Space Shuttle lift off

[smartbrabus]

1st piece of filler just pulled out successfully after about 4 hours EVA...

 

[smartbrabus]

10 minutes later, another one pulled out - Job Done.

Lots of relieved folks at Houston

 

[wallingd]

It takes a very very special kind of person to work @ NASA...

What is/was that hammer-type noise that kept occurring?

 

[McGreggor]

It takes a very very special kind of person to work @ NASA...

What is/was that hammer-type noise that kept occurring?

You mean during the spacewalks? I wondered that too, of course there is no sound in space so I was thinking maybe its a mic inside their suits or the spacestation that picking up tools banging?

 

[gary350]

Do you reckon its the same guys that make the MB ML that put them tiles on.

gary

 

[glojo]

Just been listening to NASA TV. They have now unloaded over 5000 lb in weight of stores from the Space Shuttle into the Space Station, and loaded 4000 lb of rubbish plus other items back onboard the shuttle from the Space Station. (There's me thinking everything in Space is weightless )

It is fascinating watching this excellent free service and I just hope the shuttle will fly again.

John

 

[grober]

Nasas Project "Managers"

How come these bits of filler suddenly" protuded "from between the tiles on the underside of the shuttle. Maybe they were extruded during launch, but my bet is they were there prelaunch. Says a lot for their prelaunch inspection proceedure Rumour has it that Nasa is now top heavy with career oriented "project managers" and the real engineers have to take a back seat. Thats untill the shit hits the fan of course when the engineers have to sort out the problems and the "managers" rapidly fade out of sight. Some striking parallels with Daimler Chrysler you might think. Prestigious company with management relying on past glory and PR to sell cars rather than engineering excellence with the owner left to pick up the tab.

 

[glojo]

How come these bits of filler suddenly" protuded "from between the tiles on the underside of the shuttle.

Hi Grober,
Unfortunately I followed the tragic saga of the Columbia disaster with great interest and like you are hinting, engineers do not have the final say on what are truly life making decisions. It is left to the Captain of the ship to decide and they sometimes do not make decisions which are in the best interest of the crew.

With Columbia, the senior engineer overseeing the defective wing was positive a large piece of material had hit it on launch. He wrote reports, sent e-mails to the senior management, firstly requesting a review, then photographs. This was turned down. Such was his fear he went above the head of NASA and arranged for photographs to be taken via satelitte. The organisation responsible (can't remember what one) sent confirmation of the request to the head of NASA who went 'daft', they apologised for the inconvienance and cancelled the planned photographs.

Since then heads have rolled, the senior engineer has had a nervous breakdown and feels he should have done more??? Now quite clearly the new regime are afraid to make any sort of decision, it is highly likely that quite a number of shuttles have had these so called 'fillers' left in situ and they simply burn up on re-entry.

Space exploration by its very nature is dangerous and clearly everything should be done to make it as safe as is humanly possible, the fillers should never have been left behind, but at the end of the day, when will they be happy. I thought the average damage to shuttle tiles was 60 per mission, but now I have read the figure might be as high as 120!!! Yet before this flight they were never inspected whilst the shuttle was in orbit.

My own thoughts are that perhaps only life threatening repairs should be risked in orbit and others left well alone?? Imagine if that filler had just loosened two tiles which remained in location until re-entry?? This filler was I believe only made of plastic so it would have simply perhaps melted and burnt very quickly on re-entry. All space walks are risky and space suits are clumsy items of dress.



Bye for now,
John

 

[Flyer]

John, I'm spending far too much time on this It is fascinating watching them whizz by.

Found this site where you can download a file for Google Earth which takes live co-ordinates from NASA about where the ISS is and projects them onto Google Earth. Very cool

It just showed the SS a couple of hundred kilometers away from the ISS, which might come as a bit of a shock to the astronauts (obviously, just a glitch). Currently over Saudi Arabia.

There's also this map, but that isn't accurate as it shows the ISS in the North Atlantic heading towards Canada

BTW I found this info on Wikipedia ; what a resource that is proving to be!

 

[glojo]

BTW I found this info on Wikipedia ; what a resource that is proving to be!

