut the tile.
And you'd need a simple tether system which could easily be put together at Home Depot. That would allow trained cew to inspect/repair enough tile damage to provide a better safety margin than returning with no repairs. Remember, we aren't talking a Perfect Tile Job here...we're talking a tile job that's better than raw aluminum shuttle skin.
Each mission would carry the kits and the tether, and each mission would do an immediate inspection upon achieving orbit - so that there would be plenty of time to effect repairs. Rudimentary, Watson.
To me it's obvious. And I'm an engineer.
Michael
GREYWOLF ADDED: "It would not have been inconceivable that plastik explosives could have been sealed into one of these "black boxes" and not be examined before the unit was installed."
GREYWOLF ADDED: "The other possibility is a software bomb (software is also developed in many places) triggered to disrupt computers at a vulnerable period in the flight i.e re-entry or takeoff. Like all viruses, it could sit dormant until the need to run the re-entry code and then rear its ugly head and do its terrible deed."
GREYWOLF ADDED: "I am not saying that the event WAS terrorism. All I am doing is pointing out the possibilities..."
Good points. NASA has not mentioned ANY of them as possibilities, although I lean toward it having been an accident (but one which there should be SOME contemporary remedies for, e.g. EMERGENCY SPACE WALK CAPABILITY).
Of course not. They should carry several sheets of the 2"-thick stuff and a CDROM with the templates for each of the 26,000 tiles. Or however many CD's it takes to hold them all. And a master file that would show which tile is in which location. Even a tyro web designer could come up with the point-and-click to do this.
And they should carry some kind of bonding agent that will cure in a vacuum, like epoxy. And a tile-cutter.
This is a ridiculously-simple kit to put together.
Michael
"High norm" is not the same as maximum acceptable limit.
Your hysterical reposting of the same information doesn't change that.
I think you're missing the point. ON THE GROUND, it's a multi-step procedure. In space, on an emergency basis, ANY tile repair is going to be better than bare shuttle aluminum skin. And it could easily be cut-n-paste. Anything to improve the chances of getting home.
Michael
Yes, they were ENTIRELY too quick to rule out the possibility that Columbia carried its own demise with it. All they basically said was, "it couldn't be a Stinger, it couldn't have been a 767 with an Atta flying it, it couldn't have been a rogue F-16, it couldn't have been anything on the ground, so - voila'! - it couldn't have been terrorism/enemy of the US." In other words, since it couldn't have been anything that has happened before, terrorism is ruled out.
Frankly, my first inclination was to suspect that the shuttle might have been carrying a piece of gear with either a programmed and induced failure built into it OR a piece of gear with some non-standard, explosive parts sealed inside. The perfect plan would include execution of the device upon reentry, when 16 days worth of complacency would have taken off any edge the crew might have had that could have overcome the failure.
If someone WAS paid off somewhere along the line and such a device included in the shuttle, we may never know absent some really astonishing disclosures. Right now, it's looking more and more of a TILE problem, and I firmly believe that the crew should be equippped and trained to inspect and repair the tiles, at least to the degree that "SOME repair is better than none."
Michael
Somewhere, I had heard/read/understood that it was an unmanned Soyuz that was bringing the supplies. Maybe it was that a Soyuz would be going up soon and bringing a crew. I haven't had a lot of sleep this past week (being in the multi-alarms/night hospital situation) so I'm not remembering the specifics.
KOZAK WROTE: "The Columbia is (WAS) the only shuttle that couldn't make the orbit of the ISS. But my understanding is only Atlantis has the proper docking equipment.
Interesting. I guess because it was so heavy. I still think they should all have EMERGENCY TETHERING CAPABILITY---whether they have "proper" docking equipment or not.
KOZAK WROTE: "Repairing the tiles is not as simple as cut and paste. The process in which the tiles are mounted is a multistep process and not something that can be done. If it were that simple don't you think NASA would have thought of it? Or do you think they don't give a rats ass about the crew and 2 billion in space assets??????"
I think they are not thinking with an Apollo 13 EMERGENCY-RECOVERY "thinking-out-of-the-box" mentality. I realize it is a multi-step process---the styrofoam has a black heat-shield coating attached.
Although the coating actually goes partially around each tile, they could PRE-APPLY the coating to SHEETS of styrofoam to enable them to be CUT TO SHAPE (without the side coating) and glued in space. It would not be AS GOOD as installing the regular tiles, but it sure beats RAW ALUMINUM in 3000 degree heat!
KOZAK WROTE: "IN aviation as in other areas of life some events ARE NOT SALVAGABLE."
Understood, but some ARE salvagable with an Apollo 13 EMERGENCY-RECOVERY "thinking-out-of-the-box" mentality. Check out #343---Wright is right!
WRIGHT IS RIGHT! RESPONDED TO KOZAK: "I think you're missing the point. ON THE GROUND, it's a multi-step procedure. In space, on an emergency basis, ANY tile repair is going to be better than bare shuttle aluminum skin. And it could easily be cut-n-paste. Anything to improve the chances of getting home."
BINGO! It's what I am calling the Apollo 13 EMERGENCY-RECOVERY "thinking-out-of-the-box" mentality. Thanks for your input, WRIGHT IS RIGHT!
I'll count that the same way as some of those bewilderingly weird suppositions that assumed I was a "bushbot".
No.
Seems the most logical. :^)
We'll have to see what it's properties were.
That's some tough foam. But then it's hard to imagine foam impacting something at mach 2 or more (I'm assuming the atmosphere would've decelerated the foam so that the difference in speed between the orbiter and the dislodged foam by the time it hit the orbiter was mach 2 or more).
I've always suspected this about you.
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