Speaking of learning from our mistakes, the idea (I think was Joe's) to place some fiberglass netting over the main tank insulating foam is a really good one, if chunks of foam are indeed the culprit. It will add some weight, but perhaps not so much to significantly cut into the lift thrust. On the other hand, if it was ice or some combination, there may still be some issues to work out there. Surely they allow for the weight of accumulated ice.
I think a lot of us are disturbed that there was so little care given to the potential tile damage by the flight engineers. Some viewing from the ground or by our satellites may have confirmed the damage in a critical area. An early call on that could have got another shuttle up there for a rescue. It makes a lot of sense to me that if tiles are covering critical areas, and they may be lost/damaged for whatever reasons, that the crew have some ability to check and repair these spots in flight. If they can fix the Hubble, then what's so tough about sticking a few tiles in place? Excuses about potential lost astronauts on space walks to the smooth shuttle bottom flies in the face of past space walks--what about tethers or jet packs? I'm very sad for the lost astronauts and their families, but am glad to see these program officers squirm under the scrutiny. Maybe we'll get some lateral thinking replacements, like the old days in Apollo.
Gary
Bruce, Obviously I touched a nerve. Good.I will be hated by some, and at best loathed by others for what I am about to say. If at any time you wish to take this private, it is fine with me but I want to bring up some perspectives from the real world. Today I went to my children's school as a space advocate in an attempt to offer explaination as to what happened to Columbia. Do you know what happened? I got a nice "thanks for stopping by, but you aren't needed." Do you know why? They didn't care. Yes it was a tragedy and yes they had the flag at half mast (as it should be) but they didn't care. To the teachers, parents and students it was another scene of a tragedy caused by government waste with lots of 'this is how it should be done' and finger pointing and backbiting and all the ugly stuff. Those bodies of those brave souls who lost their lives in this mess were not even cold before it started. Yes it is a tragedy. Yes there were mistakes made. Sure they were probably doomed before they got off the pad, but it happens. Hell, it has been happening on things not so noble as the manned space program. What about the race to the south pole? What about the expeditions sent across America? How many people died trying to set up a new life for themselves in the old west. How many are dying today trying to make something better of the life they have? Sure it is easy to say "Manned flight is too dangerous. The payoff isn't worth it. We should stop all manned flight until we have a proven system." If that were the case, then we never would have even dared to try it at all back in the 50's and 60's. With that mentality, we never would have gone to the moon or tried anything as bold as build a shuttle. We could have gone back to our homes and closed the door and just wait for the bomb to drop like everyone else. Instead we dared to dream. We dared to risk and damn if we didn't get lucky in the process. For as complex and dangerous as spaceflight is, we have lost only a few souls. Not the many it could have or should have been given the odds against success. Today, there will be some of us yelling "STOP! This isn't safe." and there will be those that listen. Then there will bo the rest of us saying "Keep going! We had a setback but we can do it. We can beat this." And we will continue to dream and dare and build the future. Instead of throwing in the towel or waiting for the right moment there will be those of us who will create the moment. Those who will still dare to dream and move forward. Instead of just making sterile conjecture and biting at the big bad organization (NASA), there will those who will quietly finish the task at hand - build better cheaper more reliable spacecraft. They won't work for NASA and they won't really know squat about space travel but they will dream, try and eventually succeed, even though several will lose their lives in the process. But such is the nature of the unknown. NASA did it's best given what it knew. Am I mad at the organisation? Yep. Just like a lot of people. But that is because they have insulated themselves from the real world dangers of their business. My fear is that instead of really fixing the problem, they will add yet another layer of 'checks and balances' that do not work and only cost more money, but it makes them feel safer. That will be the real tragedy - not learning from this. Joe Latrell On Mon, 2003-02-03 at 19:16, Bruce Moomaw wrote:----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Latrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Europa IcePIC mailing list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 10:10 AM Subject: RE: From tonight's NY Times editorial > > As to your last comment, one of the sketches I have on my drawing board> > (for later development) was a 3' long remote camera system for the ISS.