Space Forum / Shuttle / July 2005

I am not a rocket scientist, but my wife just got back from NASA's HAS (High
School Aerospace Scholars) Program at JSC.
In laymans terms, why cant the shuttle just 'be' at the station in a few
hours, instead of chasing it for days? I would think that it is just a

Looking at the launch video on the Washington Post site
yesterday, the first segment from the ET Cam shows several
flashes/flares near the SRB flame, with apparent bits
of stuff moving out from the flashes.  The time display

I've read most of what has been sensibly written on here since sts114 launch
yesterday, may have missed a few but there are a lot of messages...
First, the bird strike on launch which was talked about. Apparently, this
has occurred before, now at airports, they go to great pains ...

NASA is broadcasting the moving images from the new orbiter boom extension
inspection cameras.  On my home TV the moving image has a lot of "flicker".
Wondering what causes it, could it be caused by the use of the laser? Or a
different frame rate between the boom camera and ...

Alan tells it all:
1. Fuel gauge 'glitch' does NOT reappear.
2. Weather is perfect.
3. No sign of any other hardware problems.

So much for Nasa's 2 year Chinese firedrill.
Watching the tank-cam view, it was obvious the damn thing was dropping so
much sh.t it looked like the Beverly Hillbillies' truck going down the road.
If this is after being "fixed to the best of their ability", it's clearly

I have a girlfriend in London who wants to see the Shuttle and Space Station
pass over.
The NASA tracking page clearly shows the shuttle and Station passing over
London but NASA on its city sighting page shows no sightings.

Here's a couple of additional MSNBC mistakes I noticed in the first
launch attempt. Wonder how many more mistakes MSNBC will make in the
second.
Bob Hagar said that the shuttle can't fly any higher than ISS. Hubble's

Courtesy of:
Date:       Wed, 27 Jul 2005 13:04:54 -0000
From:      DRLunsford <antimatter33@yahoo.com>
To:      HumanSpaceflight@yahoogroups.com

Has anyone found one of the ET camera images on nasa's image galleries yet?
Those are just amazing images I cant wait to get my hands on.

I guess the piece coming off the tank is no big deal, but watching the slo
mo, that very large white piece that appears half way down the top edge of
the shuttle ( on the left of the pic) at about T+3 secs from launch, and
just maybe clearing the tail fin looks significant.

From:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_custom_space_shuttle/2005/07/1047_am.html
Says (paraphrased) that ET breaks up and ultimately ends in bits in the
Atlantic Ocean.

The New York Times
July 26, 2005
NASA Puts Shuttle Mission's Risk at 1 in 100
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

I recall hearing about an effort by NASA several years ago to
minimize/eliminate the use of poisonous hydrazine in the shutle as part
of shuttle modernization.  For example, I remember rocket scientist Alex
McCool  saying the plan was to power the SRB APUs by some sort of setup

What compounds does the solid rocket booster exhaust contain?  Is the
SRB exhaust particularly harmful to the environment?