And you forget about all the high-heat ceramics that exist today because of the shuttle. And, they do have practical uses...

 

Tomcat7742, Am I reading your post correctly? That NASA purposely broke the tiles to mess around with repairing them in space? Were these tiles on the shuttle or carried as cargo?

I hope, carried as cargo.

I know that their main mission was to re-supply the International Space Station and to repair broken equipment.

Either way, it's an amazing piece of machinery.

 

From what I have heard yes, but I would not say that it is a fact unless I heard it straight from NASA.

I do know that one of their missions in space was to try and replace tiles on the shuttle to see how practical it was.

- Chris

 

the aurora? didnt they tell you? it was never built! the f/a 18 is a seriously cool plane. got to see one do a square loop. one of the few (if only?) planes that can accellerate straight up. he came in at about 50 feet and just over stall speed, yanked it straight up and mashed the throttle and proceeded to 30,000 feet in about 3 seconds. why cant elevators do that?!

 

Tomcat7742, I was was just wondering.

I would think that if they some how couldn't fix the tiles, they would be in somewhat of a serious mess.

But then again, that's why they're up there and we're down here.

Must be one hell of a ride.

 

dorkpunch, if elevators could do that, people would probably look like Danny DeVitto.

As for the FA18 Hornets, I seem them every year during our fleet week festivities.

The Blue Angels do their thing and it's pretty cool to watch.

You aught to see the solo do his low level high speed pass.

Real cool.

 

They did a spacewalk to TEST repairing tiles, but NOT on the actual shuttle. It's my understanding they just took two of them and tried to glue them together, but NOT on the shuttle itself.

 

That sounds more like it. I just couldn't see them experimenting with tile repair on the shuttle, considering what happened to the Columbia.

I didn't think about them taking 2 tiles and do the experiment outside.

tomcat7742, sorry I mis-understood your post.

AND now, IMHO; time for NASA to design and build new shuttles.

These shuttles were originally were suppose to have a flight life of between 100-400 flights, each.

I think as of now they have about 115 flights between the five of them. And 2 of the shuttles are gone.

I wonder if privatization would help NASA? They seem to like the idea.

If we're to continue with the program, then get the government out of NASA.

 

I am not following the NASA highlights, so I'll ask again..What did they accomplish on the last flight besides gluing some tiles together that were supposed to be functional and certified safe over 25 years ago?

If citizens stop demanding that a government funded project produce some results in a timely manner then we might as well just start flushing our paycheck down the toilet. Please don't let the space shuttle program die because of bureaucrats that are not held accountable for their actions.

I am only trying to be constructively critical, I love the allure, excitement, and daring that it takes to get on top of a rocket and explore outer space; I have hope that something great will happen for all of civilization because of the space program.....however, the shuttle program is lagging behind many of the very successful unmanned programs.

 

924x2150, Their main mission was to re-supply the international space station and do repairs on some of the station's equipment, such as repairs to one of their gyroscopes.

Among other experiments.

Like I said before, maybe privatize NASA.

 

if you saw the video of the "repair" while in space you have to wonder if they really tell you everything. they said it was just a gap filler that came loose during the launch, but in the video you see 2 brand new tiles, so new the serial numbers are still glaring bright white and the tiles color of fresh black didnt match the other tiles. but oh no, it was just a gap filler being taken out, right?

they have a HUGE cargo bay in that shuttle and they haul all sorts of stuff up there and never tell us anything. who knows what they do up there. but we'll never know.

 

They glued tiles together

It might not sound like a big deal to us here on the surface of the Earth but it is a big deal in space. NASA was experimenting if it was feasible of repairing broken tiles on the space shuttle in space. It is a task that has never been done before and NASA needed to find out if it would work. If it did not work and they continued to have tile problems with the space shuttle then they might as well have just taken them out to a salvage yard and used them for scrap. NASA was also testing a new fuel tank that was supposed to minimize the amount of debris falling off during it's launch. NASA tested new ways of inspecting the Shuttle while it is in space. No shuttle has ever been so theroughly inspected before re-entry, it was basically covered top to bottom looking for any kinds of problems.

Discovery also installed an External Stowage Platform and Control Moment Gyroscope onto the International Space Station (ISS). The media did not really talk about this, they focused on the replacement of the tiles on the shuttle. If there were no tile problems on the shuttle, I can guarentee you that you would have still never heard about them installing these items on the ISS because it's just not interesting to most people. FOX News and CNN will get more viewers if they talk about Aruba then if they discuss new additons to the ISS.

When you think of the Space Shuttle do not think of it as anything other then an experimental aircraft. Nothing on that air/spacecraft is "safe and certified," it is purely experimental. NASA considers every flight of the space shuttle a "test flight." Even when the aircraft touched down at Edwards AFB you can hear the NASA controller say "congradulations on a great 'test' flight."

For more information I would recommend you going to the official NASA Space Shuttle website.

- Chris

 

Those new tiles were probably replaced since the last time Discovery flew. The gap fillers have always given them problems, they find out afterwards when the shuttle is back on the ground, and the darn things are melted off, and probably caused other damage. Otherwise, why space-walk to remove them? But it was a good test of "on-the-fly" engineering, something that hadn't been rehearsed.

Your post sounds vaguely paranoid

They replace tiles all the time - they lose them EVERY time they come back, the physics of it play out in a way that the other tiles around the missing one keep the plasma (superhot gas) away from the underbelly enough to keep it from being a problem.

 

Excellent idea. In fact, I've said the same thing on a previous thread.

 

F15090300, sorry I stole your idea.