Shuttle Damaged

[vtbub]

I'm not a believer in omens, but....

Space Shuttle Damaged on the Launch Pad

By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer




CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- With the countdown for Discovery in its final hours, NASA was dealt a setback Tuesday when a window cover fell off the shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space agency said it probably could fix the problem in time for Wednesday's launch.

The mishap was an eerie reminder of the very thing that doomed Columbia - damage to the spaceship's fragile thermal shield.

The plastic-and-foam cover on one of Discovery's cockpit windows fell at the launch pad and struck a bulge in the fuselage that houses an orbital-maneuvering engine.

Stephanie Stilson, NASA manager in charge of Discovery's launch preparations, said that the tiles on an aluminum panel were damaged and that a spare panel would be installed in its place late Tuesday. She said the work could be done in about an hour and should not delay the launch.

No workers were nearby when the window cover fell off and dropped about 60 feet, the space agency said. It was not immediately clear why the cover - which was held by tape - came loose.

Word of the mishap came just two hours after NASA declared Discovery ready to return the nation to space, 2 1/2 years after the Columbia disaster.

Up until the window cover fell, NASA's only concern was the weather. Because of thunderstorms in the forecast, the chances of acceptable weather at launch time were put at 60 percent.

Discovery and its crew of seven were set to blast off at 3:51 p.m. EDT. The last few technical concerns were resolved Tuesday afternoon at one final launch review by NASA's managers.

"It is utterly crucial for NASA, for the nation, for our space program to fly a safe mission," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said on the eve of the launch. "We have done everything that we know to do."

The families of the seven astronauts killed during Columbia's catastrophic re-entry praised the accident investigators, a NASA oversight group and the space agency itself for defining and reducing the dangers.

Like those who lost loved ones in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire and the Challenger launch explosion, the Columbia families said they grieve deeply "but know the exploration of space must go on."

"We hope we have learned and will continue to learn from each of these accidents so that we will be as safe as we can be in this high-risk endeavor," they said in a statement. "Godspeed, Discovery."

Discovery will be setting off on the 114th space shuttle flight in 24 years with a redesigned external fuel tank and nearly 50 other improvements made in the wake of the Columbia tragedy.

A chunk of foam insulation the size of a carry-on suitcase fell off Columbia's fuel tank at liftoff and slammed into a reinforced carbon panel on the shuttle's wing, creating a hole that brought the spacecraft crashing down in pieces during its return to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003.

Almost every day since then, engineers have struggled to keep foam, ice and other debris from popping off the tank. They will not know whether they succeeded until Discovery flies.

During the 12-day flight, Discovery's astronauts will test various techniques for patching cracks and holes in the thermal shielding.

The crew members will also try out a new 50-foot boom designed to give them a three-dimensional laser view of the wings and nose cap and help them find any damage caused by liftoff debris. That is on top of all the pictures of the spacecraft that will be taken by more than 100 cameras positioned around the launching site and aboard two planes and the shuttle itself.

"After this flight, we will have a much, much, much better idea of whether or not our measures we have taken ... have been effective - or not effective," Griffin said. "Now our best engineers have put their best efforts on that, and we devoutly hope that they have been effective."

The board that investigated the Columbia accident put some of the blame on the space agency's safety culture, which collapsed during the doomed flight. Shuttle managers dismissed the foam strike, and engineers did not speak up about their fears.

At Tuesday's meeting, Griffin said, there was full and frank discussion of the remaining technical concerns.

"I think we got everything that everybody knows about out on the table," he said. "Can there be something that we don't know about that can bite us? Yeah. This is a very tough business. It's a tough business. But everything we know about has been covered."

A safe and successful flight of Discovery will not vindicate the space agency, Griffin said.

"There is no recovery from mistakes we've made, whether it goes back to the Apollo fire, loss of Challenger or the loss of Columbia. Going back even further to 100 years of aviation, the safety systems that we who fly have learned and know are written in other people's blood," said Griffin, a pilot.

"The minute we say we're good enough, we start getting bad again and we need not to do that."

