I earlier noted the irony that the one part of the Shuttle that has actually been reliable (the Orbiter) is the one that Mike Griffin wants to retire. Both Shuttle disasters were caused by the non-Orbiter parts (SRB in the case of Challenger, ET in the case of Columbia), and those are the pieces that he wants to build the new vehicles out of (SRB as a lower stage for the crew vehicle, and SRB and modified ET for the heavy lifter).

Of course, the response will be that the only reason those failures were a problem was because of the overall system configuration with the Orbiter. Since both the new concepts will have the payload on top, where blow torching from joint leaks, and falling foam won’t cause problems, that makes it OK (though that’s actually not true with the heavy lifter, since the ET was the first casualty from the SRB failure, before the Orbiter broke up).

Which brings up a question: how much side forces were detected during the Challenger launch from the SRB leak (presumably from attempts by the TVC to keep the vehicle straight)? Does anyone know (I assume that the data may be in the Rogers Commission Report)? Would it have caused a problem with “the stick”?

Just a few random thoughts before crashing.

I haven’t had time to read much about the fleet grounding thing, but I’ve often said that when government occasionally does the right thing, it’s almost always for the wrong reason. If we end up retiring the Shuttle now, it won’t be because it costs too much for what it does, and soaks up a lot of money that could (at least in theory, though probably not in practice, given the way our space policy seems to work) be used for something more productive in terms of moving humanity into space. It will be because we got better cameras so that we could finally see the rain of debris that’s been falling from every ET every time we fly, and we’re nervous about killing astronauts (even though taking such risks is, at least in theory, part of their job description). Ignorance was bliss, at least if you make a healthy living off operating Space Shuttles.

I frankly think that it’s a dumb reason, but if it happens, I also think it’s a good outcome, so I won’t complain too much. But here’s the problem. There’s an old saying about some businesses being “too big to fail” (e.g., Lockheed, various banks in the eighties, perhaps GM)–that is, the political consequences of letting them go out of business are viewed as sufficiently dire that the government will continue to prop them up, a la Weekend at Bernies, even when the carcass begins to stink. Shuttle, I’m afraid, is like that.

What I suspect is going on is that the declaration of fleet grounding is to piously show NASA’s contrition over Columbia, and to demonstrate that they have a new “safety culture.” What it really means is that they’ll do some kind of kabuki dance to come up with another “solution” to the foam-falling-off problem, and then launch again. And when it falls off again, they’ll say, “time to ground the fleet again, back to the drawing board.” And then they’ll do another test flight. It could plod along in this manner for years, if JSC and Huntsville are lucky, and the rest of us (those who pay taxes and care about a serious space program, anyway)…less so.

Anyway, off to bed, and (oh, joy) another airplane ride at the crack of dawn.

OK, one more before I head to the airport. Leonard David reports that Burt Rutan and Richard Branson have a new spaceship company.

It’s too soon to say. The coverage of it has been disappointing so far as I’ve heard (just listening to Fox News getting ready to come to the office). They said that “if the Shuttle is damaged, NASA has to choose between repairing it on orbit, or abandoning the Shuttle and sending Atlantis up to rescue them.”

No. Repairing it on orbit is probably pretty much a non starter, but there’s another choice (and I suspect the most likely outcome). The Shuttle is damaged, but no more so than previous flights from which it has returned safely.

Thomas James gets to the nub of it:

Given the fact that foam has typically fallen off the ET on ascent, I have to wonder how much what concern there is over the insulation is motivated by new data: being able to actually see the problem happening for once, instead of only seeing the effect of foam shedding post-landing. Perhaps the ET routinely sheds cable-tray foam (or whatever it ends up being identified as) with no ill effects.

Losing a tile around the nose gear door, however, is a little more concerning. It’s hard to tell from the picture and the data provided so far how serious it is, or whether it too is in-family with prior tile damage.

“In-family” is NASA-speak for “within a class of previously-experienced anomalies.” I’m quite certain that NASA has an extensive data base of tile damage from every single flight, organized by section of the orbiter in which it occurred (and if they don’t, someone should certainly be keelhauled across Atlantis), and are even now scouring it to see if there was similar damage in a similar location on some previous flight, including notes of any structural insult observed when the offending tile was removed and replaced. That, and perhaps a closer inspection by EVA, will determine the resolution of this.

I think that it’s most likely that they will decide to come home with it as is. And if they do, I also think that they will undergo a great deal of ignorant criticism for this decision, because they’ve “lost their safety culture,” just one flight after they killed all those astronauts, and now they’re recklessly gambling their lives again (disregarding the fact that throwing away a two-billion dollar vehicle, and a third of the remaining fleet, is not a decision to be taken lightly either).

Well, everything looked fine so far. The ascent went off without a hitch, and now they’re just coasting, waiting to do the orbital insertion burn in a few minutes. No indication that there were any anomalies at all, from what I could hear on the chatter. Good job, to all the people who worked this flight. Launch Control Team can breathe a sigh of relief, and now the Flight Control Team is in charge.

It will be interesting to see how the tiles look in an inspection at ISS, now that they’re sensitized to the issue.

[Update a little after noon]

OK, not quite perfect. The cameras caught some insulation in the act of peeling off the ET after SRB separation. No indication of damage to the Orbiter, though.

There’s a silver lining to this little cloud–it will provide more data to allow NASA to calibrate and gain confidence in their other, non-video instrumentation to detect such things, which if successful, means that they won’t have to be afraid of launching in the dark for much longer.

There are a lot of misconceptions about NASA’s decision to launch tomorrow even with another sensor failure like the one that caused the last attempt to be scrubbed almost two weeks ago. They’re on full display by some of Alan Boyle’s readers:

There are a lot of misconceptions about NASA’s decision to launch tomorrow even with another sensor failure like the one that caused the last attempt to be scrubbed almost two weeks ago. They’re on full display by some of Alan Boyle’s readers:

There are a lot of misconceptions about NASA’s decision to launch tomorrow even with another sensor failure like the one that caused the last attempt to be scrubbed almost two weeks ago. They’re on full display by some of Alan Boyle’s readers:

Jeff Foust says that, when it comes to commercial space, NASA may at long last be (in the word of Paul Dietz, a frequent commenter here) bowing to reality.

I suspect he’ll have more tomorrow at The Space Review.

Clark Lindsey also has an interesting wrap-up on the subject from Jim Muncy in Las Vegas:

Getting another “big idea” accepted is also making progress. Large scale space settlement must become the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin, in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human expansion into the solar system is his long term vision for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general public.

We have to continue to work to change that.

Well, this is annoying. Mark Whittington needs to work on his, apparently.

He claimed that:

…some people…on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.

We asked him for an example of such a person.

Bizarrely, he responded with:

Unlike Kistler, t/Space will not try to develop their system with commercial money but will seek a fixed-cost contract, milestone payment approach with NASA.

By what tortured logic does he think that this means that the government would “pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered”?

Apparently he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “milestone payment approach.” Or else he doesn’t understand the meaning of the words “up front,” or “before hardware is built” or “delivered.” Either way, it’s a head scratcher of a post.