Soem food for thought (and possible discussion) from MSNBC. Shunning the shuttle: What's wrong with the shuttle? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3217961/ Patrick
Quoting Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net>:
Soem food for thought (and possible discussion) from MSNBC.
Shunning the shuttle: What's wrong with the shuttle?
I liked this part: "What is this idiocy of requiring all four sensors to say the right thing before you launch? Cut the bad one out of the loop and fly with 'only' three saying the tank is full. What's the point of having redundancy if it doesn't allow you to go if one or more of the redundant layers isn't working? As you add more layers of redundancy, the probability of one of them not being able to work starts to go up. Thus if you require all layers of it to work before you take off, you'll just reach the point where the probability of being able to take off approaches zero." I agree. Speaking of redundancy, Me and some friends used to do some rather deep diving. Aside from the tanks we would normally carry, we would add a few more bottles with extra regulators just incase something went wrong and we couldn't get back to the surface without bending in half. Turns out we didn't have nothing to worry about. We used so much air dragging all that stuff around, we couldn't stay down long enough if we wanted. Of course, if we just carried MORE air... What does this have to do with the space program? It merely illustrates the absurdity of too much redundancy. Or, maybe not.
What NASA is saying is that they don't know that it really is just one sensor -- that maybe it's a system error of some kind and this is just the first symptom. The idea is that if they don't know what caused it they won't be certain all the sensors won't go out. My personal feeling is that four is overkill and just gives more opportunity for something to go wrong. Also, I have a hunch that the real problem is inside the tank, something NASA doesn't want to face because it would require very extensive, time-consuming repairs. They pointed out that the more they get inside various components and change things out at this point, the greater the chance that they will break something -- maybe some critical element whose damage won't show up until it's too late. I would be surprised if they do make the July launch window. -- Joe
Joe's comments echo the sentiment in the editorial that the shuttle as a whole is too complex for reliable routine operation. Remember that it is a compromise design- Originally there were to be no throw-away components- and the booster was to be a manned, winged vehicle as well, landing back at Kennedy and quickly re-cycled for the next mission. Upgrades aside, it's still a 30-year-old design and all the shuttles have "high mileage" in the extreme. This is what you get when you try keeping grandad's Willys on the road after the odometer's turned many, many times. But I also liked the commentary on Rutan's exploits. That he had done nothing new, comparing his "cute" little airplane and the heavy-lift, orbital shuttle was improper, and all his homework had been done by NASA and the Air Force. Oh, he's a smart engineer, to be sure, but what differentiates him from many others is just a rich investor. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
They pointed out that the more they get inside various components and change things out at this point, the greater the chance that they will break something -- maybe some critical element whose damage won't show up until it's too late.
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Chuck Hards wrote:
Joe's comments echo the sentiment in the editorial that the shuttle as a whole is too complex for reliable routine operation.
Interesting you would mention that. Following my gig with Jake Garn and Scott Horowitz on Take 2 last Sunday I had a chance to talk with the latter about the next generation of human rated rockets. Horowitz, who has ridden the shuttle 4 times, spoke most about the complexity of the shuttle and how more simplicity is needed. Sounds like folks are pushing for the old KISS mantra (Keep It Simple Stupid). BTW, both agreed that had NASA launched last week with one of 4 sensors malfunctioning the flight would have almost certainly gone fine. But had anything have gone awry there would have been heck to pay. He also said he really likes the new NASA administrator. Hey, as I was typing that my Harry Potter book #6 on tape arrived! Time to find my tape player... Patrick
Good work Patrick, not contributing to Ms. Rowling's massive deforestation project! Someone recently said that the latest Harry Potter book should be titled "Harry Potter and the End of Trees". ;) --- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
Hey, as I was typing that my Harry Potter book #6 on tape arrived!
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Chuck Hards wrote:
Good work Patrick, not contributing to Ms. Rowling's massive deforestation project! Someone recently said that the latest Harry Potter book should be titled "Harry Potter and the End of Trees".
