I read somewhere that NASA uses a Request Tracker system for managing activities. Perhaps that database would contain references to the appropriate documents?
NASA has held it's cards close to it's chest when it comes to operational data about the Shuttle, particularly the refurbishment process.
Back in the cold war there was the fear that this information would be useful to another country that could learn from our experience and develop a shuttle that is faster and cheaper to turn around. Maybe things are different now.
I was in VDNKh in Moscow in 2006 and I saw "what I thought" was the Buran there. Not sure if it was a mockup. All the articles I am finding are saying it wasn't moved to VDNKh until 2014 but I have a picture of myself in front of it eight years prior.
First and only! Plans were developed for an autonomous landing of the American Shuttle to be used in the event of a mishap following Columbia, but were never used.
If you were a nation wanting to enter the nuclear bomb-them-at-a-distance club, having the technical information about the tiles could really shorten your ICBM development time, and you'd have some measure of assurance they'd actually work (Columbia & Challenger not-withstanding)
I'm seeing a flash of lines, a flash of text, and then it all disappears. Tried in chromium, google chrome, and firefox, similar behaviour on all three.
edit: just to confirm, i did clear all caches to pull in any new style etc
> The environmentalist threw a fit about this "glue" and it was replaced with a glue that all the engineers said was not as safe, in regards to the tiles staying attached...
Reading a false story is dangerous -- the mind tends to remember the story, and forget the "It's a myth" part over time.
This is also why "Myth vs Facts" or sarcastic "How to do X Very Wrong" articles are bad style -- they undermine the goal. Better to write using language that affirms the truth, not multiple negations.
> the mind tends to remember the story, and forget the "It's a myth" part over time.
I find the opposite to be true. Once I've identified something I thought to be once true was in fact misleading/wrong/a myth, it seems to be forever stamped as a falsehood in my brain. Likewise when I know going into it reading it that it is a myth/false.
At one point, freon was a component in the external fuel tank insulation. NASA was in the process of changing the recipe to be more environmentally friendly when the Columbia accident happened. The tank on STS-107 was built with the newer foam, but the "bipod" part which the foam fell off of was coated in the older foam.
That didn't stop Rush Limbaugh et al from blaming environmentalists.
There was no shortage of foam/ice strikes with the older foam either. STS-27 in 1988 sustained very severe tile damage from a foam strike during liftoff (around 700 tiles were damaged, including some which were completely destroyed), which resulted in partial melting of some of the airframe components during re-entry. They lucked out in that the strike was on the more durable part of the vehicle, if it had hit the leading edge as happened to Columbia the vehicle likely would have met the same fate.
It didn't destroy the vehicle so the importance of it was downplayed. It was thought, even up to the time of the Columbia disaster, that the reinforced carbon-carbon composites on the wing leading edges were too strong to take damage from a foam/ice strike. And there were contingencies in place for foam damage, though the system was overall resilient enough to take a fair bit of damage without causing a loss of the vehicle during re-entry. So to some extent they thought they had their bases covered, though in reality that was just a fantasy. The reality was that it was extremely difficult to assess any damage to the thermal protective system while on orbit, there weren't actually any feasible options for repairs of major damage, there weren't proper contingencies for a rescue operation except when the orbiter visited the station (and then only just barely), and the wing leading edge material turned out to be far more brittle than had been modeled.
The whole history of the Shuttle system is a history of dodging disaster left and right and then hitting it after leaning too heavily on luck for too long. The very first flight of the Shuttle involved an "anomaly" during launch which the crew said would have resulted in them attempting to ditch if they had known about it during liftoff. On the 9th shuttle flight there was a leak and fire of two out of three of the APUs right at touchdown. Had that happened much earlier during entry it could have easily resulted in loss of the crew and vehicle. Not to mention the many near-misses with the problem that ultimately doomed Challenger.
Columbia was lost because it took a hit to the wing from a large piece of foam moving at roughly the speed of sound. This created a hole in the leading edge 6-10 inches in diameter, which fatally compromised the thermal protection system.
The tile glue isn't implicated here, for one because withstanding a hit from fast-moving chunks of foam, and for another because the area that took the hit wasn't protected with tiles anyway.
I saw the Space Shuttle Discovery up close at the amazing Udvar-Hazy Center in/near Washington DC. The scarred shielding tiles, partly because they are on the surface closest to visitors, were something really special - made the whole thing as an experienced object very real.
Not every other craft in the museum was built for war or commerce as there were many experimental aircraft built by hobbyists, but the shuttle was an iconic thing. I'd had shuttle toys in the 80s. Where other exhibits were more "Oh, that's cool", seeing the Discovery had a real impact on me.
If you're ever anywhere near that area, go take a look. Free entrance, $15 for parking, and you will spend hours there. It's a separate facility to the National Air and Space Museum that most people would visit in the centre of Washington DC - which is also very good.
Discovery at Udvar-Hazy is why I started this project. I saw the serial numbers on the tiles – almost close enough to touch on tiptoe – and remembered reading about some kind of database. I imagined a visualization with a line for every tile over time, and decided to find the records to make the viz.