> It could easily be adapted to fit in the shuttle bay. Put it on the > wall and launch it when needed. It runs around and takes pictures. > > The reality is what do you do if you find a damaged tile? Go out an fix > it? There are no provisions (or equipment) designed for in flight tile > repair. So now the crew knows they can't come home and there is no > rescue in sight. Orbital mechanics makes it impossible the get anywhere > else (like the ISS). > > This will sound harsh and it is not meant to. We should mourn our loss > and then get on with the task of making space safer. The shuttle is as > safe as it can get. We know that we will lose 1 in 75 launches (how > many flights have there been since the last disaster?). Let us accept > that and start creating the next spacecraft. Sterile conjecture only > sends us in circles. Only be doing something DIFFERENT that what we are > now will bring about change. The next great space advancement will not > come from NASA but from some guy probably without a degree who just > 'thought something up one day.' > > Sorry for the diatribe. I am a bit upset that the blame game has > already started. They should at least have decency to have the memorial > service before that crap starts. _____________ Joe, the "blame game", as you call it, had started decades before the accident -- and it was never a "game", and it was the opposite of "crap". Those of us who have been predicting precisely this (entirely predictable) event ever since the Shuttle resumed flying after Challenger -- only to be ignored, thanks to NASA's propaganda machine and its paid stable of Congressional whores -- are furious, and our fury is justified. And since when is keeping your mouth shut when you know people were unnecessarily killed by a corrupt business corporation or a corrupt governmental branch -- for its own financial gain -- a "fitting memorial" to the victims? Had I been on that Shuttle, I would have wanted anyone who had good evidence that my death was the result of homicidal irresponsibility by NASA to raise hell about it the moment it happened. I wrote my SpaceDaily piece accordingly (and refused pay for it). You're entirely right, though, that something completely new has to be done in order to solve this problem. Let me quote another E-mail I wrote this morning regarding what that something should be: "I haven't found a single point in my initial enraged [SpaceDaily] piece that I would change. The Shuttle is a very dangerous vehicle. Manned spaceflight is vastly less justified on scientific and commercial grounds than NASA has been making out for decades, and it has massively and deliberately lied about both the costs and the dangers of the Shuttle and> the Station in order to milk huge amounts of funding out of the White Houseand Congress. In the process of those self-serving lies, it has killed 14 people -- ths sort of behavior that gets private companies sued into the ground. "The Station should be cancelled immediately; manned spaceflights should at a minimum be vastly cut down in number for a long time to come (simply because almost all the scientific goals proclaimed for them can be done vastly more cheaply, and also more effectively, with unmanned satellites, including reusable ones); and any future manned flights should be done either with a new, smaller manned craft which would be much cheaper and much safer during launch and reentry than the Shuttle -- or by equipping the Shuttle cabin itself with the ability to abort during launch and perhaps also to survive loss of attitude control of the main vehicle during reentry, even at the loss of considerable payload capability. (As for wings on any Shuttle successor: as Robert Truax pointed out in that 1999 'Aerospace America' article, wings for a runway landing not only make it far more difficult to control a craft during reentry than a capsule design would be,> but they also massively cut its payload capability and thus itscost-effectiveness.) "Now that the federal government has finally been wised up to the outrageous lies NASA told to get both the Shuttle and the Station approved in the first place, if the Shuttle and Station actually are cancelled I doubt the money will be provided to develop a new manned craft of any sort until new technologies have massively knocked launch and flight costs down -- which, as Freeman Dyson says, won't happen for at least a couple of decades. The justifications for manned spaceflight are simply not remotely strong enough to justify another manned program until then." If all this sounds self-righteous of me, tough. I wouldn't write something like this if I wasn't absolutely convinced of its correctness. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/== You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
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