;)
Much to my surprise this one seems to buck the previous trend of every Potter book being longer than the previous one. Book 5's unabridged tapes ran 27 hours (!). I see book 6 is "only" 19 hours. Ok, time to apparate to Hogwarts to see who's in ravenclaw this term. <Crack!>
Quoting Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com>:
Good work Patrick, not contributing to Ms. Rowling's massive deforestation project! Someone recently said that the latest Harry Potter book should be titled "Harry Potter and the End of Trees".
;)
Think positive. Instead of looking at it like forrests disappearing, think of it like, more open areas to view the night sky... ;)
--- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
Interesting you would mention that. Following my gig with Jake Garn and Scott Horowitz on Take 2 last Sunday . . . . Horowitz, who has ridden the shuttle 4 times, spoke most about the complexity of the shuttle and how more simplicity is needed.
The decision dilemma for the shuttle always has revolved around that it's not having any better of a catastrophic loss rate as compared to modern boosters - which is related to complexity, including those 23,000 heat shield tiles. The longest in-use human booster - the Soyuz - up through the middle of the 1980s - had a catastrophic loss rate of about 1-30. Since the mid-80s it's improved to about 1-in-60. This isn't much different from the U.S.'s booster rate for all modern boosters - excluding the shuttle. Each shuttle launch costs about $650 million. I'm guessing the replacement cost is up to around $4 to $6 billion per orbiter - or about $100,000,000 (0.1 billion) over 50 launches. This excludes the non-economic cost of the crew's loss-of-life. At what point do you decide that cost is socially and/or economically acceptable, i.e. - an "airplane" that can fly 50 times and then results in the loss of the crew, considering the mission to be achieved? How would your "acceptability meter" tilt if the catastrophic loss rate was 1-in-100, 1-in-200, 1-in-300? At what catastrophic loss rate is risk in the "gung-ho" range vs. the "it does not work" range? Just asking some questions to plumb the prevailing group sentiment. (For me, it's probably between 1-in-150 to 1-in-200 for the "gung-ho" rate.) So, what's your acceptable loss rate? - Canopus56 (Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Quoting Canopus56 <canopus56@yahoo.com>:
How would your "acceptability meter" tilt if the catastrophic loss rate was 1-in-100, 1-in-200, 1-in-300? At what catastrophic loss rate is risk in the "gung-ho" range vs. the "it does not work" range?
It depends on what your definition of "gung-ho" is. If you have 1 catastrophic loss per 100 missions, then I would think that you would have a "it DOES work" range at a comfortable 99 percent rate. Nothing "gung-ho" about that.
Only for NASA, though, right? I'm assuming that same loss rate wouldn't work, in your opinion, for say, Boeing or Winnebago? --- diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
If you have 1 catastrophic loss per 100 missions, then I would think that you would have a "it DOES work" range at a comfortable 99 percent rate.
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Quoting Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com>:
Only for NASA, though, right? I'm assuming that same loss rate wouldn't work, in your opinion, for say, Boeing or Winnebago? --- diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
If you have 1 catastrophic loss per 100 missions, then I would think that you would have a "it DOES work" range at a comfortable 99 percent rate.
I don't know. What IS the loss rate for Boeing and Winnebago?
Hopefully both are better than once per 100 "missions"! --- diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
I don't know. What IS the loss rate for Boeing and Winnebago?
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Quoting Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com>:
Hopefully both are better than once per 100 "missions"!
--- diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
I don't know. What IS the loss rate for Boeing and Winnebago?
Hopefully yes, but, it isn't the once per 100 mission that I was trying to illustrate, it's the success of the other 99 that I thought was pretty good.
