Discovery ET to be reinforced all the way around

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110110tank/
If I were the crew for this flight I'd be a little queasy about flying
on this particular ET, as they still haven't been able to figure out why
the cracks formed in the first place.

Pat

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:54:49 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110110tank/
If I were the crew for this flight I'd be a little queasy about flying
on this particular ET, as they still haven't been able to figure out why
the cracks formed in the first place.

Yes they did, it was improper materials in the stringers. Upon
inspection, they had a mottled appearance instead of the expected
smooth appearance. ET-137 (STS-133) and ET-138 (STS-335/STS-135) have
the problem. ET-122 (STS-134) does not (it is older.)

From today's press conference...

Stringer "doublers" should be installed by Jan 23, with rollout
shortly thereafter. Launch approximately 4:50pm Feb 24. 10 days
cushion due to waiting for ATV. ATV reduced its flight "padding" three
days to advance STS-133 from Feb 27, but a launch delay in ATV would
be a day-for-day delay in STS-133's launch.

STS-134 now aiming for April 18. (Too bad they can't get April 12!)

No comment on Mark Kelly's participation in STS-134 post-Tuscon. (I'll
go out on a limb and say Poindexter or Ham will now step in as
Commander.)

STS-135 is fast becoming a reality, but not quite official until
budget situation (Continuing Resolution) is stabilized. Still planned
for late June, but would like to stretch to late August to allow as
late a launch as possible and still finish Shuttle before end of FY
2011. (That's a major gamble during hurricane season, in my opinion.)

Brian

In sci.space.history Val Kraut wrote:
This is all part of the Dumming of America. Don't question if the
other guy gave you the wrong stuff, don't question if things seem
wrong. Common sense is alive and well but not around here.

I've *got* to get this on a bumper sticker:

"Process shall set you free from the need for rational thought."

rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Yes they did, it was improper materials in the stringers. Upon
inspection, they had a mottled appearance instead of the expected
smooth appearance. ET-137 (STS-133) and ET-138 (STS-335/STS-135) have
the problem. ET-122 (STS-134) does not (it is older.)

I've seen other examples of this - something looks weird but the guy doing
the work went through the proper rituals for obtaining the material - so hey
all is well - and the process goes on with the guy satisfied that he's doing
his job. This applies to material that looks different or just the wrong
material. So the stock room hands out Aluminum instead of steel and it goes
through all the machining steps until an inspector with a hardness tester
catches it just before it gets installed at the next higher level of
assembly in an aircraft (a real example). Or - gee it really looked weird -
but it was what I was issued to machine or install.

Picture the following analogy - Mom sticks the Thanskgiving Turkey in the
oven not realizing the gas has been shut-off for non-payment of fees. Five
hours later Mom looks at her watch, removes the still raw Turkey from the
Oven - Pop slices and they serve to the relatives.

Many years ago a DC-10 crashed because they had a component that was
obviously screwed up - but the screwup wasn't an inspection point.

This is all part of the Dumming of America. Don't question if the other guy
gave you the wrong stuff, don't question if things seem wrong. Common sense
is alive and well but not around here.



Val Kraut

On 01/11/2011 05:54 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:

No comment on Mark Kelly's participation in STS-134 post-Tuscon. (I'll
go out on a limb and say Poindexter or Ham will now step in as
Commander.)

Ham is no longer an active astronaut and Poindexter has left NASA
altogether and returned to the Naval Postgraduate School.

On 1/11/2011 3:54 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:54:49 -0800, Pat
wrote:

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110110tank/
If I were the crew for this flight I'd be a little queasy about flying
on this particular ET, as they still haven't been able to figure out why
the cracks formed in the first place.

Yes they did, it was improper materials in the stringers.

You know what happened there? That story got rewritten between the time
I read it a linked to it, and when you read it. It originally came from
he
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/...ee28f-139.html
The original version had "despite the cause of the cracks being unknown"
or something along those lines in the first couple of sentences.

Pat

On 1/11/2011 3:54 PM, Brian Thorn wrote:

STS-135 is fast becoming a reality, but not quite official until
budget situation (Continuing Resolution) is stabilized. Still planned
for late June, but would like to stretch to late August to allow as
late a launch as possible and still finish Shuttle before end of FY
2011. (That's a major gamble during hurricane season, in my opinion.)

They had better hope that STS-135 doesn't get marooned at the ISS, as
that will screw up the Soyuz launch schedule something royal if they
need to get the STS-135 crew back from it...and will also mean they will
have lifeboats for six astronauts on a space station with what? 11-12
people on it?
That's a violation of ISS flight safety rules right there.

Pat

On 12/01/2011 5:54 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110110tank/
If I were the crew for this flight I'd be a little queasy about flying
on this particular ET, as they still haven't been able to figure out why
the cracks formed in the first place.

Pat

"The tank was designed to cope with that contraction, but it appears a
specific lot of aluminum alloy used in this tank's construction provided
less strength than expected."

Although I'd have thought that called for the tank to be scrapped, with
the cost being covered by the company that failed to perform adequate
quality control on the source metal.

Haven't NASA heard of expansion (or in this case contraction) joints?

Sylvia.

On Tue, 11 Jan 2011 19:17:17 -0800, Pat Flannery
wrote:


They had better hope that STS-135 doesn't get marooned at the ISS, as
that will screw up the Soyuz launch schedule something royal if they
need to get the STS-135 crew back from it...and will also mean they will
have lifeboats for six astronauts on a space station with what? 11-12
people on it?

Ten. STS-135 will be a crew of four. It will take a year to get
everybody off the Station. The last person will come home after about
a year (depending on 135's launch date.) That's still short of the
on-orbit record of 437 days set by Polyakov on Mir.

Brian

On 1/11/2011 4:40 PM, Val Kraut wrote:

This is all part of the Dumming of America. Don't question if the other guy
gave you the wrong stuff, don't question if things seem wrong. Common sense
is alive and well but not around here.

The thing I'd be worried about is if it's defective enough to crack when
the drill holes are put under stress, is it going to display some other
interesting failure modes when it's launched?
There's a new article about the whole mess he
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/st...0111rootcause/

Pat