Final Shuttle launch - debris hits Orbiter

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Final Shuttle launch - debris hits Orbiter

Post by DeltaV »

Multiple taps on the Orbiter nose starting a few seconds after ignition. Thank God the airspeed was still low.

It's time for a new design.

Booster Camera Video of Atlantis Launch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ZI#t=1269s

Enlarged single frame with tweaks to contrast, gamma and color saturation:
Image

[EDIT - Changed the thread title, since the pictures I'm adding below suggest paper or plastic sheets instead of foam. Fooled by a white object reflecting orange flame...]
Last edited by DeltaV on Fri Jul 15, 2011 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

EricF
Posts: 204
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2008 2:52 pm
Location: Pell City, Alabama

Post by EricF »

:o Why is anything as fragile as 'foam' used on the external construction to begin with?

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Post by DeltaV »

Looks like paper or plastic on closer inspection:

Image


Image

Betruger
Posts: 2321
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 11:54 am

Post by Betruger »

From one of the early NSF STS-135 live threads it looks like there was no damage reported..

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Post by DeltaV »

EricF wrote::o Why is anything as fragile as 'foam' used on the external construction to begin with?
1) Good thermal insulator, required with cryogenics in order to avoid ice buildup, which would be worse on the fragile Orbiter than falling foam.
2) Low weight for the insulation provided.
It's not intended to carry any significant structural load.
But most importantly,
3) When only half the required budget is approved, you end up with suboptimal compromises of the basic architecture.

The ET and SRBs were not part of the original flyback booster TSTO proposal killed by Nixon & Co., which had metallic TPS that would have tolerated ice hits.

And of course, the ET and SRB were culprits in the loss of two vehicles and crews.

KitemanSA
Posts: 6179
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

DeltaV wrote: ...
3) When only half the required budget is approved, you end up with suboptimal compromises of the basic architecture.

The ET and SRBs were not part of the original flyback booster TSTO proposal killed by Nixon & Co., which had metallic TPS that would have tolerated ice hits.

And of course, the ET and SRB were culprits in the loss of two vehicles and crews.
Perhaps NASA should have said "no"?

GIThruster
Posts: 4686
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

KitemanSA wrote:Perhaps NASA should have said "no"?
Perhaps. There's no telling what Shuttle would have looked like if NASA had refused the redesigns from DOD. NASA wanted a smaller design with metallic TPS that would have allowed the launches to be much more common and much cheaper. They wanted a fleet of ten, and they might have got what they asked for had they held out. DOD would still have been able to build a space truck with huge cross range, so we might have had two separate versions flying.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Post by DeltaV »

Maybe NASA felt that half of a fully reusable Shuttle (and a bigger payload, greater cross range version, per GIThruster) was better than no Shuttle.

Bad decision, as it turned out, although what it did accomplish in a pared-back form is still remarkable.

The fully reusable (and more robust) version, had it been developed, might still be flying for another ten or twenty years.

At least the space entrepreneurs now have a really serious gap to fill. Best wishes to them.

The old guard (LockMart, Boeing, NorGrum, etc.) had their chance, and blew it by becoming too big and bloated to take on new risks without a Federal nipple being involved, i.e., an aversion to seriously funding Internal Research and Development and maintaining such funding in the face of inevitable setbacks and shareholder gripes. Next quarter's profit, that's all that matters.

This relates to the Harvard Business School, McNamara-style MBA takeover discussed in the General forum:
viewtopic.php?t=3186

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 30,00.html
The auto industry is actually a terrific proxy for a trend toward short-term, myopically balance-sheet-driven management that has infected American business. In the first half of the 20th century, industrial giants like Ford, General Electric, AT&T and many others were extremely consumer-focused. They spent most of their time and money using new technologies to create the best possible products and services, regardless of development cost. The idea was, if you build it better, the customers will come. And they did.

