No Shuttle Missions Until Debris Issue Understood

Looks like the shuttle could be grounded again for quite some time. The following is from NASA Watch:



Shuttle Program Manager Bill Parsons, speaking at a post-MMT press briefing this afternoon said: "We had a debris event on the PAL ramp along the LOX field line - below the point where the LH2 ramp begins. Our expectation is that we would not have an unexpected debris event. The PAL ramp is one area we should have reviewed. We knew we would have to remove the PAL ramp. We did not have enough data to be safe and remove it. We had very few problems with it so we decided that it was safe to fly it as is.Clearly, with the event we had, we were wrong.

We did not contact the orbiter at all. But it does give us pause to go back and look at what it is. Until it is closed we will not fly again. Might as well let that out now. Until we are ready we will not fly again. I do not know when that will be. This is a test flight. Obviously we have more work to do.

This is a test flight. It did not perform as well as we would have liked it to. I cannot say what the impact is until we find out what happened. Obviously we cannot fly with PAL ramps coming off the way that this one did. We need to go off and fix it."

washingtonpost.com
NASA: No Flights Until Foam Issue Fixed

By MARCIA DUNN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; 8:05 PM

SPACE CENTER, Houston -- NASA said Wednesday it is grounding future shuttle flights because foam debris that brought down Columbia is still a risk _ and might have doomed Discovery if the big chunk of broken insulation had come off just a bit earlier and slammed into the spacecraft.

A large chunk of foam flew off Discovery's external fuel tank just two minutes after liftoff Tuesday morning. Shuttle managers do not believe it hit the shuttle, posing a threat to the seven astronauts when they return to Earth. But they plan a closer inspection of the spacecraft to be sure.

"You have to admit when you're wrong. We were wrong," said shuttle program manager Bill Parsons. "We need to do some work here, and so we're telling you right now, that the ... foam should not have come off. It came off. We've got to go do something about that."

The loss of a chunk of debris, a vexing problem NASA thought had been fixed, represents a tremendous setback to a space program that has spent 2 1/2 years and over $1 billion trying to make the 20-year-old shuttles safe to fly.

"We wont be able to fly again," until the hazard is removed, Parsons told reporters in a briefing Wednesday evening. "Obviously we have some more work to do."

Parsons said, "Call it luck or whatever, it didn't harm the orbiter." If the foam had broken away earlier in flight, when the atmosphere is thicker, it could have caused catastrophic damage to Discovery.

"We think that would have been really bad, so it's not acceptable," said Parsons' deputy, Wayne Hale.

Engineers believe the foam was 24 to 33 inches long, 10 to 14 inches wide, and just a few inches thick, only somewhat smaller than the chunk that smashed into Columbia's left wing during liftoff in January 2003.

NASA has said all along that Discovery's mission was a test flight designed to check the safety of future shuttle missions. Parsons refused to give up on the spacecraft that was designed in the 1970s.

"We think we can make this vehicle safe for the next flight," he said, declining to judge the long-term impact on the manned space program. "We will determine if it's safe to fly."

Atlantis was supposed to lift off in September, but that mission is now on indefinite hold. Parsons refused to speculate when a shuttle might fly again.

"Until we're ready, we won't go fly again," Parsons said.

In less than 36 hours, the euphoria of what initially looked like a picture-perfect launch on Tuesday evaporated thanks to images shot from just a few of the 100-plus cameras in place to watch for the very problem NASA announced.

I get the impression the shuttle is LONG over due replacing and that continuing to try to make it safe is just a waste of time.

Bring back the X33 and X34 and forget about the shuttle. Stop pouring good money after bad!

Bart.

"We think that would have been really bad, so it's not acceptable," said Parsons' deputy, Wayne Hale.

Well, no shit sherlock! Jaysus, talk about stating the obvious!

As an alternative to Bart's suggestion, I wonder if perhaps it's possible to buy the plans to the Energia launch system (Russian space shuttle) from the Russians? I wonder if it would be subject to the same flaws as the NASA system.

While I tend to think that it's time the STS program was mothballed, I do also think that just because the program is old, doesn't mean it should be scrapped - part of the problem with the STS program is the the components are old, and the whole concept might be kept going with simply building a new shuttle fleet and launch facilities. Although yes, the expense would be something shocking...but sure, if they can spend so much money on "bringing freedom" to the Middle East, can't they spend it on spaceflight?

I get the impression the shuttle is LONG over due replacing and that continuing to try to make it safe is just a waste of time.

Bring back the X33 and X34 and forget about the shuttle. Stop pouring good money after bad!

Bart.

Well you will need something like the shuttle. A big reusable flying (ok gliding) container to put stuff into space. The delivery mechanism (that big fuel bomb with the foam on it) needs to go.

It so much a part of the american brand that they won't let it go quietly, no matter how much DC wants it to. NASA is probably in mixed minds about it. The public want it to stay. Ironically the same public are probably only interested in it due to disasters, there was no great cry to keep the apollo/saturnV project running from what I understand. Prior to the colombia tragedy interest in the shuttle appeared to be in serious decline.

Energia is safer in terms of the booster rockets but its still spending most of its fuel lifting basically the same load of fuel into the sky.

Whens the space elevator getting built, I stopped laughing a couple of years back?

The shuttle's problems are ultimately due to daft procurement choices. When the competition was run for the shuttle contract, Rockwell's over-complicated but supposedly cheaper system was chosen over simpler, more robust (i.e. titanium hulled) proposals from other contractors. Of course, since then the cost has been vastly higher than anticipated, availability has been limited and (worst of all) lives have been lost.

Eventually, NASA should have a small crew transfer vehicle for carrying people, together with an unmanned heavy lift vehicle. It is extremely hard to build a single spacecraft that can perform both roles, and by trying to do both they have ended up with neither.