That was two years ago. I’ve asked a lot of people since then, but after making a web site for the project (on @doingitwrong’s advice), this week is by far the most attention it’s gotten. I’m hoping this is what finally gets word to someone who knows something.
I have a feeling this would be a Material Traceability DB, Due to the high Quality Assurance/Control Requirements at play.
I haven't dealt with Ceramic tracability before but I deal with steel tracability on a daily basis.
A quick primer on steel:
When you buy steel from a mill, you usually get it in plates or sections. These will be stamped with a Heat Number which links it back to the conditions under which it was made; the chemical ladle analysis and properties to meet a particular specification. These then undergo visual, non-destructive and destructive testing to verify everything is acceptable.
A third party / independent verification body (or IVB) will also confirm this by basically shadowing every step of the way and confirming everything is legit; right from the internal processes and systems of the company down to the certification of testing equipment involved and witnessing the tests.
If this is the case and everything lines up you will get something like an EN 10204 3.2 cert with your plate/section.
Then to maintain tracability from plate to part, there are standard processes and requirements (either industry standard, or client imposed) which then help maintain a chain of custody as it were.
I would hazard a guess that it's similar for ceramics.
While I sympathize with the authors desire to obtain a neat dataset, the externalized cost of obtaining it seems high and (frankly) perhaps just a little inconsiderate.
Imagine someone asked you to spend a few days (minimum) looking through storage to find the boxes with the data in some warehouse.
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[ 8.3 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadhttps://www.bestpractical.com/rt/
Back in the cold war there was the fear that this information would be useful to another country that could learn from our experience and develop a shuttle that is faster and cheaper to turn around. Maybe things are different now.
It was the first space shuttle to perform a totally autonomous flight, even landing on a runway without any human intervention.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29
They had scheduled a second flight for 1993, but that pesky 'fall of the Soviet Union' happened, and they never got around to it.
Kinda sad, clone as she is, she deserves a spot in a museum.
edit: just to confirm, i did clear all caches to pull in any new style etc
This is a common myth. It’s false: http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/08/09/limbaugh-promote...
This is also why "Myth vs Facts" or sarcastic "How to do X Very Wrong" articles are bad style -- they undermine the goal. Better to write using language that affirms the truth, not multiple negations.
I find the opposite to be true. Once I've identified something I thought to be once true was in fact misleading/wrong/a myth, it seems to be forever stamped as a falsehood in my brain. Likewise when I know going into it reading it that it is a myth/false.
But everywhere I did read, the tiles have been a plague on the Orbiter since day 1. And of course the man hours needed to change them was crazy.
That didn't stop Rush Limbaugh et al from blaming environmentalists.
The whole history of the Shuttle system is a history of dodging disaster left and right and then hitting it after leaning too heavily on luck for too long. The very first flight of the Shuttle involved an "anomaly" during launch which the crew said would have resulted in them attempting to ditch if they had known about it during liftoff. On the 9th shuttle flight there was a leak and fire of two out of three of the APUs right at touchdown. Had that happened much earlier during entry it could have easily resulted in loss of the crew and vehicle. Not to mention the many near-misses with the problem that ultimately doomed Challenger.
The tile glue isn't implicated here, for one because withstanding a hit from fast-moving chunks of foam, and for another because the area that took the hit wasn't protected with tiles anyway.
Not every other craft in the museum was built for war or commerce as there were many experimental aircraft built by hobbyists, but the shuttle was an iconic thing. I'd had shuttle toys in the 80s. Where other exhibits were more "Oh, that's cool", seeing the Discovery had a real impact on me.
If you're ever anywhere near that area, go take a look. Free entrance, $15 for parking, and you will spend hours there. It's a separate facility to the National Air and Space Museum that most people would visit in the centre of Washington DC - which is also very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-Hazy_Center#Co...
That was two years ago. I’ve asked a lot of people since then, but after making a web site for the project (on @doingitwrong’s advice), this week is by far the most attention it’s gotten. I’m hoping this is what finally gets word to someone who knows something.
I haven't dealt with Ceramic tracability before but I deal with steel tracability on a daily basis.
A quick primer on steel: When you buy steel from a mill, you usually get it in plates or sections. These will be stamped with a Heat Number which links it back to the conditions under which it was made; the chemical ladle analysis and properties to meet a particular specification. These then undergo visual, non-destructive and destructive testing to verify everything is acceptable.
A third party / independent verification body (or IVB) will also confirm this by basically shadowing every step of the way and confirming everything is legit; right from the internal processes and systems of the company down to the certification of testing equipment involved and witnessing the tests.
If this is the case and everything lines up you will get something like an EN 10204 3.2 cert with your plate/section.
Then to maintain tracability from plate to part, there are standard processes and requirements (either industry standard, or client imposed) which then help maintain a chain of custody as it were.
I would hazard a guess that it's similar for ceramics.
Imagine someone asked you to spend a few days (minimum) looking through storage to find the boxes with the data in some warehouse.