All ET PAL Ramps to be removed from flight tanks

We have a story from the source about the ET PAL Ramp decision and the
current road block to it.


usspacenews.com


Cheers!


Editor

We have a story from the source about the ET PAL Ramp decision and the
current road block to it.

There's a longer story at:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts121/051208palramp/

Seems like the PAL Ramp was added not before STS-1, and it has never
really been clear whether it was needed. Until foam shedding came to
the fore, it didn't seem like it was harming anything. Now they want
to analyze it more (not just repeating the analysis from 1979, but
also dealing with all the changes since 1979 in the shuttle design).

The http://www.usspacenews.com/ site has some nice images.

"Jim Kingdon" wrote in message
news
We have a story from the source about the ET PAL Ramp decision and the
current road block to it.

There's a longer story at:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts121/051208palramp/

Seems like the PAL Ramp was added not before STS-1, and it has never
really been clear whether it was needed. Until foam shedding came to
the fore, it didn't seem like it was harming anything. Now they want
to analyze it more (not just repeating the analysis from 1979, but
also dealing with all the changes since 1979 in the shuttle design).

The http://www.usspacenews.com/ site has some nice images.

Actually, the Spaceflight Now article says:

"It's interesting, we went back to the history, we dug into the
history of how they got on (the tank)," Hale said. "They were
actually a late addition before STS-1. And it came in because
some of the wind tunnel testing was not as conclusive as they
wanted it to be and it was put on, in the words of the report
I have in my hand, to ensure that we have margin structurally.
Once they put 'em on, and it was cheap and it took care of the
problem, we just kind of kept doing it. So there has always been
a question from the first flight whether or not they were
actually necessary.

So they were there before STS-1, but it was a late addition to the design
and NASA never got back to evaluating if it was really necessary to keep
that particular late addition.

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