Endeavour Damaged during launch

[Guest]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070811/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle_105

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA discovered a worrisome gouge on Endeavour’s belly soon after the shuttle docked with the international space station Friday, possibly caused by ice that broke off the fuel tank a minute after liftoff.

The gouge — about 3 inches square — was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost.

Making light of this, I think teachers are bad luck for shuttle flights.

In all seriousness… How soon will we have a new generation of spacecraft that will again be on TOP of the thrust assembly and immune to falling debris during launch (like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were) and we can stop using Shuttles?  Of the fleet of 6 built:  One is a museum piece (Enterprise, the test bed that never went into space), 2 are destroyed with a cost of 14 lives (Challenger and Columbia), 1 is in orbit damaged (Endeavour) and may NOT be able to return home for some time, and 2 others are on the ground (Atlantis and Discovery).

We need a more durable launch vehicle, and we need it YESTERDAY!

[Jennifer]

Note to self, never volunteer for a shuttle mission!

Second Note to self: Make sure that the maintenance crews arn’t also on the sauce like the pilots!

[Guest]

I’m glad I keep my feet on the ground. :-D

Of course, that C-130 trip to Kuwait is gonna be a long one… :|

[Imperious Leader]

They gotta stop letting those teachers on the shuttle. Every time they put one something bad happens.  bad luck every time.

[Guest]

Racial remarks, and replies to same, have been removed from this thread.

Remember the forum policies folks.

[ajgundam5]

I think there was sarcasm in IL’s statement …

[Guest]

It was not taken that way by several folks.

I was asked to intervene, saw cause for doing so, and edited/removed posts as needed to remove the issue.

Back on topic folks…

[cyan]

sorry for my response. but what has happened to the cosmonauts. whens tlhe last flight russia made? yo always here about americn space ships(well this is America but still) you never hear of the other countries.

[Guest]

They are still flying.  In fact, they were the only access to the space station while the Shuttles were grounded post Columbia.

[Gewehr]

@ncscswitch:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070811/ap_on_sc/space_shuttle_105

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA discovered a worrisome gouge on Endeavour’s belly soon after the shuttle docked with the international space station Friday, possibly caused by ice that broke off the fuel tank a minute after liftoff.

The gouge — about 3 inches square — was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost.

Making light of this, I think teachers are bad luck for shuttle flights.

In all seriousness… How soon will we have a new generation of spacecraft that will again be on TOP of the thrust assembly and immune to falling debris during launch (like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were) and we can stop using Shuttles?  Of the fleet of 6 built:  One is a museum piece (Enterprise, the test bed that never went into space), 2 are destroyed with a cost of 14 lives (Challenger and Columbia), 1 is in orbit damaged (Endeavour) and may NOT be able to return home for some time, and 2 others are on the ground (Atlantis and Discovery).

We need a more durable launch vehicle, and we need it YESTERDAY!

I think NASA needs to stop just for second sending shuttles up, and build a better fregin spave ship

I heard recently that china is going to moon!

[ajgundam5]

China won’t be at the moon for a while … India intends to get there one day too!

[Imperious Leader]

I want the moonbase Alpha to get finished. Im tired of waiting on Commander Koening to get his act together. Hes only got a few years left of flying time.

[dezrtfish]

@M36:

I’m glad I keep my feet on the ground. :-D

Of course, that C-130 trip to Kuwait is gonna be a long one… :|

You will most likely be on something a little bigger for that trip my friend.  :wink:

[U-505]

I don’t think it’s possible at this point to redesign our spacecraft. Mounting anything the size of the shuttle on top of the thrusters would make it twice as tall and probably less stable when standing upright so they would be redesigning not only the space vehicles but also the boosters and the fuel tank as well as modifying the launch pad and the crawler. That would most likely take well over a decade to complete if they wanted to send anything into space without scrapping all launches for a long time.

Probably better to try to add some sort of detachable sheilding if possible.

[Guest]

Well the X-Prize has been awarded… a privately developed craft that can take multiple people into orbit with the vehicle re-used within a 14 day turn-around.  And that craft DOES sit on top of its thrust package just like every craft EXCEPT the shuttle does.

As for Moon Base Alpha… Koenig is already an old man… he missed his mission time by 8 years already.  So it is time to scrap that plan, and get on with SERIOUS advances in science and space flight.  I would LOVE to see Eagles and Hawks flying in the near future.  I would love to see the Martian outposts that have been described in hard science fiction for more than 4 decades now.

We need to get off this planet, and start spreading ourselves around the galaxy a bit…

[Yanny]

Those new shuttles can’t come soon enough.

[Guest]

Well one quick answer…

Reduce the size of the crew launch vehicles.  Send payload up on large unmanned boosters, send crew up to rendezvous with payload in orbit on a smaller reusable vehicle.

This method has been advocated for decades in sci fi and even within NASA, but the Shuttle program won out because of the “Flash” value of it…  NASA bought the sizzle instead of the steak…

To date we have 2 dead crews and two lost multi-billion dollar craft as evidence of our folly.

[Jermofoot]

Heya, Yanny.  Glad to see you back.  :-)

The GM at my store says she went to high school with Barbara, and that she’s always wanted to be an astronaut.  Speculation of luck aside (past superstition on sailing vessels said women in general were bad luck), I think it’s awesome she’s getting to do what she’s always dreamed of…