The space shuttle Discovery will launch today despite the fact that foam has fallen off while standing on the launch pad. NASA says that it is not a problem. They say it’s not a showstopper.
To put this in perspective, for several days after foam fell off the shuttle Columbia a few years ago, NASA said that it was not a problem. But, of course the loss of Columbia and its crew proved that it was a problem, and as a result, NASA proclaimed that they would not fly again until they fixed the problem of foam falling off. So, how can it be possible that foam falling off now is not a problem?
Heavens11 said this in post #2 : The size and location of the piece that broke off make the difference.
That is true. But the issue today is not the piece that already has broken off, but the piece that might break off during the launch.
NASA seemed to be saying that they were not worried because the piece that just broke off did so for a different reason than the piece that brought down the Columbia. They said that this piece broke off because of heating and cooling of the tank during fueling caused expansion and contraction.
I might be wrong, but it seems to me that the expansion and contraction would have affected most, if not all, of the foam on the tank. And although the piece that fell off was small, it proves that expansion and contraction can loosen foam sufficiently to cause it to fall off while standing still. And if foam is lose enough to fall off standing still, think how much easier it would be to shed foam when subjected to all the stress of launch. So even though NASA has explained why they are not worried, I do not see the point of their explanation.
When Columbia was lost, they saw the foam-strike upon launch. But the ship did not break up until re-entry, several days later. During that several day period, NASA repeatedly told us that the piece of foam that they saw fall off was too small to do any damage.
Well I have just watched two pieces of TV news on the launch. One said that a lot of foam broke off during the launch, but NASA does not believe that it damaged any of the tiles. They said they would take a closer look to be sure. The other news piece did not mention anything about loss of foam or any cause for concern whatsoever. They implied that everything could not have gone better.
Frankly, I am very skeptical of NASA for reasons related to their conflict between symbolizm and safety. But I'm not the only one. They were widely criticized for the same reason in the wake of both the Columbia accident and the O-ring failure back in 1986 or so.
Thanks for the updates. I did see a lot of coverage on the three networks news tonight. One or more of them did mention that video of a fabric-like item that looked like it may have had strings attached to it, and the conclusion that it was ice. Apparently they will have a lot of opportunity to inspect the shuttle with space walks and docking with the space station. I seem to recall that a fairly large chunk of foam fell off on the last launch, which was the first since losing Columbia.
07-04-2006 01:38 PM
