DamagedGoods

I agree that it doesn't quite look right; the boundary between the object with the cracks and the earth seems to bleed a bit; the lack of definition makes me think "Photoshop." I think I'd need to see an image like that presented by somebody official from NASA before I'd even give it any credibility at all.

cricket

I have little to contribute but love reading your posts, y'all. This thread is fascinating. I hope you keep it going for a while.

Answerer

Relax guys, at least this is no terror attacks.

SteveD

No way is this a picture of a shuttle wing.

First, there appears to be some kind of pipe fixture attached. There are none of these on the shuttle's wings.

Second, There are no tiles in this picture! The tiling on the wing of the shuttle is plainly visible.

Third, I don't think that you can even see the wings from the cockpit. they are set very far back on the vehicle. You certainly wouldn't get a view like this from an ordinary camcorder in the cockpit as this was supposed to be.

Whoever published this picture did not bother to research it.

Steve

Fisheye

Well, here's the page translated by Babelfish, if that helps

http://makeashorterlink.com/?R2C412553

It looks like there's too much curvature in the earth...this picture was taken from Endeavor.

...Damn long URLs

Jackalope

This part needs to be emphasized again. I've seen the training the astronauts have to go through just to learn to use the robot arm. And there's a reason that most documentaries don't include the feed from the astronaut's radio. It usually includes a lot of short words of anglo-saxon derivation.

We're talking about having to 1) identify damaged tiles 2) pry the damaged tiles off without damaging anything else 3) managing to spread the adhesive onto the new tile and the wing surface evenly 4) get the new tile slapped exactly into place.

Guys, that's no picnic even in the hangar. And I'm not sure there is an adhesive they could use without a surrounding air tent that has to be sealed and worked through. Now keep in mind all this has to be done in the EVA suit. Which has gloves like the world's toughest balloons, so you're fighting against the air inside the glove every time you try and move your fingers. You cannot do fine work in these suits. Honest.

When I was a grad student doing slave labor for NASA Ames, the glove issue was something that everyone went round and round on. Everything from putting a let-down valve in the glove wrist to lower the pressure temporarily to waldoes. But even if there'd been money to do the full hard suit that looked like the best alternative for ISS, it would've been too heavy and bulky for most shuttle missions.

Another thought on EVAs that most people who haven't seen the suits or the shuttles up close don't realize: there's no magic way to make your feet stick to the hull. Most people think that magnets would do it because they've all read science fiction books. But on a vehicle that's entirely covered with low-density and fragile tiles, there's no way magnets would work unless you used something so strong that it would both crush the tiles and make it impossible for you to move your feet.

So an EVA is the astronaut tethered to the craft, with a huge bulky jet pack on their back. That jet pack will let you move around some, but you have to be careful not to let the exhaust flume hit anything. At least one camera got ruined that way in the early missions. Oh, and because inertia is still alive and well, you have to be careful not to send yourself shooting off your little platform while you're working. And any tool you let go of may very well drift away and cause havoc if you let go of it the wrong way.

All those things are the reasons that EVA training is so rigorous. It's also why trying a patch-job in space with no training would almost certainly cause even more damage.

Primordial Groove

Ok, the case has been made against my initial reaction. Thank you for clearing this up.

Now, what are things that NASA can do in case something like this happens again? With Columbia gone, will the ISS be the backup plan since the rest of the orbiters are ISS capable?

It would be foolish for NASA not to have a contingency plan after this investigation is over. I think alot of people will react negatively knowing there isn't a plan B for humans in space. The realization does not sit well with me (although, I have nothing to do with the space program, other than my tax dollars) now. Although, I will always support the space program.

abe smith

"After the first death there is no other"... whatever whichever-Guy meant by that.....
I infuriated my baby Brother sunday when we talked about this in transit [Transit, NJ, a few miles SE of There], and I said "(Do you think that) all human lives are of equal value?"
He (primed of old for the built-in grenade) asked "Where are you going w/ this? um..... I suppose my answer is Yes."
I said "I wd expect any Believer to answer so = Yes. And so, if all human lives are of equal value, >>>> thousands die here in the USofA every year, in car crashes; and the President of US does not weep on TV commemorating *them*. And so?"

Bro did not pull off the road to punch-out my lights; and we changed the subject.
And so?

butswana

I wouldn't worry too much about the public not standing for a shuttle with no escape system. They will for get soon enough.
Just this morning, a woman I work with was trying to get others to marvel in her knowledge that there are two astonauts flying on the space station right now.
This other jack-ass has become a STS expert over night. Over the past two days he has repeatedly spouted off shit he heard(most of it is wrong).
War with Iraq is on a few weeks and the NBA play-offs are coming. Nothing will change. The flight manifest will be a little tight with only three orbiters to do the job. The public will get thier noses out of NASA so they can't get back to work.
I was watching NASA TV Saturday morning. It was a great day for a landing. When I got home from work about 10am, my 3 year old greeted me at the door with a hug(as usual) and told me that the space shovel was broke.

Asha'man

Nope.

People just have no idea how big space is, even low earth orbit.

Suppose your small sailboat started taking on water just off the coast of South Carolina. (Pretend you can’t come ashore because the surf would break your boat apart.) There are permanently manned oil rigs in the North Sea, up beyond Scotland. Do you think it is reasonable to try to nurse your sinking sailboat all the way across the Atlantic in the hope of finding a rescuer? After all, you are both in the same ocean….

If the shuttle isn’t in the right orbit to reach the ISS in the first place, then it just ain’t gonna happen. The issue is fuel and delta-V. To carry enough fuel to reach the ISS from any given mission, the shuttle would become a fuel barge, and would have to eliminate some extra weight: payload, crew, science experiments, etc. Imagine launching with a spare external fuel tank, and 3 extra solid rocket boosters to compensate for the extra weight, and a 4th solid rocket booster to compensate for the weight of the extra 3 boosters, etc.

Ever notice how carefully timed shuttle launches are whenever they need to rendezvous with something? I seem to recall hearing about a 7 minute launch window each day for one mission. To meet up with Hubble, the ISS, or anything else in orbit requires a very carefully placed launch, so that the minute amount of maneuvering fuel that is carried aboard after launch is sufficient to finish the job.

There is only one possible bail out plan for problems in orbit: another vehicle that is ready to launch with short notice. Something like the shuttle replacement was supposed to be, except that it was cancelled. Or perhaps a fleet of shuttles, with each mission prepped early enough to act as a lifeboat for the previous mission.