NASA Acknowledges That Even Little Pieces of Foam Could Doom Space Shuttle on Next Flight

http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=644388

NASA Acknowledges That Even Little Pieces of Foam Could Doom Space
Shuttle on Next Flight

By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press

Apr. 5, 2005 - After a two-year struggle to keep big chunks of foam
from coming off the shuttle fuel tank during launch, NASA acknowledged
Tuesday even marshmallow-size pieces could doom the spacecraft under
the worst circumstances.

Shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore said it is a risk
NASA and the nation must accept for flights to resume anytime soon.

It would take years and a total redesign of the fuel tank to
completely eliminate foam loss and to ensure the 2003 Columbia tragedy
would never be repeated, Muratore and other officials said.

NASA expects pieces of insulating foam no bigger than one or two
marshmallows to break off the fuel tank when Discovery blasts off next
month. Depending on where and when the pieces hit, they could cause
catastrophic damage during re-entry, Muratore said.

By contrast, the size of the foam that shattered Columbia's left wing
was the size of a carryon suitcase.

Muratore told reporters he was "trying to be scrupulously honest with
you about what the potential is but that doesn't say that's what we
expect to happen." He likened the situation to trying to predict the
chances of being in a fatal car accident while driving to the airport.

"If we have that worst day, and the tire is worn and you have a flat
tire in the wrong place in traffic, next to a truck going 90 mph,
could you get killed? Yes, you could. Is that a reasonable set of
assumptions to plan your trip on? Probably not."

Muratore said assessing the danger from foam and other launch debris
is an extremely complicated engineering problem made even more
uncertain by the fact that computer models show little pieces of foam
could cause catastrophic damage. NASA's flight experience over the
decades has proven otherwise.

What NASA has to do to get smarter, Muratore said, is to stop relying
on computer models and start flying the space shuttle again.

Discovery is scheduled to blast off in mid-May on the first shuttle
flight since the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003. NASA plans to move
the spacecraft to the launch pad Wednesday.

NASA will fly five types of repair kits aboard Discovery for the
astronauts to test in space, but the rudimentary patches will
accommodate holes no bigger than 4 inches. The gash that brought down
Columbia was an estimated 6 inches to 10 inches in size.

Steve Poulos Jr., a shuttle project manager, said a repair kit to fix
that big of a hole should be available in two years.

Bill wrote:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=644388

NASA Acknowledges That Even Little Pieces of Foam Could Doom Space
Shuttle on Next Flight

By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press

Apr. 5, 2005 - After a two-year struggle to keep big chunks of foam
from coming off the shuttle fuel tank during launch, NASA
acknowledged
Tuesday even marshmallow-size pieces could doom the spacecraft under
the worst circumstances.

Shuttle systems engineering manager John Muratore said it is a risk
NASA and the nation must accept for flights to resume anytime soon.
...

How about that! Some unambiguous honesty from a shuttle program
manager. There is risk, and it is real.

- Ed Kyle

"Bill" wrote in message
news
http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=644388
Muratore said assessing the danger from foam and other launch debris
is an extremely complicated engineering problem made even more
uncertain by the fact that computer models show little pieces of foam
could cause catastrophic damage. NASA's flight experience over the
decades has proven otherwise.

What NASA has to do to get smarter, Muratore said, is to stop relying
on computer models and start flying the space shuttle again.

This doesn't sound like the smartest statement in the world. Given that the
flight experience to date is dismally small, by statistics standards, one
really can't come to the conclusion that the computer models can be
completely disregarded.

It would be most interesting to know what the computer models say about the
probability of another fatal foam strike. Is it one in 100, one in 1000,
one in 10,000???? If it's anything less than one in 100, I'd be a bit
worried.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Bill" wrote in message
news
http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=644388



Muratore told reporters he was "trying to be scrupulously honest with
you about what the potential is but that doesn't say that's what we
expect to happen."

I guess they didn't "expect" the Columbia and Challenger disasters either.
Wait, except there were those who did and were told to STFU.

He likened the situation to trying to predict the
chances of being in a fatal car accident while driving to the airport.

"If we have that worst day, and the tire is worn and you have a flat
tire in the wrong place in traffic, next to a truck going 90 mph,
could you get killed? Yes, you could. Is that a reasonable set of
assumptions to plan your trip on? Probably not."

Except if you're driving a car that you *know* has a bad tire at 90 mph,
your chances go way up. At this point, an accident-free trip becomes an
unreasonable expectation. When trying to put a shuttle in the air with
various known design flaws, the situation is far more critical. You can't
pull the Shuttle over on the side of the road if something goes bad.

What NASA has to do to get smarter, Muratore said, is to stop relying
on computer models and start flying the space shuttle again.

Yeah, that sounds like the "smart" way to go.

Spoken like someone who 1) is a well-paid lackey of NASA and 2) Isn't going
to be strapping themselves into the thing on launch day.

Does anyone believe things have really "changed" at NASA? Everything I've
heard sounds like, "we've piddled with this, we've piddled with that, but
it's still not really right and we don't know what's gonna happen any more
than we did before."

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 07:40:48 +0000, James wrote:



Does anyone believe things have really "changed" at NASA? Everything
I've heard sounds like, "we've piddled with this, we've piddled with
that, but it's still not really right and we don't know what's gonna
happen any more than we did before."


Hey now, be fair. They have done a lot. Remember all that guessing about
what caused the Columbia Disaster immediately following Columbia's
disintegration during entry? Not one good picture of the impact as it
actually happened and the damage it caused during the launch accident. Now
NASA should have plenty of 8x10 glossies showing the impact and damage in
excruciating detail. Leaving little wiggle room for the NASA manager who
would try to commit another public fraud with another "Dead Men Orbiting
and Plausible Deniability" act. The root cause of the Columbia Disaster.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Craig Fink wrote:

Leaving little wiggle room for the NASA manager who
would try to commit another public fraud with another "Dead Men Orbiting
and Plausible Deniability" act. The root cause of the Columbia Disaster.

Only in the minds of those living in dimension of Fruitloopania.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL