[rescue] Re: [geeks] Crap! Not again...

[Shawn Wallbridge]

On Sat, 2003-02-01 at 17:50, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On Saturday, February 1, 2003, at 06:42 PM, Steve Hatle wrote:
> >>  So they knew they had problems and just had to come down anyway?  I
> >> don't buy it.  They could've gone to ISS and hung out there and 
> >> awaited
> >> another ride home.  Sure, a difficult proposition, but better than
> >> losing the ship and crew.
> >
> > I'm no engineer, but I remember enough orbital mechanics from college
> > physics to know it's not that easy. Just because the orbiter was in 
> > orbit,
> > and the IIS was in orbit doesn't mean that it's practical to "just go
> > there". Even if they were in similar orbits, the differing velocities,
> > orbital positions, and fuel considerations would probably make it darn 
> > near
> > impossible.
> 
>    Perhaps you didn't read the part above when I typed "a difficult 
> proposition".  If the alternative is the loss of a two billion dollar 
> spacecraft and seven people, they could dump the fucking payload and 
> burn farts in the engines to get there.
> 
> > ISS probably doesn't have enough reserves (food, air regeneration, 
> > water) to
> > support 7 additional crew for any length of time, either.
> 
>    If memory serves there's a resupply launch going up from Russia 
> tomorrow.
> 
>        -Dave
> 
> --
> Dave McGuire                 "Rubber duckies *are* important."
> St. Petersburg, FL                            -Doc Shipley
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

They stated numerous times in the press confrence that they had seen the
piece of 'foam insulation' come off the fuel tank. It had happened once
before (two missions ago) so they had already started looking into why
it happened. They actually had the crew of the shuttle take video and
stills of the main fuel tank while it seperated to help in diagnosing
the problem.

They had all the engineers look into the possible damage the foam
insulation (they said it was about the size of a door) could do and they
determined (incorrectly, it looks like) that it couldn't do much damage
and even if had, they couldn't do much about it. The Columbia cannot
reach the orbit of the ISS (IIRC), even empty. And the ISS doesn't have
the life support systems to handle more than 5 people (when the shuttle
is docked, they keep the life support systems running to sustain the
increased demand on the ISS systems).

They thought of using other means of checking to see how much damage
(using a telescope, etc) but last time they tried (a couple of years ago
the drag chute door came off) the images were pretty useless.

They also stated that their was absolutely nothing they could do to
repair the tile in space (they use a very speciallized process to bond
the tiles, and it requires specific equipment).

They have had damaged tiles in the past and made it home safely. A few
years ago they found that some of the insulation on the fuel tank was
'popcorning' and damaging the underside of the shuttle during launch.
That shuttle had quite a few damaged tiles and it still made it home. I
also remember hearing about one shuttle that came home with half a dozen
tiles missing and they didn't know until they did their post flight
inspection.

shawn