[ale] OT: Space Shuttle Columbia

[Jeff Hubbs]

Jim -

I'm not quite following you.  I heard Dittemore say something to the
effect that EVA is limited to the general area of the payload bay, which
is not only untrue (witness the STS MMU flights, various Apollo
missions, etc., going all the way back to Ed White and Alexei Leonov)
but seemingly arbitrary in the case of the Orbiter.  

I am frankly shocked that the Orbiter would EVER go into space with no
EVA suits.

On Tue, 2003-02-04 at 22:13, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> Because there isn't a camera on the belly of the shuttle orbiter. The
> shuttle flies "belly to the stars" so the antennae have a better gain
> towards the ground for communication. Even if it flew the other way
> around, no ground based optic system could resolve the tiles.
> 
> Besides, the insulation piece looked like it hit the top of the wing,
> not the underside, or even the leading edge, where the tiles are.
> 
> There are plenty of other hazards up in space. The one that come to mind
> first are micrometeorites. A grain of sand traveling at 20k mph hitting
> the tile will cause a problem. The shuttle has been struck before. 
> 
> Scenario:
> 
> A micrometeorite, or possibly a small swarm, strikes the underside of
> the orbiter. It damages the tiles just forward of the wheel well cover.
> This disrupts the air flow during reentry and causes an abnormally high
> pressure increase effectively ripping the cover off. This allows the
> inrush of super heated air from below the wing into wheel well
> compartment. This rapid air blast and heat destroys the sensors in the
> area. As the craft descends into thicker atmosphere, the air flow causes
> excess drag causing the computer systems to work harder. Eventually,
> since the system is now flying with an open bay, something never
> designed for, structural damage occurs and the entire wing, followed by
> the remaining craft disintegrates.
> 
> On Tue, 2003-02-04 at 19:43, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> > > This is a key statement.  They can't just perform a spacewalk under the 
> > > shuttle.  They couldn't check the titles, and as such everything turned 
> > > in to a [tragic] afterthought.
> > 
> > I have yet to see an explanation as to why not.
> > 
> > - Jeff
> > 
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> James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
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> GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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