Shuttle insulation

Well, for better or for worse, I just sent this off:

                                                              27July05
Ted Koppel,

As I write this, I'm listening to Nightline and the discussion of the 
grounded shuttle fleet. I think I know how to fix the shuttle problem, 
but I no longer know a way to contact someone at NASA.

I constructed the audio module for the Mercury space capsule; there were 
several independent radio transmitters and receivers, but all voice 
communications went through my box. I was driving on the Belt Parkway 
when all communications with the capsule were lost during the first 
re-entry. My first thought was "My God! My box!", then the brain kicked 
into gear. The last communication had been about a strange glow. I got 
off the parkway at Coney Island avenue, found a phone booth, raised the 
operator, and told her that I needed to talk to Mission Control about 
the emergency. No other information proved necessary. Someone in the 
control room answered the phone less than a minute later. I opined that 
the glow had been a plasma that, when fully developed, shorted out all 
the antennas. He thanked me, agreed that I had probably identified the 
cause, and told me that signals from the capsule seemed to be returning. 
I thanked him and rang off. The news of the blackout's end had not yet 
reached my car radio when I got back to it, but it did shortly after.

It was an incredible experience that could only have happened then. The 
whole country seemed to be focused on that one event. Times are 
different now. How can I pass my ideas to the right people. They may not 
work, but they're worth considering. I have a lifetime's experience 
making things work.

Jerry Avins
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

Great story Jerry.

The standard way of approaching NASA will probably fail. So release
your ideas publicly and let the media rub NASA's noses in it to the
point where they will have to consider your ideas. Find out who the
science editors are for various media outlets and approach them. It
can't be worse than doing nothing at all. Contact
"Air and Space" magazine. They are a Smithsonian derivative.

Clay

Hi Jerry

> I opined that
> the glow had been a plasma that, when fully developed, shorted out all
> the antennas. He thanked me, agreed that I had probably identified the
> cause, and told me that signals from the capsule seemed to be returning.

I often wondered what caused the radio 'blackout'. Knew it was when the
plasma glow appeared, but I always assumed that the plasma itself generated
RF hash. Now I really know the answer.

Coincidentally, I operate one of the six control stations worldwide for the
MISSE5 experiment that's on board the Shuttle right now. The astronauts are
scheduled to fit it to the outside of the ISS on one of the EVA's next week.
As such I do have communications directly with NASA personel, mainly at JSC,
but I would have no idea how you would get your ideas to the right person:
as you know NASA's a big organisation.

Email me off list if you'd like - remove the 'xxx' from the return address.

Kind Regards, Howard

Clay wrote:
> Great story Jerry.
> 
> The standard way of approaching NASA will probably fail. So release
> your ideas publicly and let the media rub NASA's noses in it to the
> point where they will have to consider your ideas. Find out who the
> science editors are for various media outlets and approach them. It
> can't be worse than doing nothing at all. Contact
> "Air and Space" magazine. They are a Smithsonian derivative.

OK. I'll start here. Part of the difficulty is that NASA is trying to 
solve the wrong problem. They WANT to make the foam adhere better, but 
events have shown that to be too ambitious a goal. What they NEED is to 
keep it from falling off; that's a different problem with a wider range 
of solutions. Here are some:

Broad-headed nails (roofing nails) welded to the tank on the 
intersections of a two-inch grid. The foam will be held in place by the 
embedded heads or, is torn off violently enough, broken into small -- 
hence harmless -- pieces.

Light plastic netting embedded in the foam, much like lath holding 
plaster. Somebody isn't thinking about composite materials.

Plastic netting stretched around the outside of foam already in place. I 
have in my hand netting that was once a bag of onions. It is a tube with 
  the ends clipped shut. What the netting needs to do is hold loose 
pieces in place against the force of acceleration.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Well, for better or for worse, I just sent this off:
>
<snip>
> Jerry Avins
> --
> Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
>

Jerry,

Curious timing, Shuttle Challenger having exploded 19 years ago today.

Several engineers from the support team at Bendix Field Engineering
were gathered in a darkened office to watch the Challenger launch on
TV.  To our shock and horror the terrible events unfolded, leaving us
numbed.

As we were dispersing, a fellow engineer (a Shuttle ground
communications specialist with access to the shuttle) ran into the
building to watch the launch, having been delayed on his drive from
Goddard Space Flight Center.

Seeing our faces he asked what had happened.  When we told him that
Challenger had exploded he said, "My God, I hope it wasn't the seals."

My point is that, if the seal problem was well enough known by a
specialist in an unrelated (electronics vs. mechanical) area, it
was pretty obviously broadly known to any number of support engineers
in NASA, a fact which didn't come out in the press or any of the
hearings that I watched.

Good luck in communicating with an ostrich whose head is buried in the
sand.  You only havc access to one orfice.

