NASA decides not to repair shuttle

I have a sinking feeling about the outcome of this decision...

 

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but im with you - surely its better to risk one or two in a space walk as opposed to the whole crew with the gash in the shield ???

 

I did from the beginning. When the news made the big hoopla about this lady being the teacher who lost out to McCaullah (Challenger), I got uneasy hearing about it. Then I saw the size of the damage.

Let us pray for their safe return, and NASA ending this downward spiral their on.

 

We had just better hope they are lucky. One thing that does occur is that maybe they are suspicious that a "repair" via spacewalk might in fact make that section MORE vulnerable if the repair somehow went wrong.

There is also the risk of the spacewalk itself; apparantly nobody has ever done one out to the underside of the shuttle.

And, believe it or not, I read an article about trouble again with the O-rings a week or two back.

 

The needs of the many,,,, outweigh, the needs of one.
(They need to fix it.)
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Space walks aren't easy. You just don't open the door and venture out whenever you want. They're risky.

Secondly even if they do their repair, the likelihood of it helping is minor compared to the risk of a long spacewalk. I forget how long the repair would take but they don't see the need to dangle a person out into space for this.

More than one person in one building agrees.

The shuttle is more than safe as far as North American experts are concerned, no one has to worry about the shuttle during the trip home.

 

It's ok guys. Lets repair the middle east instead.... ..... ..... ..... cricket

 

With all eyes on NASA I would be surprised if they didn't use proper assessment tools in their decision not to repair the tiles in space. As risky as a space walk is, I don't recall anyone being "lost" doing one. Further, if the astronauts thought there was a high risk re-entry, I doubt they wouldn't do the walk and vote on their own.

All I know is, if NASA gets this wrong........ it's not going to be pretty.

 

And that one line sums up the whole story

 

So, they tested 1 out of 3 methods of repair. I'm guessing NASA has no faith in their repair methods, probably some bandaid solutions developed just so they can get flying again.

Tsk,tsk,tsk....more pollution in space.

 

It's location is towards the rear, away from the leading edges that will bear the brunt of the re-entry....they don't expect structural burn thru.....

Rolling the dice with seven people's lives.

They all knew the risks, as well........

Let's all join hands, and pray..........

 

Why do you think they're "rolling the dice"? Do you think it's a 50/50 chance of disaster?

Seriously I don't see what all the hub bub is about. That part of the shuttle shouldn't have any problem with coming back with that type of blemish.

Now if a window was cracked or a tile from the bottom of the nose was missing that would be serious and in no way could they return safely with that kind of damage left unattended.

 

Endeavour isn't actually that old. It's the most recent shuttle, built to replace the Challenger. I believe it cost around $3.5 billion USD all up.

The aluminium frame beneath the tiles is very susceptible to heat and can warp and lose it's strength easily, when exposed to plasma streams of several thousand degrees...

This time it seems like the damage is next to one of the rear landing gear bay doors, which is not a peak heating location (wing leading edges, nose).

 

There's a lot of factors that play into the decisions. One of the biggy's is just keeping the program going with minimal bad PR. It was obviously determined that an in space fix and associated risks don't outweigh just leaving it and dealing with it later. NASA's politics probably outweigh sensibilities when it comes to an outdated space program.

 

There are a lot of very smart people at NASA. I know they have been beaten up pretty relentlessly in the media the last bunch of years, but they are overall very sharp people who care about what they are doing. I would be pretty comfortable saying that the problem has been analyzed to the Nth degree. I would also be pretty confident that the decision was the most sensible one to make. Its easy to sit on the sidelines and say "they should fix it!" but what if the analyses show a .01% chance of a fatality during a spacewalk, and if the tile is not repaired there is a 99% chance that the shuttle will be fine, and a .999% chance of structural damage. Well, anyone say leave it as is, right?

I am sure it will be OK during re-entry.

The biggest problem we have with our space program is that the shuttle is NOT a cheaper alternative to disposable rockets. We are tied to it's old technology whereas if we used disposables, we can upgrade them to the latest/greatest as we go. It will be very interesting to see how things change when they get the new space vehicle.

 

I also think there are very smart people at NASA. I daresay a rocket scientist or two.

Their problem is the upper layers, and all the political BS. There were people worried on both the Challenger and Columbia missions that there could be problems, but never reached, or was ignored by the mucky-mucks.

 

when you really think about it, NASA's record has been very good. For the amount of time they have been strapping people to flying bombs and shooting them into space their losses have been minimal. 2 shuttles lost in a period of 30 years is pretty damn good. They had one incident during the Apollo missions which killed all on board on the launch pad and the Apollo 13 incident which returned safely.

The thing that gets me though, is why after all these years are they having problems with ice damaging the shuttle on take off. Are they using a different mix of fuel in the external tank or is this something that has always occurred and just recently have taken noticed of it because of all the new cameras they have focused around the shuttles launch pad?

 

Okay the whole program needs to be scrapped, and a new design brought in. The Shuttle is what, almost 30 years old? They need to put it on display at the Smithsonian, and design a new spacecraft if they intend to continue going o space.

That's my .02 cents worth.

 

How old are the thousands of planes in the sky? Less than ten years? When it comes to aircraft, age can climb without increasing risk of failure.

 

I'm not worried about it. The area of the damage isn't bad and the shuttle was built in like 1993 or something and has the fewest number of flights of them all (I know the tiles are replaced every time, though). A spacewalk under the shuttle is risky and it can delay the rest of the future launches to complete the ISS. I don't think the odds of them burning up like Columbia is the same.