I agree in principle, if the improvements do not seriously compromise vehicle function.


As to the robots, they CAN help, I agree, if in fact there is work that can be done to repair the damage. I was thinking about tile replacement on the fly. There is some spray fibrous stuff used in building construction for fire-rated columns and beams. Supposedly it can handle fires for a UL Lab tested 2 hours (1.5 hours real world) before the structure is compromised. COuld something like this be sprayed onto the shuttle and either trowled (there's an image) or maybe even injection molded into a form and allowed to set? Just a thought.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Doodler on 2003-02-11 11:25 ]</font>

RE-ENTRY Temperatures can reach up to 3000 degrees F or 1650 degrees C!! that would have to be some tough stuff

Halting flights for five years to introduce equipment and procedures to reduce the accident rate from 1/200 to 1/201 is not a good bargain in my mind. Halting for two years to reduce it to 1/1000 might be (but i don't think a reduction to 1/1000 is believeable with the current shuttle design, NASA propaganda to the contrary). Continuing to fly while working on procedures to reduce the rate to 1/250 seems reasonable.

In my opinion, the loss of Columbia should set off major alarm bells in NASA--i don't believe the shuttles will continue to fly after the next one is lost. It's about time for NASA to either got off the stick and design a serious shuttle replacement or admit that they aren't serious about manned spaceflight. There's a bit too much resting on laurels going on here.

The spray stuff they currently use to obtain a 2 hr fire rating is tested to 2000 F for 240 minutes according to Underwriter's Laboratories, Inc., almost but not quite.

Not to mention, can it be applied during free fall in a vacuum? These are not trivial problems to overcome. (If only the media would figure that out.)

Kizarvexis

__________________
"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll

Argos, one problem with landing in Spain vs at Kennedy (or even Edwards) is the expense and hassle of bringing the shuttle back to America. One reason the drag chutes were installed to allow the shuttles to stop in a smaller length of runway was to reduce cost of transport from Edwards to KSC.

Also, some of the payloads require time sensitive post-flight processing. That means quick removal and return. That becomes more difficult to do elsewhere.

Doodler, they originally tried something like that - the oft-mentioned tile repair kit. It consisted of a caulk-like goo injected into the gaps on the tiles. It was a resin like the resin used in the ablative heat shields on Apollo. It was found that it impeded the function of the remaining tiles. Also, there was concern it would not retain grip on the tiles as the shuttle encountered the high drag, and fall off in clumps. It made the kits rendered counter to safety.

daver said:
It's not as simple as that. NASA has been constrained on budget by Congress and the President. With agendas of building the ISS, they are limited on what can be spent. Getting approval for funding of next generation launch vehicle is not a cake-walk.

NASA tried developing an alternative, with Lockheed Martin - the Venturestar. Design difficulties lead to cost overruns, and that lead to cancelation of the development.

However, it was just pointed out that in the September 2002 budget plan, there was appropriations put forward for development of a comprehensive plan. One step of the plan is developing a crew servicing module. This module would launch on a booster rocket, but be used for crew transfer. The proposed schedule would be development for a technology demonstrator by 2006, with operational vehicle by 2010. There is also look at the long term strategy for replacement of shuttle. So they are planning ahead.

It's just the replacement is not a quick thing. Consider what happened in shifting from Apollo to the Shuttle. Expendables were cut off until the shuttle was built and in place. That cost us Skylab, that fell out of orbit because there was no capability to visit it and bump it up in orbit. That is the same type of issue facing NASA now. To stop Shuttle while developing the replacement means years of NO FLIGHT. That's not the position we want to be in.

Venturestar is a symptom of what i'm complaining about--they were going for three or four bleeding edge techniques on the same development program. As it happened, they all failed (some more so than others).

Bleeding edge research is fine for developing the next next generation of vehicle (Grandson of Shuttle); it's dumb for developing the next generation, particularly when the current generation is getting so creaky. And basing your hopes of a cheap, reliable, robust transportation system on three advanced technologies all coming together is foolish to the point of idiocy.

NASA should be engaged in research--research to develop new technologies to get us into space, research to develop new technologies (power, communications, propulsion) once we're in space. I'd like to see more such programs. Venturestar could be counted as one such. But Venturestar was not a realistic shuttle replacement program.

Saturn V production was terminated in the late 60's (before man landed on the moon). The shuttle was known to be economical only if the shuttle was the only vehicle launching satellites into orbit; expendables were shut down after the shuttle came on line (the military dragged its feet on this, for what turned out in hindsight to be good reasons).

Because expendables were going to be banned, new development more or less stopped on them.

Skylab fell because (1) more solar activity than anticipated, which sped up its decay, and (2) the shuttle was later than anticipated. Skylab was not designed to be resupplied (although there were some plans for it); i don't know how serious NASA was at maintaining it even if they could have gotten a shuttle to it in time.

I don't know if it is possible to read anything into the failure of NASA to develop a next generation shuttle (or for that matter, anything resembling a next generation technology that could be used in a next generation shuttle). It might mean that NASA is technically incapable of developing new launch technologies. It might be a management problem. It might be a willpower problem (for instance, NASA has a hard time justifying a manned space flight program, and hence has a hard time devoting any resources to maintaining one). It might be a budget/political problem (however, this might be a management problem as well--NASA management being hopelessly optimistic about what can reasonably be developed in a given time period with a given budget).

It has been suggested in the past that the shuttle essentially killed the old NASA--that NASA now spends almost all its resources in maintaining and flying the shuttle (and now the ISS) and has next to nothing left over for research and development. It has been suggested that the shuttle be privatized, or a new organization spawned off to run it. I have no idea if this is a good idea; but obviously i'm not very happy with the way things are currently going.

The problem with privatizing is the ban dropped on commercial use of the shuttle after the Challenger. How can you privatize a system private companies can't even use? Even worse, if you think Congress has butched the shuttle's budget and operations staff, try putting a slew o' suits in oversight with one eye on the bottom line and their other one on their benefits package, one hand in the cookie jar lining their pockets and the other crossing its fingers how costs can be cut and safety maintained. NASA at least is willing to put up the red flag and say "WHOA!" If their staff cuts are going to cause problems, they take more time to get the job done right with the people they have, ever see that in a corporate operation? No thanks, NASA may be a government beauracracy, but at least it has openly demonstrated that it gives a damn about the people it puts on the line.

Then perhaps a solution would be to let NASA have the shuttle and the ISS and restart NACA for research and probes.