Regards,
Ken Asbury

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=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=AF=
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Ken Asbury wrote:
> Curious timing, Shuttle Challenger having exploded 19 years ago today.
> 

Not /that/ curious.  The Challenger disaster occurred January 31, 1986. 
  That's more like 19.5 years ago today.

-- 
Jim Thomas            Principal Applications Engineer  Bittware, Inc
jthomas@bittware.com  http://www.bittware.com    (603) 226-0404 x536
Nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse. - Calvin

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Plastic netting stretched around the outside of foam already in place. I 
> have in my hand netting that was once a bag of onions. It is a tube with 
>  the ends clipped shut. What the netting needs to do is hold loose 
> pieces in place against the force of acceleration.
> 

That's the same idea I had, but then what would you do with all those 
onions? ;-)

An even better solution would be to put the payload on the top (a la 
Saturn V) so that when pieces break off, they can't do any damage.  I 
guess that depends on how you define "better" though.

-- 
Jim Thomas            Principal Applications Engineer  Bittware, Inc
jthomas@bittware.com  http://www.bittware.com    (603) 226-0404 x536
Nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse. - Calvin

Jim Thomas wrote:
> Jerry Avins wrote:
> 
>> Plastic netting stretched around the outside of foam already in place. 
>> I have in my hand netting that was once a bag of onions. It is a tube 
>> with  the ends clipped shut. What the netting needs to do is hold 
>> loose pieces in place against the force of acceleration.
>>
> 
> That's the same idea I had, but then what would you do with all those 
> onions? ;-)
> 
> An even better solution would be to put the payload on the top (a la 
> Saturn V) so that when pieces break off, they can't do any damage.  I 
> guess that depends on how you define "better" though.
> 
The foam is there to eliminate the build up of ice that condenses from 
water vapor in the air onto a tank containing cryogenic liquids.  Move 
the launch site to Death Valley or some other desert.  Low humidity -> 
less condensate -> less insulation -> less things to fall off.

Jim Thomas wrote:

> ... what would you do with all those onions? ;-)

That calls for the Saga of the Greengrocer and the Dowager.

During WW II, when shortages were the norm and some shopkeepers held 
back goods for regular customers or the black market, a lady went to the 
vegetable store and asked for five pounds of onions. then followed:

GG:   I'm sorry, we're all out of onions.
Lady: OK. Let me have half a pound.
GG:   I told you, we DON'T HAVE ANY.
Lady: Give me one then.
GG:   What do you get if you take the melon out of watermelon?
Lady  (puzzled): Err... Water?
GG:   Right! What do you get if you honey out of honeydew?
Lady  (surer now): Dew.
GG:   What do you get if you take the fuck out of onions?
Lady  (puzzled again) But there's no fuck in onions...*
GG:   Lady, THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU!

Jerry
__________________________________
* This only works when spoken.
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 12:57:46 -0400, Stan Pawlukiewicz
<spam@spam.mitre.org> wrote:

>Jim Thomas wrote:
>> Jerry Avins wrote:
>> 
>>> Plastic netting stretched around the outside of foam already in place. 
>>> I have in my hand netting that was once a bag of onions. It is a tube 
>>> with  the ends clipped shut. What the netting needs to do is hold 
>>> loose pieces in place against the force of acceleration.

   It's a good idea, but I'd like to think they (the engineers)
thought of it or something like it, actually I'd bet on something like
that having been considered. I'd like to think the managers gave such
ideas due consideration, but I wouldn't bet on that.

>> That's the same idea I had, but then what would you do with all those 
>> onions? ;-)

   Don't send them to the ISS, they have enough problems!

>> 
>> An even better solution would be to put the payload on the top (a la 
>> Saturn V) so that when pieces break off, they can't do any damage.  I 
>> guess that depends on how you define "better" though.
>> 
>The foam is there to eliminate the build up of ice that condenses from 
>water vapor in the air onto a tank containing cryogenic liquids.  Move 

   Why are they having this problem still? I recall last winter they
were aiming for a June 15th launch, they put some heater at the top of
the tank so ice wouldn't form. They rolled the thing back into the VAB
to change the tank to one that had a heater already installed, or
something like that.  I recall this was supposed to eliminate the need
for an insulating blanket.

>the launch site to Death Valley or some other desert.  Low humidity -> 
>less condensate -> less insulation -> less things to fall off.

   Weren't shuttles at one time going to be launched from Vandenburg
(sp?) Air Force Base in California (is Vandenburg anywhere near a
desert?)? I'm sure they'd have a lot of logistics to do that, fly the
shuttle out there on a 747, probably need to make a Vehicle Assembly
Building out there too.
   But the closer the launch site is to the Equator, the better it
takes advantage of the Earth's rotation, and Florida is better for
that. So as always there's a bunch of tradeoffs.

-----
http://www.mindspring.com/~benbradley