KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- NASA has grounded its space shuttles until engineers solve the recurring problem of falling debris, NASA's mission managers said Wednesday.
Pieces of debris tore away from the shuttle Discovery during liftoff Tuesday -- despite NASA spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent a repeat of the problem that caused the 2003 Columbia disaster.
A piece of insulating foam falling from the external fuel tank during Columbia's launch was blamed for the deaths of its seven crew.
NASA officials say they do not believe falling foam actually hit Discovery.
"Until we fix this, we're not ready to go fly again," shuttle program manager Bill Parsons told reporters at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. "You can say that means they're grounded."
Several smaller pieces also tore away, a NASA spokesman said. But officials said they do not believe the foam hit the orbiter and damaged the spacecraft.
"Apparently, there is still more understanding that has to occur," Parsons said. "We'll go do that and do it diligently. Until we're ready, we won't fly again. I don't know when that might be."
He said, however, that there were no signs the crew was in danger. "All indications are that there is no damage to the orbiter," he said.
The information -- including pictures -- about the falling debris has been sent to the seven crew members.
Wayne Hale, deputy shuttle program manager, said, "We are treating it very seriously. Are we losing sleep over it? Not yet."
He said the piece of foam that fell off the tank appears to be 24-33 inches long, 10-14 inches wide, and from 2.5 to almost 8 inches thick -- only slightly smaller than the fatal piece of foam that struck Columbia's wing.
The damage caused during Columbia's ascent led to its catastrophic disintegration during re-entry to Earth's atmosphere.
The other piece that fell off was a piece of tile from the underside of the orbiter, near a door covering the nose landing gear.
Hale noted that the area holding the tile has a redundant thermal barrier.
Footage of the launch also showed that the external fuel tank's nose cone hit a bird about 2.5 seconds after liftoff -- when Discovery was probably traveling too slowly to sustain any damage, he said.
It's sad that a program that instillled pride in americans is going by the way side.
They better come up with the replacement real soon.
I spent 4 hours in the garage building the shuttle Dicovery, & Columbia out of wood for my 2 boys yesterday. They played with them all day yesterday, when they went to bed last night, they were on the night stand next to there bed.
Personally I think it is time that the government backs themselves out of the space program and lets Private Industry step in.
Nasa spent 100's of millions of dollars to correct the debri's problem and obviously it still isn't corrected. 100's of millions to say "Oops! We're still having the same problem."
I bet if you gave private industry 100's of millions they'd develop a fleet of ships that are faster, more reliable, and far more efficient.
Give me 100's of millions to fix it. = Duct Tape fixes everything.
The one thing everyone is forgetting is that this thing is still experimental and its being built by the lowest bidders still. Until it is taken over by private industry, it will never change.
I have heard some crazy things about this. Supposedly the shuttle was made with asbesdos but the environmental folks went against it so NASA started using some other material, which has been a problem ever since. Now there are reports that asbestos is not as bad as the environmental people had first thought. We have sent lots of shuttles into space before with no problems, now all of the sudden we are having problems with these million dollar machines.
I cannot imagine being in that shuttle right now, knowing that on your way back you could blow into pieces. :frown:
I cannot imagine being in that shuttle right now, knowing that on your way back you could blow into pieces. :frown:
They knew the moment they signed up for the program that was potentially in the cards.
It is a dangerous mission. Who knows how many times this has happenned and not been documented in the past because of the lack of on board camera angles and digital video imagery. They are not up there having a tickling contest... they are astronauts.
I used to jump out of planes occasionally for a living. We knew the risks, it was part of the job and when several of my freinds got killed doing it, you try to learn a lesson from it and move on. I myself got in a terrible accident jumping and had to retire as a result of it.
Such is life. They knew that the whole thing could go up because of one of a million o-rings on the thing. I am sure the crew is just fine, and ready for the trip home.
Personally I think it is time that the government backs themselves out of the space program and lets Private Industry step in.
Nasa spent 100's of millions of dollars to correct the debri's problem and obviously it still isn't corrected. 100's of millions to say "Oops! We're still having the same problem."
I bet if you gave private industry 100's of millions they'd develop a fleet of ships that are faster, more reliable, and far more efficient.
I wouldn't bet the bank on that.
Paul Allen spent and "undisclosed" amount of money on the Space Ship One program for the X-Prize... Industry people estimate between 60 - 70 million dollars... for 2, 15 minute pop gun shots on a sub-orbital flight. That's a 140 million dollar/hr operating cost, pretty damn expensive, no matter who's paying for it.
Going into space will never be easy or cheap. Hell, the Apollo program cost BILLIONS, and that was in 1960's dollars.
The shuttle is a complicated machine, and perhaps hasn't lived up to it's "flying space truck" billing, but it does work. The Columbia accident was an unfortunate chain of events, one that wasn't forseen. No one in the program thought that a chunk of insulation could penetrate the skin. Insulation has been falling off the fuel tank since day one of the program. It never caused a problem bofore, and probably won't ever again.
If they ground the shuttle, I say we drag the Saturn IIB's back out and keep going into space, it would be a dark day in our history if we start to realy on a foreign gov't for our space programs.
I have heard some crazy things about this. Supposedly the shuttle was made with asbesdos but the environmental folks went against it so NASA started using some other material, which has been a problem ever since. Now there are reports that asbestos is not as bad as the environmental people had first thought. We have sent lots of shuttles into space before with no problems, now all of the sudden we are having problems with these million dollar machines.
I cannot imagine being in that shuttle right now, knowing that on your way back you could blow into pieces. :frown:
I myself work on the Solid Rocket Boosters, and the enviro's have gotten to us on the asbestos issues and also in solvents (ozone depleting). On some of our processes the gov't has given us waivers for critical flight hardware.
Clint
They knew the moment they signed up for the program that was potentially in the cards.
It is a dangerous mission. Who knows how many times this has happenned and not been documented in the past because of the lack of on board camera angles and digital video imagery. They are not up there having a tickling contest... they are astronauts.
I used to jump out of planes occasionally for a living. We knew the risks, it was part of the job and when several of my freinds got killed doing it, you try to learn a lesson from it and move on. I myself got in a terrible accident jumping and had to retire as a result of it.
Such is life. They knew that the whole thing could go up because of one of a million o-rings on the thing. I am sure the crew is just fine, and ready for the trip home.
This is true, but it still wouldnt change the fact knowing you WILL die.
Its been happening since they first started...that foam didn't cause the blow up in 86. Now they are finding insulating cloth they use between the tiles thats sticking out a smidgen...again something that has been happening but not more scrutinized because of the break up two years ago.
This will probably be the safest landing of a shuttle ever they way they have looked over every inch of that baby.
The shuttles have performed well overall, provided much of the nec. parts to construct a new space station and brought home astronauts safely all but one time.......Pretty good odds considering its still an experiment.
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