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How do you figure out whether a foam firefighting system in an air force hangar is set up correctly and works? Well you turn it on for a few seconds, to make sure it's got pressure and everything. First you set up a scaffolding so you can record the event and show the flow coming out of all nozzles. And then you let 'er rip. After 15 seconds you can see foam is covering all areas it has to, so the test is successful. Shut 'er off. Uh, guys? Shut 'er off? Aw crap. Whatever was meant to shut off...

NASA will try for three shuttle flights this year if the space agency is able to launch Discovery in May or July, a top NASA official said Tuesday. But that's a big "if," said space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. Engineers are still are working out problems with the external fuel tank and other details.

he sport of surfing is in turmoil after the world's largest producer of the foam blocks used to make surfboards closed down, citing over-regulation. Polyurethane foam "blanks" produced by California-based Gordon Clark are used to make many of the world's surfboards. Mr Clark, who helped invent the modern all-foam surfboard, says environmental regulations forced him out of business. Fears of a global foam shortage have led to a sharp rise in board prices as surfers snap up already depleted stock. Mr Clark, known as "Grubby" among surfers, revolutionised the sport in 1958 when he and fellow pioneer Hobie Alter coated...

Closure of Calif. surfboard foam company wipes out industry GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press (this contains excerpts) SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. - For more than 40 years, everyone from casual weekend waveriders to top competitive surfers has shared one thing: Customized boards that began as nondescript foam blocks mass-produced by one Southern California company. Clark Foam, an icon in California surf culture, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the blocks that have been shaped and hand-painted by everyone from backyard do-it-yourselfers to design shops that churn out thousands of handcrafted boards each year. That's why the company's sudden closure this week has the...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Inadequate methods of applying and repairing foam on the space shuttle’s fuel tank probably contributed to the dangerous loss of a chunk of the insulation during Discovery’s launch two and a half months ago, a NASA investigation team concluded Friday. So much work is needed to understand the problem and correct the deficiencies that shuttle flights are on hold until at least May, and possibly even next summer....

With Discovery parked safely on the tarmac in California, the fate of the nation's manned space program now rests on the research teams assigned by NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin to figure out why at least four large pieces of insulating foam broke away from the shuttle's enormous external fuel tank. The teams, composed of engineers from NASA and Lockheed Martin's Michoud assembly facility in Louisiana, where the tanks are manufactured, were scheduled to give a preliminary report yesterday to Griffin and space station manager William H. Gerstenmaier. NASA has promised a fully "transparent" investigation, and initial findings may be...

Discovery's external fuel tank was the first to fly with a new insulating foam custom-made to satisfy environmental bans on chemicals suspected of depleting the Earth's ozone layer. NASA is investigating why a 1-pound chunk of the foam peeled off Discovery's tank two minutes after launch July 26, missing the shuttle's right wing as it climbed toward orbit. The incident prompted NASA to ground the shuttle fleet even as Discovery was on its way to the International Space Station. "We are treating this very seriously. We are going to fix this before we go fly," said John Shannon, a senior...

"We are ready to fly."It was June 24, and William W. Parsons, NASA's shuttle program manager, was speaking to reporters on a telephone conference call from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Two and a half years of study and struggle, he told them, were over at long last. The shuttle Discovery could blast off in July. At a closed-door meeting that afternoon, senior shuttle managers had ruled that the chances that debris from the giant external fuel tank would strike the Discovery at liftoff - in the kind of accident that doomed the Columbia and its seven...

The shuttle Discovery, like Columbia, shed a large chunk of foam debris during liftoff that could have threatened the return of the seven astronauts, NASA said Wednesday. While there are no signs the piece of insulation damaged the spacecraft, NASA is grounding future shuttle flights until the hazard can be fixed. "Call it luck or whatever, it didn't harm the orbiter," said shuttle program manager Bill Parsons. If the foam had broken away earlier in flight, when the atmosphere is thicker increasing the likelihood of impact, it could have caused catastrophic damage to Discovery. "We think that would have been...

<p>NASA's top spaceflight official, Bill Readdy (search), said Friday that through extensive testing, the agency has learned that air liquefied by the super-cold fuel in the tank almost certainly seeped into a crack or void in the foam, or collected around bolts and nuts beneath the foam. The trapped air expanded as the shuttle rose, and blew off a chunk of foam the size of a suitcase.</p>

<p>Caltech researchers have made a metallic glass-based foam that is stronger than traditional metal alloys, providing industry with a revolutionary lightweight material.</p> <p>Although bubbloy (bubble-alloy) is entering a crowded field of metallic foams, it has the advantage of a smooth plastic or glasslike consistency where others are grainy.</p>

My favorite schadenfraude moment last night: watching Sen. Tom Harkin pretend (I'm assuming he was pretending) to enjoy Howard Dean's maniacal performance on stage after his stunning third-place finish. Dean looked as scary as he ever has. Nothing is weirder than someone trying really, really hard to look happy and energized when he's really annoyed and disappointed. Dean looked like the Incredible Hulk, just before he turns green. Harkin must have been thinking: I endorsed this. There was a perverse pleasure in watching Harkin, since his endorsement was so opportunistic, based on a calculation that Dean would win. He deserved...

