Date: 03 Feb 2003 21:36:21 -0800 From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) To: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: oh my god the nasa shuttle blewup Message-ID: <fku1fkhaju.1fk@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <a05200f12ba64ae5c6ab8@[10.0.1.2]> References: <A2B6C76C-371E-11D7-839A-000393A335A2@mac.com> <200302031346.34040.jrhoden@unimelb.edu.au> <a05200f09ba63ee3f5081@[10.0.1.2]> <49650.198.137.241.11.1044283121.squirrel@m.vocito.com> <a05200f12ba64ae5c6ab8@[10.0.1.2]>
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> it could have been any number of things. With highly-engineered systems like the shuttle, the number is usually about 3 or 4, almost never 1. Like: poorly-applied (1) insulation blows off, airstream blows it against typical tile (with huge force of airstream against foam, not just 2.67 lb at fairly low relative speed), knocking it loose. Re-entry pops it out, taking poorly-applied tile (2) just behind with it. Two-tile strip allows sufficient flow of hot gases to eat under next tile, etc., allowing heat to over-warm wing spar with some hidden corrosion (3) common to the Cape area and straining under the atypical wing loading (4) of the heavy old shuttle with the huge SpaceHab module and the 2.0 G loads created by speed-sheding S-turns, causing wing to break off. Actually, from what I heard today I suspect that there was a burn- through just behind the leading edge between the wheel well and the fuselage, where the pressure and tempurature were so much as to burn right through the upper skin, accounting for the raised temps measured on the left side of the fuselage. Airflow disruption and flapping edges of holes increase drag on that side, causing stability problems. Heat from inside allow more skin/tiles to peel until craft goes unstable (probably from burnt control system, possibly just from abnormal aero-forces), breaking up quickly thereafter. (I remember from 20 years ago reading that aero-control is extremely precarious and tricky in such thin air and high speeds -- so much so that during some portions of the flight, the flaperons must be moved in the "wrong" direction to achieve the right effect. They said today that the attitude rockets fired for a couple of seconds shortly before loss of signals to help the aero-control surfaces keep the thing under control.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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