Thursday, July 16, 2009

Houston We Have A Problem

So we just received word that just about everyone in the Flight world will be on call this weekend to work ground testing of repair techniques and options for addressing foam damage to the Thermal Protection System (TPS) of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. In the event the damage is deemed to serious and can not be repaired to a level that would provide proper thermal protection for re-entry then all 13 current Astronauts in orbit would live in the International Space Station until another shuttle could be prepared for launch. This is serious business considering the agency is down to three vehicles and virtually can not withstand another critical loss of the crew and vehicle. Stay tuned a press conference is just now kicking off, but my gut says this is going to be pretty serious.
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownJuly 16, 2009 at 6:43 PM

    I hope the kit they bring up will be enough to fix whatever heat shield damage there happens to be once the get to the space station to take a look... Question martin.. What is in the pipeline for after they retire this aging fleet of shuttles? Any inside scoop?

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  2. KMJuly 20, 2009 at 7:34 AM

    The inside scoop is this: There is a ton of dissent and disagreement on viable options and their cost. Ultimately, the current Administration will have to extend the life of the Shuttle to utilize the ISS and our next 5-10 years of space travel. Federal projects have so much red tape and runs so far over(an insufficient)budget that, in my opinion, we are looking at 2018 before the Constellation Project, literally, gets off the ground. The current damage does look to be pretty insignificant.

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  3. UnknownJuly 20, 2009 at 11:06 PM

    My vote is the private sector will pick up the ball on the space advances of man...

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