The pendulum began to swing in the postwar era, when Harvard Business School grad Robert McNamara and his "whiz kids" became famous for using mathematical modeling, game theory and complex statistical analysis for the Army Air Corps, doing things like improving fuel-transport times and scheduling more-efficient bombing raids. McNamara, who later became president of Ford, brought extreme number crunching to the business world, and soon the idea that "if you can measure it, you can manage it" took hold — and no wonder. By the late 1970s, M.B.A.s were flourishing, and engineers were relegated to the geek back rooms.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

Well actually Boeing and also to a smaller extent Lockmart are taking part in the commercial crew thing and have been bidding for funding too, just like the new space companies.
ULA, is most likely going to provide launchers for Boeigns CST 100 and SNCs Dreamchaser. So old space is going new space as well.

The Shuttle was a failed design. It originally could have been pretty good, but then it was turned into a "do everything" vehicle and not only had to be a crew transporter, a space station, a heavy lift truck, it also had to have a large crossrange so the DOD could do its black ops with it and on top of that all that for less funding than it would have needed. It was bound to fail. IMHO it was a huge failure to keep it going for that long. It turned into an entitlement program for certain companies, e.g. in Alabama and Utah...

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Post by DeltaV »

I don't consider Apollo Command Module versions 2.01 and 2.02 to be "new space", but I guess I'm just old fashioned.

The only way LockMart could impress me now in commercial space is to use company funds to bring something like X-33 (this time with properly designed composite tanks and a lighter aerospike engine) or one of their hypersecret successors to the SR-71 (modifed for SSTO) into public domain operational status. Flying subscale models in the desert is not good enough.

Dreamchaser is good (thank you Russia for the BOR-4). Hope it evolves into something that doesn't need an Atlas V.

SpaceDev is the (now) SNC subsidiary that Dr. Bussard gave EMC2's equipment and technicians to, the last time Navy money ran out... Hmmmm.

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

Well, the way they (with the exception of Orion) would be contracted the "New Space way" though (fixed price contracts, not cost plus) and that is what ultimately makes the difference.
Boeing is working on a TSTO reusable launcher system, actually. There was an article (behind a pay wall unfortunately) on Aviation Week recently.
There is a quite a bit movement going on in the industry recently. One has to give Obama credit for that. He did that with peanuts compared to the amounts usually spent on space related stuff. Compare that to the SLS, which is projected to cost billions and the Orion which will cost billions more. Both are IMHO totally unnecessary investments that should be scrapped with the money going towards CCDev and technology development. The SLS wont have a mission anyway.

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

Post by TDPerk »

"One has to give Obama credit for that."

Why? He is accidentally doing something correct for the wrong reasons, and there is every indication that if he or someone like is in office when such changes in policy begin to bear fruit, they will see to it that baby is smothered in the cradle.

Obama's sole motivations in upending NASA business as usual, is to punish industries and constituency groups like the space contractors who are associated with also being defense--Republican benefiting--contractors, and to be seen to be cutting some spending to further his socialist programs.

Does anyone really think the President or his ilk, who will impose an effectual moratorium on oil drilling on offshore drilling, sends a host of regulators to bedevil entrepreneurs large and small, who's admitted goal even before he was elected was to preferentially punish wealth creation; does anyone really think that sort will permit us to benefit from the exploitation of the resources in space?
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

Obama's sole motivations in upending NASA business as usual, is to punish industries and constituency groups like the space contractors who are associated with also being defense--Republican benefiting--contractors, and to be seen to be cutting some spending to further his socialist programs.
Actually his policy was based on the recommendations of an independent panel of experts (Augustine commission).
Punishing space and defense contractors? Hello? Boeing is even among the supporters (and bidders) of the commercial space approach by Obama. The only ones against it are ATK and to a lesser extent Lockmart, who fear they will loose their republican entitlement programs.

JCee
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:32 am

Post by JCee »

EricF wrote::o Why is anything as fragile as 'foam' used on the external construction to begin with?
Although the shuttle is a fairly lousy design for efficient and economical space flight the major problems with foam and debris damage to the orbiters coinsided with the reformulation of the foam to remove CFC's from the manufacture of the foam. The old foam reportedly never lost any pieces larger than a quarter. If they'd been allowed to ask for a waiver and been granted an exemption from the CFC elimination rules I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have lost the second orbiter. Of course the the shuttles would still be uneconomical to run they ought to be on the equilivent of Shuttle design 3.0 instead of 1.01b

Post Reply