---

[mrsimperless]

Fixed it! It was the lugnut.

Seriously, slap some more duct tape on the SOB and commence countdown.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by mrsimperless

Seriously, slap some more duct tape on the SOB and commence countdown.

Isn't that what got us into trouble the last time?

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I wouldnt be surprised if the same fate befalls this flight as the last one.

[mrsimperless]

Maybe, but we need to get back up in the final frontier.

Mars, bitches.

Mars.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Originally Posted by mrsimperless

Maybe, but we need to get back up in the final frontier.

Mars, bitches.

Mars.

So.....what did happen to Bush's plan?

[hhiipp]

Well not 'us' per se.

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

So.....what did happen to Bush's plan?

He got confused and invaded Iraq instead of Mars. Hard to pay for space exploration when you're buying armored Humvees.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I knew it was only a one day thing too, and also a smoke screen that died down right away.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Dola: I would give anything for a president to make space exploration their main mission.
Of course it would also be nice to see a prez. who makes social issues his main mission but that too is wishful thinking.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

I wouldnt be surprised if the same fate befalls this flight as the last one.

I would be stunned if it did.There are literally millions of things that could go wrong, but the odds of one individual thing happening are very remote.

Think about this as for NASA's safety measures -- let's say the odds of a chunk of ice falling and damaging a heat tile to the point of causing destruction of the craft are 10,000 to 1. The real odds are probably much greater than that. Odds are, NASA could conduct hundreds if not thousands of flights without encountering the same problem. But yet we shut the program down and took every precaution they could to try to make the odds of it happening again even remote.

Could it happen again? Sure, but the odds are astronomical. Could something else go wrong. Certainly, becuase space flight is one of the riskiest activities there is. But if we took the same approach to driving an automobile that NASA does with it's spacecraft, we'd been a nation of bicycles because we'd still be trying to work on the bugs.

[Swaggs]

How many shuttles do we even have left?

Were there four originally?

[GreenMonster]

It scares me that anything that hits this thing breaks something. You would think the Shuttle would be solid as a rock.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

Dola: I would give anything for a president to make space exploration their main mission.
Of course it would also be nice to see a prez. who makes social issues his main mission but that too is wishful thinking.

Pork isn't "social (domestic) issues"?

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by GreenMonster

It scares me that anything that hits this thing breaks something. You would think the Shuttle would be solid as a rock.

Problem is that you can't do that or else it will be too heavy to shoot into space.

SI

[cthomer5000]

I'm gonna' need some pliers, and a set of 30 weight ball bearings.

It's all ball bearings nowadays boys.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

I'm gonna' need some pliers, and a set of 30 weight ball bearings.

It's all ball bearings nowadays boys.

mrsimperless had it right- it's all about duct tape, Fletch

SI

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

How many shuttles do we even have left?

Were there four originally?

2 I believe and maybe spare for 1 more.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

Dola: I would give anything for a president to make space exploration their main mission.
Of course it would also be nice to see a prez. who makes social issues his main mission but that too is wishful thinking.

I know someone has referenced David Cross on this board before, but his bit on space exploration is hilarious.

[vtbub]

Launch scrubbed due to a faulty fuel sensor

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by vtbub

Launch scrubbed due to a faulty fuel sensor

I'm not sure we're ever going to get another one off the ground if they have to watch stuff as closely as they think they do. The Space Shuttle is just too complex a piece of machinery to make sure everything is perfect to within .001% of error (much less a perfect chance of error, which is not possible).

SI

[terpkristin]

http://gimpygal.blogspot.com/2005/07...h-delayed.html

This is a common problem. Again, tensions are "higher" right now because of so much attention to THIS launch.

/tk

[Peregrine]

At this point, good luck to them getting it off the ground at any point, they can always find a minor problem which will provide the critics (and the shuttle has a lot even within NASA) support to cancel the launch.

[Yellow5]

I work for Boeing and Sat. is the earliest we can launch if we are lucky. Hope they can pull it off this time around.

[QuikSand]

I find the "oh, go ahead and sent it up anyway" mentality quite fascinating.