Story about how they almost lost the Atlantis Shuttle in 1988 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

photon · 03-31-2009, 12:50 PM

Quote:

"I will never forget, we hung the (robot) arm over the right wing, we panned it to the (damage) location and took a look and I said to myself, 'we are going to die,'" recalled legendary shuttle commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson. "There was so much damage. I looked at that stuff and I said, 'oh, holy smokes, this looks horrible, this looks awful.'"

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttl...9/090327sts27/

Interesting stuff.

La Flames Fan · 03-31-2009, 01:00 PM

Wow, good find photon. Interesting article, and more proof that the human is not above all else.

SteveToms · 03-31-2009, 01:12 PM

Makes NASA look even more incompetent over the Colombia tragedy.

Bob · 03-31-2009, 01:18 PM

I didn't know the DoD used the space shuttle for launching spy satellites. I figured they'd have their own boosters somewhere out of the way.

GGG · 03-31-2009, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveToms

Makes NASA look even more incompetent over the Colombia tragedy.

Maybe not, If you looked at how severe the damage was and the space shuttle still could land you think you have a pretty robust design.

Bunk · 03-31-2009, 03:12 PM

fascinating. I really hope the space program gets revived for a mission to Mars.

photon · 03-31-2009, 03:42 PM

Actually I think Mars is a waste of time right now.. the moon too. Leave that kind of exploration to robots, they're doing a great job.

The space program should be focused on going where people could sustain themselves, and that's asteroids in my opinion.

To the point where resources could be mined and brought back to earth.

MarchHare · 03-31-2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by photon

The space program should be focused on going where people could sustain themselves, and that's asteroids in my opinion.

To the point where resources could be mined and brought back to earth.

Is there a resource that exists only on asteroids that is so valuable to justify the prohibitive cost of harvesting it from space and bringing it back to Earth? Asteroid mining makes for great science fiction, but is it really commercially feasible?

FurnaceFace · 03-31-2009, 04:08 PM

I'm sometimes amazed any space launch actually works. The number of parts that have to work flawlessly in order for these things not to burn up is pretty staggering. As we saw with Columbia one little O ring and poof.

CaptainCrunch · 03-31-2009, 04:26 PM

Well considering that man has never gone into space, I call this a big fail.

CaptainCrunch · 03-31-2009, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by photon

Actually I think Mars is a waste of time right now.. the moon too. Leave that kind of exploration to robots, they're doing a great job.

The space program should be focused on going where people could sustain themselves, and that's asteroids in my opinion.

To the point where resources could be mined and brought back to earth.

I think your wrong, we need to focus on building one of these, I've taken the liberty of drawing up some plans

Bring_Back_Shantz · 03-31-2009, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

I'm sometimes amazed any space launch actually works. The number of parts that have to work flawlessly in order for these things not to burn up is pretty staggering. As we saw with Columbia one little O ring and poof.

I know what you're getting at, but it was Challenger that had the problem with the O-rings, and they were anything but little.

Columbia, had wing damage caused by falling insulation.
Of course falling insulation seems like an even more unlikley way for a shuttle to be destroyed. It's amazing how fagile something as important as a heat shield can be.

photon · 03-31-2009, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Is there a resource that exists only on asteroids that is so valuable to justify the prohibitive cost of harvesting it from space and bringing it back to Earth? Asteroid mining makes for great science fiction, but is it really commercially feasible?

Maybe not with today's technology, but the sheer amount of natural resources out there should make it profitable at some point.

The asteroids to start with are more because you can be self sustaining there.. pick the right asteroids and have the technology to process them and you can go without having to bring everything you need with you, mine the water and hydrocarbons you need.

There's nothing on the moon, and even on Mars you'll have to bring everything with you (not to mention that we actually have no way to land a man on Mars at this point, the technology just hasn't been made yet with no good way to go about it).

So go to the asteroids with the goal of a self-sustaining colony. Then they can send back resources that are far easier to mine there than on earth to pay for themselves.

Short term I would forgo sending humans at all, just do it all with robots, develop robots to mine and transport and lay the groundwork.. eventually we need a self sustaining colony off-planet, just for insurance purposes.

keenan87 · 03-31-2009, 05:16 PM

wow, creepy

onetwo_threefour · 03-31-2009, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by photon

Maybe not with today's technology, but the sheer amount of natural resources out there should make it profitable at some point.

The asteroids to start with are more because you can be self sustaining there.. pick the right asteroids and have the technology to process them and you can go without having to bring everything you need with you, mine the water and hydrocarbons you need.

There's nothing on the moon, and even on Mars you'll have to bring everything with you (not to mention that we actually have no way to land a man on Mars at this point, the technology just hasn't been made yet with no good way to go about it).

So go to the asteroids with the goal of a self-sustaining colony. Then they can send back resources that are far easier to mine there than on earth to pay for themselves.

Short term I would forgo sending humans at all, just do it all with robots, develop robots to mine and transport and lay the groundwork.. eventually we need a self sustaining colony off-planet, just for insurance purposes.

I don't disagree in principle, but I think the idea that we would be 'self-sustaining' mining asteroids is a little out there. There's lots of hard radiation, inadequate shielding, and no way to produce food.

If landers were sent down to Mars, habitats could be built, food could be grown, and you've got an atmosphere to provide shielding from hard radiation. Commercially, there may not be much point, until we get that terraforming project underway...

At least a few sources I've seen suggest that creating rocket fuel from the chenicals found in Martian soild would be fairly straightforward and could be automated so a refueling station could be set up before humans ever land.

photon · 03-31-2009, 06:08 PM

Mars has no magnetic field to speak of so there's no real protection from hard radiation, you'd have to dig underground or cover your habitat with regolith, just like an asteroid.

You can grow food on an asteroid, and if you pick the right ones you'll have more natural resources to work with than Mars too. Some asteroids are rich in hydrocarbons and you can process those into fertilizer and such.

I don't see what you can do on Mars that you couldn't do on an asteroid.. about the only real benefit is gravity, which I guess you can't understate since most of our engineering needs gravity.

Plus we can't land on Mars, the atmosphere is too thin to provide enough aerobraking or parachutes, but thick enough to foil a lunar style land on your rocket stack type landing.