posted
Here are a couple of answers/clarifications to some of the comments made so far:
Someone mentioned an external tank tile earlier up in the thread...the external tank doesn't have tiles. It uses spray on foam insulation. The part that fell off was probably a frozen section of ice/foam...I'm still not sure how this could cause any severe damage (depends on which type of shuttle tile it impacted.)
Tahna Los: There is NO on-orbit repair method for damaged TPS materials. It is done here on the ground in a controlled environement with strict control on cure times, temperatures, and compression loads (among lots of other variables)that firmly seat each tile.
Your exactly right that NO Shuttle could have been prepped and launched in time to aid STS-107 even if damage had been known. Even using an orbiter that was in the processing flow, its doubtful they could ramp up any faster than the next scheduled launch date (March 1)...owing to the fact that there would have to be provisions made for the returning STS-107 crew, something NO shuttle was designed to do.
Why not fly over to the station and?...I'll just stop right there. I can just hear some folks claiming "well what's that expensive station up there for anyway" (not u Tahna) Despite the fact that Columbia did not have the docking module installed in the payload bay, Columbia couldn't even have made it to the station just to let the station crew take a look at the possible damage. The shuttles are only loaded with enough fuel to perform their orbital burns for reentry and stationkeeping, they simply don't have the capacity to carry enough propellants to perform the massive orbital change required to change to the flight path of the station. As a matter of fact, Columbia was the only orbiter that did not recieve the added tankage that would allow it to travel to the station from launch. That is the reason you have never seen Columbia travel to the station. Even if it had been any of the other orbiters they would not have been able to transfer to the station's orbital inclination...you leave the ground with the required amount of fuel to get to where you plan to go, no more, no less.
Starship Millenium: Actually, if I remember correctly, Columbia was the only orbiter left with an internal airlock. The other orbiters were modified to use the external airlock, which reduced weight and allowed them to reach station orbit. So Columbia probably did have the capabilty to perform EVA's, but not to the underside of the vehicle (no handholds etc.)
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What, they didn't have a really long ball of twine?
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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quote:Originally posted by Shipbuilder: Starship Millenium: Actually, if I remember correctly, Columbia was the only orbiter left with an internal airlock. The other orbiters were modified to use the external airlock, which reduced weight and allowed them to reach station orbit. So Columbia probably did have the capabilty to perform EVA's, but not to the underside of the vehicle (no handholds etc.)
I'd also assume that it wasn't equipped with any EVA suits...
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Talk about shock... Last night my friend crashed a 575 Ferrari (works at a Ferrari lot) and this morning I woke up to this... I am not going to be able to sleep tonigh....
And the people! AHHHHH!
-------------------- "That's the problem with nature. Something is always stinging you or oozing mucous on you. lets go watch tv." - Calvin & Hobbes
Registered: Nov 2001
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My god... I don't think I'll ever look at those shuttles the same way again. Today, I wondered what the Trekkies who saw the Challenger explode felt like after seeing the Galaxy Class Challenger in Timeless... not something I'm looking foward to. Didn't a couple of astronauts visit the NX-01 sets last year?
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
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And as darkness settles over the land, let us not forget that tomorrow brings forth light yet again.
[ February 02, 2003, 02:08 AM: Message edited by: Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge ]
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
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Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom, USAF Lieutenant Colonel Edward Higgins White II, USAF Lieutenant Commander Roger Bruce Chaffee, USN Major Francis Richard "Dick" Scobee, USAF Captain Michael John Smith, USN Judith Arlene Resnik, Ph.D. Lieutenant Colonel Ellison Shoji Onizuka, USAF Ronald Erwin McNair, Ph.D. Captain Gregory Bruce Jarvis, USAF (Ret.) Sharon Christa McAuliffe, B.A. (Hist.), M.Ed. Colonel Rick Douglas Husband, USAF Commander William Cameron "Willie" McCool, USN Kalpana Chawla, Ph.D. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Phillip Anderson, USAF Captain David M. Brown, M.D., USN Commander Laurel Blair Salton Clark, M.D., USN Colonel Ilan Ramon, Israeli Air Force
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." -- Isaac Newton
Sic itur ad astris...
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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April 23-24 1967 Soyuz 1: Vladimir M. Komarov was killed when his craft crashed after its parachute lines, released at 23,000 ft for reentry, became snarled.
June 6�30 1971 Soyuz 11: three cosmonauts, Georgi T. Dolrovolsky, Vladislav N. Volkov, and Viktor I. Patsayev, found dead in the craft after its automatic landing. Apparent cause of death was loss of pressurization in the space craft during reentry into the earth's atmosphere.
quote:Originally posted by Starship Millennium: I just hope that the problem can be solved quickly and we can get back up there ASAP. Recoiling and pulling the plug on NASA's manned efforts would be a great dishonor to the memories of the Columbia crew.
Here, here!
I was watching the news where they were talking to Willie McCool's mother, Audrey. And she said that would be the last thing he would have wanted to have happened... the Space Program to stop.
Andrew
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
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That's a big part of the reason I chose not to list cosmonauts up there. I couldn't be sure I got all of them. Plus, as so many people are focussing on the track record of the American space program, and casting doubt onto it's continued life, I thought at least an acknowledgement of the seventeen astronauts who were the U.S.' responsibility was in order. My little way of saying these people have given their lives to NASA -- don't let those sacrifices be in vain by killing manned spaceflight in this country... and by extension, the world, as we're pretty much the only game in town these days, unfortunately.
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
Until the end of the year, when the Chinese launche Shenzhou 4.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
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MMU systems were replaced with something called SAFER Simplified Aid for Extravehicular Activity Rescue which was strictly an emergency use system (one way ticket BACK to the shuttle in the event an astronaut got separated during an EVA). I think some of the orbiters were modded to carry the MMU's just in case, but it's doubtful one was onboard Columbia due to the projected mission.
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