OUSTON — Over and over, a projector at one end of a long, pale-blue conference room in Building 13 of the Johnson Space Center showed a piece of whitish foam breaking away from the space shuttle Columbia's fuel tank and bursting like fireworks as it struck the left wing. In twos and threes, engineers at the other end of the cluttered room drifted away from their meeting and watched the repetitive, almost hypnotic images with deep puzzlement: because of the camera angle, no one could tell exactly where the foam had hit. It was Tuesday, Jan. 21, five days after...

The truth about the shuttle Posted: July 14, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Last week NASA conducted tests it believes conclusively solved the mystery of why the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed minutes before it was scheduled to land last February. The Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times and all the other establishment media agencies dutifully reported NASA's conclusions that the "smoking gun" had been found. There is now little doubt the shuttle was irreparably damaged upon launch when foam insulation from the external tank broke free and slammed into the leading edge of the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The oldest planet ever detected is nearly 13 billion years old and more than twice the size of Jupiter, locked in orbit around a whirling pulsar and a white dwarf, astronomers said on Thursday. Compared with the relative youth and stability of our own celestial neighborhood, where Earth and the other planets orbit a single 5-billion-year-old star in a quiet neighborhood of the Milky Way, the ancient group that holds the oldest planet has had a boisterous past, scientists said at a NASA (news - web sites) briefing. The old planet is located near the heart of...

Space shuttle test reveals 'smoking gun' in disaster Simulation of Columbia launch mishap puts hole in wing section By Kathy Sawyer THE WASHINGTON POST Tuesday, July 8, 2003 SAN ANTONIO -- With a resounding "thwack," a piece of foam traveling at 500 mph blew a ragged hole the size of a stop sign in a section of a space shuttle wing Monday, effectively shattering any remaining doubts about what destroyed Columbia and its crew Feb. 1. "We have found the smoking gun," said Scott Hubbard, a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board who supervised the test. Austin American Statesman...

Science - AP Shuttle Foam Test Yields Hole in Wing59 minutes ago By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer SAN ANTONIO - The team investigating the Columbia disaster fired a chunk of foam insulation at shuttle wing parts Monday and blew open a gaping 2-foot hole, offering dramatic evidence to support the theory of what doomed the spaceship. The crowd of about 100 gasped and cried, "Wow!" when the foam hit. The foam struck roughly the same spot where insulation that broke off Columbia's big external fuel tank during launch smashed into the shuttle's wing. Investigators believe the damage led to...

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A river polluted with waste from Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo covered the streets of a small colonial town with a thick layer of snow-like foam that emits harmful acidic gas on Friday. A Town Hall official contacted by Reuters said the foam had been affecting Pirapora do Bom Jesus for about a month, but a clogged clear-water channel made the foam levels rise especially high, blocking bridges across the river Tiete which runs through the town and nearby streets. "It is all a dreadful consequence of Sao Paulo city's pollution," said Mare...

WASHINGTON - Even as NASA engineers debated possible damage, a flight director e-mailed Columbia's astronauts to say there was "absolutely no concern" that breakaway foam that struck the space shuttle might endanger its safe return. The shuttle's commander cheerily replied, "Thanks a million!"Flight director J.S. "Steve" Stich conveyed his assurance to Columbia's commander and pilot on Jan. 23, according to documents disclosed Monday. At the time, engineers inside NASA continued to debate and study whether insulating foam that smashed against Columbia's wing on liftoff might have fatally damaged materials protecting the shuttle during its fiery descent.Such materials included the gray-colored...

Foam's Power Surprises NASA Official By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Columbia accident investigator in charge of a series of impact tests said Wednesday he is surprised by the incredible force with which a 1 1/2-pound chunk of space shuttle foam struck and deformed a fiberglass wing replica. AP Photo NASA (news - web sites)'s Scott Hubbard said he expects even more damage when real shuttle wing parts — weaker and more brittle than fiberglass — are used for the next round of testing, beginning Thursday. He expects the actual pieces, removed from shuttle Discovery,...