Oh Shit!!! Endeavor's heat sheild damaged and gauged by ice during takeoff

Astronauts begin spacewalk as NASA analyzes shuttle damage
by Jean-Louis Santini
1 hour, 12 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - NASA on Saturday attempted to gauge the extent of ice damage on the space shuttle Endeavour's heat shield as two astronauts set off on their first spacewalk of the shuttle mission.

Mission specialists Rick Mastracchio of the United States and Canadian Dave Williams headed outside the International Space Station to install and activate a new truss, the first of three planned spacewalks of the mission, to which a fourth could be added to repair the damage.

Meanwhile, experts at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Earth were analyzing pictures taken of the shuttle during a routine inspection Friday after the orbiter docked with the station, that showed the apparent three square inch (19 square centimeter) gouge on shuttle's heat shield.

A piece of ice that struck the shuttle shortly after Wednesday's liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida is believed to have caused the gouge near the hatch of one of the shuttle's landing gears, mission manager John Shannon said.

Small white marks were also visible on other thermal tiles surrounding the damaged area, he told a news conference...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070811/sc_afp/usspaceshuttleiss

They have a patch kit and procedures to fix it. They just might have to stay a day or two longer to get it patched.

They've never blown up on re-entry because of the same damned thing.


Oh wait, they have.
Lee

Please know that I have reviewed the overall procedures put in place after the tragedy. I have a space Shuttle operations background so I am comfortable that this can be fixed safely.

PS it didn't "Blow up" it broke apart.

...and my brother, when he worked at NASA, helped develop the software they use on the shuttle.

If they learned their lessons that well, there would never have been a second accident. It's about cost and caring and they don't spend the money and they think humans are expendable. It is the government we are talking about here............................
Lee

haven't they experienced similar problems since the Columbia disaster and were able to satisfactorily fix in space in order to return safely home? How is this time really different from those?

If that helps. :shrug:

When the shuttle was grounded because of the last blow up there were still some astronauts on the space station. The Russians had to bring them home. Maybe they should consider doing this again. I don't want to lose any more astronauts in these ancient damned shuttles.

k&r..
Lee

When I saw another teacher was going up, I thought, "Let's hope this one gets back alive."

Hi Lee!!! :hi:

the booster rockets to protect the underbelly of the shuttle during liftoff and ascent. The shield would then separate and fall away with the boosters. :shrug:

Have you considered working for NASA?

Or on edit: Maybe just coat the underbelly with some coating that would resist damage from falling crap. It'd burn off during re-entry anyway, and leave the tiles to do the heavy lifting, so to speak. (Naturally, I speak as someone who knows nothing about spacecraft design -- but, from such dumbass statements such as mine do sometimes mighty solutions grow. Or something like that.)

a kevlar shield to the underside to protect it on liftoff. It wouldn't need to be cast off, it would just burn up harmlessly on re-entry.

And I'm a cat veterinarian. If I can think up this stuff, why don't THEY??

Why don't they use the light weight heat shield tiles on the shuttle on the fuel tank instead of foam? Probably cost.

:hi: Yeah I got strangely worried when I found out another teacher was onboard. I hope to hell they make it back safely.

Lee

I seem to recall thats a pretty critical area.

There are worse places to take damage. I'd think this would be as close to as "perfect" a scenario for heatshield repair

My question is why the hell in 30 years there has not been one single major incremental upgrade to the airframe or its design.

My first move would have been to rebuild in titanium rather than aluminium. Either weight could be saved by reducing the size and number of structural members, whilst making the whole thing a lot more heat resistant. Alternately the wings could be grown a bit to change the shuttles aerodynamic characteristics from those of a house brick to a a roofing tile.

Next would be to strip out most of the electrical wiring. Replacing it with "smart" hubs and Ethernet (or similar).

Just those two changes should increase carrying capacity by a ton or two and safety by a huge margin. Stripping out all that wiring would also save hundreds of man hours inspecting the craft after/before every use.

Aircraft evolution did not go Wright Flyer - Spirit of St Louis - Gooneybird (DC3) - Tomcat.

OK simulation and modeling means we no longer have to "try" things one strut at a time, but a lot can still be learnt and achieved by "improving" on what you already have, particularly if all your truly "NEW" work immediately goes to the military or simply the "too hard" basket.

Personally I would go for a two prong approach: A safe reliable reusable people mover, with a capacity of 10-20 passengers and a small amount of delicate/critical cargo (mix-n-match according to needs): and something like the Shuttle-C concept.

As far as your suggestions for upgrades, I think the major issue is probably budgets. Not sure about whether wireless communications would be considered safe for aircraft control, its possible sure, but there might be issues we are not aware of. No question the design is dated and could be improved today. My pop was involved in the redundant computer system design back in the 70's.

...to the cockpit, run them only to local nodes and then just a couple or three Ethernet networks to link them all to the control systems.

Oh and of course power trunks to wherever power is needed.

How much money did NASA spend on developing Aerospike engine (now on the shelf) and the SCRAM jet (given straight to the military as soon as it worked)?

And because they would be working from an existing design, there is a great deal less original design work needed.


The main reason that NASA has held onto the shuttle as long as it has, is to maintain a manned presence in space. There are people out there who would like to see the manned program killed in favour of planetary science, and plenty more who would like to see the end of a manned program as the first stage of shutting down NASA (as a civilian entity at least) entirely.

Even if it is a wired network, there may be requirements for real time communication that are not met by off the shelf ethernet networks. But I still think your main point about modernization is valid.

On the budgeting, keep in mind that it seems clear that the budget for the space shuttle constricted maintenance and upgrade programs for the last couple of decades. Much work was outsourced because of these economic considerations. There was no champion of the space shuttle program to garner support for this type of upgrade. Hopefully, we will see another great era for space exploration in our lifetime, but I am somewhat pessimistic about the prospect in the near future.

I'm as big a fan as anyone,but it's brown trouser time every time they use one now.

that NASA only plans to continue to use them long enough to finish building the ISS (about 2010) and after that a new space transport system will be used (somewhat similar to the Apollo capsules and Saturn rockets).

Your title is a little dramatic for what amounts to a three inch long gouge that "might" need to be repaired. The astronauts don't seem to be very worked up about this, so I think I'll wait to start etching inscriptions on their tombstones.

The wing edge and nose take the brunt of the heat on reentry.

They have plans for space repair of the tiles.