SPACE CENTER, Houston - NASA said Wednesday it is grounding future shuttle flights because foam debris that brought down Columbia is still a risk - and might have doomed Discovery if the big chunk of broken insulation had come off just a bit earlier and slammed into the spacecraft.
A large chunk of foam flew off Discovery's external fuel tank just two minutes after liftoff Tuesday morning. Shuttle managers do not believe it hit the shuttle, posing a threat to the seven astronauts when they return to Earth. But they plan a closer inspection of the spacecraft to be sure.
"You have to admit when you're wrong. We were wrong," said shuttle program manager Bill Parsons. "We need to do some work here, and so we're telling you right now, that the ... foam should not have come off. It came off. We've got to go do something about that."
I heard this on the radio on the way to school tonight.
I REALLY think this was the plan all along, give the shuttle one last launch to prove NASA can still 'get it up' then retire the shuttle on a high-note.
This isn't good news for the imediate future because NASA doesn't have anything in the works to do the missions that need to be done. However, this could be a good long term event as its forces NASA to get a replacement.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
I think it's time to simply close the books on the Space Shuttle and get the SDV/CEV configuration off the drawing boards as a midterm replacement. With this latest grounding, there is now no chance that the Shuttle will ever live up even to the latest revised mission plan for the next five years. This is when the best course is to cut our losses and start work on a more reliable vehicle.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
The only shuttle remotely worth keeping is the Endeavor because its the youngest shuttle (barely a teenager compared to the other shuttles which are old enough to vote).
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
RedImperator wrote:Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Space Shuttle is required to keep the ISS in proper orbit. Souyez isn's powerful enough to aide the ISS.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
RedImperator wrote:Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Space Shuttle is required to keep the ISS in proper orbit. Souyez isn's powerful enough to aide the ISS.
If that flying money pit pulled a Skylab, I wouldn't shed a tear. That's another thing for which we've pissed away billions for no possible gain.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
RedImperator wrote:Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Space Shuttle is required to keep the ISS in proper orbit. Souyez isn's powerful enough to aide the ISS.
The Shuttle doesn't keep the ISS in orbit. But the entire construction and supply plan for that station was pinned on the Shuttle keeping up its pre-Columbia flight schedule and that's not going to happen now. Basically, the ISS is fucked.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
RedImperator wrote:
If that flying money pit pulled a Skylab, I wouldn't shed a tear. That's another thing for which we've pissed away billions for no possible gain.
I wonder how much real science was done on the Skylabs as compared to ISS when you figure in the costs? ISS has gone through multiple redesigns and it's pretty obvious it will never be completed.
I don't want any of the crew to die to get that fucking money pit retired, but I won't shed a tear if they get down safely and the damn thing is turned into coke cans.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
RedImperator wrote:
If that flying money pit pulled a Skylab, I wouldn't shed a tear. That's another thing for which we've pissed away billions for no possible gain.
I wonder how much real science was done on the Skylabs as compared to ISS when you figure in the costs? ISS has gone through multiple redesigns and it's pretty obvious it will never be completed.
There was only one Skylab. And for the limitations of the design combined with the damage it suffered just going up it proved to be a very effective space science platform for its day.
An ISS is potentially an effective scientific platform, but pinning its construction on the reliability of the Space Shuttle doomed it from the outset.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
Interestingly enough, this was written before the first shuttle even took flight. I guess the whole two decades of negligence is due to NASA and the media romanticising space flight through the Space Shuttle. The old spacecraft are downright hearty in comparison to all accounts of the shuttle. The Russians really do have the right idea with Soyuz.
RedImperator wrote:Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Absolutely, we can retire it just as soon as we field something with superior capabilities ....
/crickets
[img=right]http://www.tallguyz.com/imagelib/chmeesig.jpg[/img]My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but
Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to
make guesses in front of a district attorney,
an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer.
Sam Spade, "The Maltese Falcon" Operation Freedom Fry
Interestingly enough, this was written before the first shuttle even took flight. I guess the whole two decades of negligence is due to NASA and the media romanticising space flight through the Space Shuttle. The old spacecraft are downright hearty in comparison to all accounts of the shuttle. The Russians really do have the right idea with Soyuz.
The shuttle was supposed to be an interim vehicle which was to be retired in 10 years. The problem came that many people wanted to design a newer better vehicle, some even wanted to go back to the old rockets. Everytime the budget didn't have funds to retire the shuttle and it was constantly retooled and refurbished to remain in service. Rather than actually taking one of the drawing board replacements to completion, they simply kept starting back at the drawing board trying to skip a generation. Congress is more at fault than NASA here, certainly the lower ranks at NASA bear far less blame.
Alyeska wrote:The only shuttle remotely worth keeping is the Endeavor because its the youngest shuttle (barely a teenager compared to the other shuttles which are old enough to vote).
Endeavour's not *that* much younger than OV-103/104 (only separated by eight years at the longest). Even then, I doubt orbiter age is as much of an issue in this case, so much as it's problems with shitty insulation foam (they changed the formula some time in the mid-1990s--you can see the difference when they go from rust-red to practically orange ETs).
skyman8081 wrote:Lets just bring back the white ET's.
The white paint should keep it on there.
They don't paint the external tanks because it means seven metric tons of extra weight on the vehicle to do so.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
Interestingly enough, this was written before the first shuttle even took flight. I guess the whole two decades of negligence is due to NASA and the media romanticising space flight through the Space Shuttle. The old spacecraft are downright hearty in comparison to all accounts of the shuttle. The Russians really do have the right idea with Soyuz.
I just read this article. Wow, they predicted the tile problem. But they missed the o-ring problem! Dumbasses (directed at NASA).
RedImperator wrote:Can we just stop throwing good money after bad with this fucking thing? If we need to send humans up there, we can rent a damn Souyez until we have a decent replacement.
Actually, IIRC, we have some damn sanction on the Russians for something they did (can't remember what) which prevents NASA from sending them any money.
Aren't there heavy-lift rockets in service nowadays, though? I thought the Europeans had one that could lift big loads - why can't we send ISS pieces up on those and send construction crews up on expendable modules?
Kamakazie Sith wrote:That must be terrible form of suspense for the astronaut crew. If they know...
Can you imagine? Well, todays the day we go back home.....one way or another. :gulp:
The shuttle and astronauts are not in any danger. This is purely a precautionary move. Enough foam fell from the ET to conclude that the new design and construction techniques did not work and still poses a threat for future flights.
