Article

2004-03-23 -Short Attention Span Theater-

NASA Finds Flaw Could Have Doomed Another Shuttle

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Posted by Steve White 2004-03-23 11:20:50 PM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Hell, returning to KSC after a main engine abort was pretty much a toss-of the coin anyway. I've always wondered what what supposed to happen to the fuel tank (still half full) once the guiotine came down on the fuel lines....

Posted by Shipman 2004-3-23 8:20:28 AM|| 2004-3-23 8:20:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 So much of the program ended with the words "You're so screwed!" that they had to put in the abort scenarios. Everyone feels good, and that's about it.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-3-23 9:31:30 AM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-3-23 9:31:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Ship: Most of the fuel is gone, used to reverse the Shuttle's direction and send it back towards the Cape, by the time it's released. The release itself is the trickiest bit of the abort -- attempting to make the tank move away from the orbiter, they essentially do a short "power dive", shut down the engines, release the tank, and thrust away from it using the reaction control systems.

You have three possible results from this: (1) it works, and the rest of the flight is like a normal entry; (2) you hit the tank anyway, and the orbiter breaks up; or (3) you get away from the tank, but the "power dive" maneuver itself is stressful enough that the orbiter breaks up.

There's a very good discussion of the RTLS abort available at this link, if you're interested.

Posted by snellenr 2004-3-23 9:57:33 AM|| 2004-3-23 9:57:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 ...My dad went to work at NASA Lewis not long after the Challenger accident, and he told me then that the engineers who put the system together had no idea that so much of what they did meant certain death for the crews - basically, each team was given their work, told notr to worry about any potential problems, and that other teams would handle the emergency checklists. It became obvious after Challenger, and even more so after Columbia, that NASA really was playing Russian Roulette with the system.
And for what it's worth, a lot of the NASA engineers also believe that the shuttle fleet will not survive until 2010 when Constellation comes on line. The opinion seems to be that the law of averages will catch up with the three surviving shuttles long before that.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2004-3-23 10:26:01 AM|| 2004-3-23 10:26:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 For what it's worth, everytime I see the SRB ignite I pray, and listen, and scream, and then pray a little more.

Amd then, just then, I womder about DynaSoar.

Posted by Shipman 2004-3-23 7:10:52 PM|| 2004-3-23 7:10:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Prestigious a program as it is, it's still a government contract. Lowest bid wins.

Posted by tu3031 2004-3-23 11:12:07 PM|| 2004-3-23 11:12:07 PM|| Front Page Top

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