Debris Strikes Endeavour During Liftoff

[DainBramaged]

Source: NY Times on line

As the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off into orbit Wednesday evening, several pieces of debris fell off the external fuel tank, and at least one hit the orbiter.

Astronauts in space and engineers on the ground will spend the next few days examining and analyzing the damage to see if it might pose a danger to the shuttle on re-entry.

The shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003, killing the seven astronauts on board, because of damage to its wing caused by falling foam during liftoff.

The countdown Wednesday proceeded without major glitches, and the weather finally cooperated, with the skies clear after showers early in the afternoon.

The launching had been delayed five times by hydrogen leaks, schedule conflicts, lightning strikes and rain. That was one short of NASA’s record for the number of delays. Two previous missions, in 1986 and 1995, were delayed six times before launching on the seventh try.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/science/space/16shuttle.html?_r=1&hp

[callous taoboy]

1. Ah nuts.

x(

[Haole Girl]

2. Oh no

:-(

[Botany]

3. This is not good at all.

I hope the tiles & heat shields are O.K.. We might be doing a space rescue.

:scared:

[Uben]

5. MAybe not....

...I think they now have the supplies onboard to replace broken tiles. Let's just hope they can identify any damage and take the appropriate measures needed to bring everyone back home safely.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. the problems are several

a) what a silly shitty design. Making a truck, a taxi cab, and a race horse, and mix them into one beast?
b) stick the orbiter on top of the tank (a winning design does just that) and no more problem.
c) design an orbiter for people, and another for cargo. Mixing the two is idiotic.
d) NASA has suffered greatly from leadershit vacuum. Especially the last 8 years. when you have flat earth, 6,017 year old universe believers in charge of NASA, we are fucked.
e) congress has hurt, not helped. the instability of funding, of support of research, and of political wrangling has been devastating.

Luckily, this ancient beast made it up, and should make it down. But it is time to retire it and put people in safer ships.

[Thothmes]

30. Since you are so well versed in these designs aspects

am I to assume you are an engineer for NASA.

[RantinRavin]

6. It happens on every launch

The MSM loves hand-wringing

[scubadude]

9. That post was wrong,

an event like what happened today caused the loss of the Columbia, which my wife had the misfortune of seeing over Texas. They never thought silly little ice would cause a crash, and now my wife has live with that image for the rest of her life. She called me up frantic about what she had saw. Very sad indeed.

The original odds of catastrophe were 1 in 25. They have beat the odds,but at what cost.

I believe you should suck it up and apologize.

Let's hope this comes to nothing.

Scuba

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. This is what traumatized your wife?

Come on.

[scubadude]

21. I don't know you, but your comment is indicative of a wise ass at least.

Scuba

[dysfunctional press]

24. +1

"and now my wife has live with that image for the rest of her life..."

:eyes:

[scubadude]

26. She called me up, and I could tell she was shaking.

At first she thought it was a strange group of meteorites. Then she heard on the radio or TV what it was and within a couple of minutes she called me. Yeah, it changed her life to a small degree. The hunt for pieces was going on all over that part of Texas.

I proposed to my wife at NASA after meeting her here on DU. We had just toured
Mission Control. We are both science fans.

What was your point with the rolling eyes?

Scuba

[Mr. Sparkle]

7. It could be just ice, we will have to wait and see what the inspection turns up. n/t

[scubadude]

10. "Just Ice" caused the Columbia disaster. Ice travelling at

hundreds of miles an hour hitting ceramic tiles tends to gouge our break them up.

Hopefully this time nothing will happen. I pray to God it doesn't,

Scuba

[stlsaxman]

19. Foam flew off the main tank and tore chunks out of the wing. Not "ice".

[scubadude]

20. Yes, foam to prevent ice from forming, oops!!

Sorry, got my "facts" twisted around. LOL

However; ice could be as bad as foam, and to prevent ice the foam is there. If the ice were heavy enough, it is considered even more of a danger than foam by NASA experts.

