Space Forum / Shuttle / August 2005

Has there ever been any pictures taken of all 4 shuttles (the 4th being
either Challenger or Endeavour) parked side by side? If so, could anyone
kindly point a link to a picture?

Kyle Herring/Allard Beutel
Johnson Space Center, Houston August 6, 2005
(Phone 202/358-3749)
MEDIA ADVISORY: M05-129

Why RETURN materiel from space.
Stuff is precious when there is no other stuff at ALL.
The dumbest thing ever is to return stuff from space - it is a resource more
precious than ANYTHING.

How long is the runway used to land the shuttle?  Is the parachute the
only braking mechanism?  I have never seen flaps at all on the wings,
and I'm wondering how they steer this bird once it's entered the atmosphere?

Observed Discovery and ISS passing to the south of Southern California
this morning at 12:20 UTC.  Visual magnitude of each spacecraft was
approximately 1.0 to 1.5, and separation between the vehicles was less
than 1 degree.

During these past few days, when nothing else was happening, the crew
were asleep, or there was a comm outage, the display goes to a 3-view,
with (I'd guess) plan views along the shuttle velocity vector, and one at
right angles to this as well as the track over earth.

Since electronics has shrunk exponentially in size and power
requirements
since the shuttle was designed, the obvious approach to the foam
problem,

Here you go, Pat.  Scheduled to start right about now, per the PAO
voiceover guy.

On this page: http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/crew/dol_pad.html which
lists the deorbit numbers into KSC for orbit #201, the rolls for the
second and third roll reversals are blank.  Does this mean they're not
going to be done, or are they TBD?

Who here thinks a safe return is still not guaranteed even if there is no
damage from the falling tile?  Is the shuttle up to a safe re-entry even if
it is intact?  I believe that should be the question instead.
Is NASA getting sidetracked and forgetting even if there is no damage ...

Has it ever been suggested to replace to the foam on the ET with an
aerogel insulator?  Material science is far from being one of my areas
of expertise, but it would seem that an aerogel insulator would be a
win-win proposition:

Last night, I guess afternoon your time, I listened to the  revealing of the
ongoing foam problem and then went to bed. Waking this morning, a number of
questions and comments were in my mind, so I'll post them here.
Firstly,

Anyone know if the shuttle Flight Control System (FCS) varies the angle of
attack (AOA) during reentry based on temperature readings in order to
minimize heating?

If there was a fix for getting Apollo 13 back from the moon--what's with
*this* no-count, wet-behind-the-ears generation of NASA being so totally out
of the Right Stuff as to do things right?
It's like a bunch of dizzy boom-box bopping teenagers rodding around in

Lori J. Rachul
Media Relations Office
216-433-8806
lori.j.rachul@nasa.gov