Hi Flyer,
A great big thank you for the link.

Regards,
John

Sounds like they are all getting ready for the journey home.

 

[smartbrabus]

The space shuttle is looking decidedly dated now. Looking at it in simple terms, the design of the system has always been flawed. It seems pretty ridiculous to strap a relatively large shuttle to the side of an even bigger fuel tank when the tiles covering the shuttle's exposed underbelly are so fragile, and the probablity of debris from the tank on launch is so high.

If NASA are going to continue manned space exploration after the shuttles are decommisioned, they really need to go back to basics in their design process, and perhaps take a leaf out of the Russians' book. Presuming they will be sticking to rocket propulsion for the forseeable future, the next vehicle should have the crew module at the very top (so nothing can "fall" on it during launch), with a protected heatshield, and any payload capacity underneath...

 

[glojo]

The space shuttle is looking decidedly dated now. Looking at it in simple terms, the design of the system has always been flawed. It seems pretty ridiculous to strap a relatively large shuttle to the side of an even bigger fuel tank when the tiles covering the shuttle's exposed underbelly are so fragile, and the probablity of debris from the tank on launch is so high.

Hi Smartbus,
I totally agree with you about the excessive danger of falling 'debris'. NASA has published the projected design of the shuttle and as I posted earlier, it is indeed 'plonked' on top of the launching vehicle (rocket) as per the Apollo missions.

There are briiliant pictures being transmitted at present. I will have to give the station a wave the next time it goes by.


John

 

[glojo]

The Space Shuttle has now departed from the Space Station and it is beginning to prepare for the long ride home.

I cannot but help think about what the long term future of the Space Station will be, it is descending I believe at a rate of 100 metres per day and no one can predict when the building of the station will be completed and it might simply never be finished!!

Regards,
John

Still watching brilliant footage

 

[smartbrabus]

I cannot but help think about what the long term future of the Space Station will be, it is descending I believe at a rate of 100 metres per day and no one can predict when the building of the station will be completed and it might simply never be finished!!

100m per day !! Thats about 2 miles a month, which means it would hit the upper stratosphere pretty soon unless it gets some regular speed boosts... Good job Soyuz is relatively reliable

 

[glojo]

100m per day !! Thats about 2 miles a month, which means it would hit the upper stratosphere pretty soon unless it gets some regular speed boosts... Good job Soyuz is relatively reliable

I think Is the operative word!!

"""The space station is located in orbit around the Earth at an altitude of approximately 360 km (220 miles), a type of orbit usually termed low Earth orbit. (The actual height varies over time by several kilometres due to atmospheric drag and reboosts. The station, on average, loses 100 meters of altitude per day.) It orbits Earth at a period of about 92 minutes; by June 2005 it had completed more than 37,500 orbits since launch."""

Hence my remarks about the grounding of the space shuutle and the completing of the build program?

Regards,
John

The space shuttle will be landing shortly in California.

The weather is excellent and we have just watched an astronaugt carry out a practice approach.

Regards
John

 

[glojo]

Space Shuttle Landed

Back on terra firma in sunny California all safe and well

John

 

[andyw]

Back on terra firma in sunny California all safe and well

John

just watched the whole descent - remarkable pictures!

 

[glojo]

I wonder if we will see the shuttle having its piggy back ride back to Florida. The skills and technical abilities of the Americans are awesome.

A 747 carrying a space shuttle certainly must have been a challenging exercise to design.

John

 

[Satch]

Shuttle actually managed to raise altitude of ISS

Interesting. Never realised that the ISS needed to be kicked upstairs on a regular basis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8814642/

 

[glojo]

Interesting. Never realised that the ISS needed to be kicked upstairs on a regular basis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8814642/

Hi Satch,
These articles certainly highlight the 'incompetance' of various departments. Your article refers to 100ft per day, yet the article I read referred to 100 metres per day.

I can now perhaps understand why some of their exploration missions have had disastrous endings with equipment crashing into planets. This was due to a failure to take into account some measurement were actually feet instead of metres! If it wasn't so serious, it ewould be funny.

Regards,
John