Scuba

[stlsaxman]

25. of coarse ice would be worse than the foam. but foam is supposed to be there.

If they found ice they'd scrub the launch.

the real problem is the design of the shuttle is horribly flawed. Columbia was the worse-case scenario come to pass. NASA didn't notify the crew. That was unforgivable. Hopefully they're more upfront this time. Endeavor and the remaining 6 flights are counting on it.

The MLAS program for the "top loaded" rockets is superb. God only knows why anyone would but a living payload on the SIDE of a huge tank of explosives...

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html#

[theHandpuppet]

8. Jeezus H. Christ when are they going to retire the shuttles

This is freaking ridiculous.

[EFerrari]

14. I hate it every time they go up. n/t

[ManiacJoe]

29. As soon as they have a replacement would be my guess.

[applegrove]

11. Everyone cross your fingers there was no damage.

[alfredo]

12. I watched it and saw several pieces of debris fly by. I didn't see any strikes.

But that doesn't mean there wasn't. I saw two events. The second seemed to be several pieces.

[alfredo]

13. Ooops wrong forum self delete

[Hissyspit]

15. Damage Eyed as Shuttle Heads Toward Space Station

Source: Associated Press

Damage eyed as shuttle heads toward space station

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer – 19 mins ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Endeavour rocketed toward the international space station Thursday as engineers on Earth pored over launch pictures that showed debris breaking off the fuel tank and striking the craft.

Mission Control told the astronauts late Wednesday that the damage looked less extensive at first glance than what occurred on the last shuttle flight, but it will take days to sort through available data to reach a conclusion.

The astronauts planned a Thursday afternoon inspection of their ship's thermal shielding, using a 100-foot laser-tipped boom. The procedure has been standard since shuttle flights resumed after the Columbia accident.

Endeavour's liftoff early Wednesday evening was the sixth try and came more than a month late. It occurred on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the launch of man's first moon landing mission.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_space_shuttle

[truthisfreedom]

16. Why are we the debris launchers? We used to be perfect. What has happened?

Why do our rockets fall apart?

[geckosfeet]

17. Chunks of ice break off the fuel tank and hit the shuttle during launch.

But you would think that they could devise a re-usable temporary shield that drops off before orbit.

[kentauros]

22. What I would think is that they would have put the foam insulation

on the inside of the tanks as they are constructing them. If it's truly an insulation capable of preventing ice buildup on the outside of the tanks, they why isn't it on the inside like any other insulated container?

Of course, if our "wonderful" government had continued to give NASA the funding it deserved back when the Shuttle was being designed and had not allowed the military to modify the payload capacity (i.e., make it far bigger) we would have had an orbiter that piggy-backed a piloted tank & engine delivery craft. No solid rocket boosters, no problems of foam projectiles.

[scubadude]

27. Imagine chunks of foam clogging the LOX pumps.

It is a bad design period. They initially calculated a 1 in 4 chance of catastrophic failure.

Scuba

[excess_3]

23. bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

why are these people astronauts?
spaceflight involves risk

[backscatter712]

28. On the bright side, I'm not hearing that Endeavor was seriously damaged.

A couple small dings, but nothing that could cause a repeat of the Columbia disaster.

Apparently, the foam came off after the period during the launch where aerodynamic forces would cause the foam to hit the shuttle with really damaging force.

So the big issue is why the foam came off this time, in a way that is fairly unusual. My bet is that it'll be because the tank was filled and emptied so many times because of the multiple scrubs. Fill tank with cryogenic fluid, tank structure contracts because of cold temperatures, then empty tank, let it warm back up, it expands. Lather, rinse, repeat, and I suspect that's why the foam detached from the tank.

[Posteritatis]

31. People are going to assume every single launch is fatally injured from now on

This happened with the last few; DU and the media went through big vulturefests about how certain they were that the crew was doomed, etc.