Comments on: Accident Prone

Accident Prone

Chinese Jet Pilot — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:06:49 -0800

I hope STS-117 isn't delayed by this train wreck like it was from that hailstorm last March.

By: DU

DU — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:18:11 -0800

The rocket boosters, which take a week to reach Cape Canaveral by train, were to be used on shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission in October and shuttle Atlantis's STS-122 mission in December. Unless STS-117 was planning to rob its spacemates, I'd guess the answer is no.

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:20:05 -0800

Did someone say train wreck?

By: Clay201

Clay201 — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:22:50 -0800

On behalf of my state and our rail bridges, I apologize to all you space geeks.

By: spock

spock — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:25:33 -0800

DU: STS-117 and STS-122 are both for Atlantis, so separate missions but not separate shuttle. Regarding STS-117: It does not appear that this train wreck has caused any more damage to the foam insulation on Atlantis' external fuel tank.

By: spock

spock — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:27:09 -0800

Also, when is NASA going to get with the program and start using biodiesel instead of that nasty aluminum perchlorate?

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:32:50 -0800

This reminds me of the urban legend about the Space Shuttle SRBs, train tunnels, and a horse's ass. It's a good story, even if it's not really all that true.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:35:04 -0800

On behalf of my state and our rail bridges, I apologize to all you space geeks. Keep up the good work Clay201. Some of us geeks would like nothing better than to see the Shuttle - and all manned space flight - go into a very long term early retirement.

By: chimaera

chimaera — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:48:42 -0800

STS-117 already has its SRBs, and it had them during the hailstorm. These were intended for a future flight.

By: knave

knave — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:00:58 -0800

Looks like you should mark chimaera's answer as bes--wait, where are we?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:08:02 -0800

Has anyone found a photo with a derailed train car with an actual SRB on it?

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:13:15 -0800

Completely different space program, but this photo is awesome.

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:14:41 -0800

To derail (sorry) the thread a bit - I don't have neither enough info nor time to put together a worthwhile fpp for it, but Walter Schirra has died today, and if you're someone who is reading this thread, you may be as sad at this news as I am, and hopefully someone out there can put together a thread that is more than just obitfilter in which we can discuss him -- and the fact that our original astronauts are dying of old age, and we've made almost no valuable progress in manned space exploration since their days.

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:15:22 -0800

"... I don't have neither" ... Feel free to correct that so I look like less of an idiot.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:25:41 -0800

That leaves two: John Glenn (85) and Scott Carpenter (81).

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:36:54 -0800

So, was anything interestign planed for these shuttle missions? Or were they just going to go up, float around a bit, and come down again?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:05:28 -0800

Nearly every mission now is an ISS construction one. These two are even better than usual, since they're not just adding another truss: 121 is going to add the Harmony module and 122 is going to add Columbus.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:16:34 -0800

By: Artw

Artw — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:34:55 -0800

I see it as more of a resource hog preventing cooler un-manned missions.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:35:55 -0800

I'd prefer to move all the Iraq money to NASA.

By: docgonzo

docgonzo — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:23:07 -0800

So the "manned space flight is a waste of precious resources and talent that would magically be reallocated towards alleviating social justice if we pulled the plug on NASA" argument is still thought to be vaild? I prefer the "NASA is a supernova of waste, incompetence and irrelevance whose only real purpse is to serve as corporate welfare for large sections of the US aerospace industry".

By: tgrundke

tgrundke — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:41:13 -0800

The remaining shuttle flights through 2010 are ISS construction/service missions. And yes, sadly, the shuttle program sucked up resources that the other, useful parts of NASA could have used: aerospace, unmanned research, etc. Having said that, it has been one of the greatest engineering experiments in history and the wealth of knowledge learned from the shuttle program has been invaluable across multiple spectrums from management lessons to aerospace uses. The mere fact that we were audacious enough to try building and flying "the brick" and that we've done so relatively successfully considering all of its faults, amazes me to this day. I still believe that had NASA taken the slow-road approach to the STS program and evolved it as originally had been planned (unmanned variants, heavy-life variants, smaller crew-only variants, etc.) then we would have been pretty happy with the end result. As it turns out, Shuttle ended up being all things to everyone and a nightmare to support and maintain due to its complexity. The engineering lessons from the STS program will live on for centuries.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:23:55 -0800

Yeah, NASA is no longer risking its three remaining shuttles on non-essential missions, so they're all ISS. Consolidated Launch Manifest. With one exception: Hubble Servicing Mission 4, which for the present is on the schedule. tgrundke, it wasn't NASA's fault that they had to build Shuttle to incorporate USAF needs. That may not have been the only thing that crippled it, but it ended up being a big part of many of the worst compromises. Anyway, the shuttles are not assembled "Just In Time", so while this may delay some of the prep for STS-120, it won't really throw off the schedule any. I just hope that Thiokol exercises its due diligence with regard to the safety implications of these booster segments getting knocked off the tracks. They're in some kind of protective cowl, but still. We all know what a small gap at the segment connection can do. Great shots of an SRB train here.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:18:13 -0800

I didn't see this linked in the thread yet.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 04 May 2007 21:18:18 -0800

Ooo, pretty photos. I never realized the payload was added at the launch pad. Wonder why.