Yep, thats what I was alluding to originally. For rocket ships, in an industry where the total number of manned flights still hasn't reached a very large number, 1 in 100 is a good (excellent) failure rate. If the space tourism industry is ever going to get off the ground (so to speak), that rate will have to improve tremendously or the industry will be still-born. Imagine if one out of every 100 commercial airline flights crashed with no survivors. There would be no commercial airline industry anymore. Space flight is still in its infancy, and will remain so for generations IMO. Structural engineering & materials technology has to make a few huge evolutionary leaps first. --- diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
Hopefully yes, but, it isn't the once per 100 mission that I was trying to illustrate, it's the success of the other 99 that I thought was pretty good.
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A rich investor AND a long track record of innovative aircraft. --- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
Joe's comments echo the sentiment in the editorial that the shuttle as a whole is too complex for reliable routine operation. Remember that it is a compromise design- Originally there were to be no throw-away components- and the booster was to be a manned, winged vehicle as well, landing back at Kennedy and quickly re-cycled for the next mission. Upgrades aside, it's still a 30-year-old design and all the shuttles have "high mileage" in the extreme.
This is what you get when you try keeping grandad's Willys on the road after the odometer's turned many, many times.
But I also liked the commentary on Rutan's exploits.
That he had done nothing new, comparing his "cute" little airplane and the heavy-lift, orbital shuttle was improper, and all his homework had been done by NASA and the Air Force. Oh, he's a smart engineer, to be sure, but what differentiates him from many others is just a rich investor.
C.
--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
They pointed out that the more they get inside various components and change things out at this point, the greater the chance that they will break something -- maybe some critical element whose damage won't show up until it's too late.
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His design record still isn't up to the task of even being a faint copy of NASA or the USAF- Don't misunderstand, I'm impressed with the man and his accomplishments as far as they go. They just don't go as far as the hype would lead one to believe. --- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
A rich investor AND a long track record of innovative aircraft.
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Ok, the yardwork's done, the car is vacuumed, Back to the soapbox. Rutan's civilian designs, Voyager aside, are futuristic and sleek, but there isn't much else there performance-wise (they glide like bricks in engine-off situations). To my mind, and even though it didn't lead as directly to outer space, Paul McCready took a much more interesting and innovative aeronautical path, but that's just one guys opinion. That aside, Rutan's place in history is assured, although as a space pioneer I'd analogize him to Santos-Dumont or Bleriot as aviation pioneers. He's a media sensation mostly, getting the public excited over space travel more than actually accomplishing something substantial. If you are a Marketing major, you may say that that in itself is substantial- but I would still disagree with you. NASA takes a lot of crap as an institution, but people tend to forget the accomplishments. A dozen men ON THE MOON. If you are too young to remember that, I really feel sorry for you- you missed the biggest space event of humankind to date- possibly only meeting the aliens will ever truly be able to top it...and I for one am eternally grateful that I was alive to experience it. Hundreds of robotic probes, dozens to distant planets, OTHER WORLDS that are now real places with dirt, rocks and sky, wind and weather, sunrises & sunsets- not just lights in the sky or pretty blobs in the eyepiece. A functioning space station before the ISP or Mir. For a long time NASA and the Air Force were the only launch alternatives around unless you worked for a company with a Cyrillic name or had a Red Star on your uniform. Decades of testing, research, hundreds of test pilots, many killed on the job, most of whom remain nameless yet to whom we owe a massive debt of gratitude. This is the legacy that Rutan drew from HEAVILY. Though he can beat an SR-71 on the short track (but not in the Grand Prix), and didn't make orbit, he still stood on the shoulders of giants and that can't be denied. NASA will always leave big shoes to fill- I doubt any one man has feet that big. --- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
A rich investor AND a long track record of innovative aircraft.
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diveboss@xmission.com wrote:
I liked this part: "What is this idiocy of requiring all four sensors to say the right thing before you launch?
Well, maybe someone was listening. I just found an article indicating NASA is considering launching if 3 sensors are working. The article (along with another one about what's about to happen to Rutan's SS1) is in the issue of News I just sent out. Patrick
participants (6)
-
Brent Watson -
Canopus56 -
Chuck Hards -
diveboss＠xmission.com -
Joe Bauman -
Patrick Wiggins