Word: foams
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...space-shuttle program [Aug. 8]. Over the years I have found it difficult to support NASA, a government operation that I believe is basically a welfare program for aeronautical engineers. After a hiatus of 2½ years, NASA engineers launched the Discovery shuttle and encountered the same problem--falling insulation foam from the external fuel tank during lift-off--that doomed the previous shuttle, the Columbia, in 2003. NASA's engineers, managers and technicians should refund to the government the full amount of their salaries and benefits for the past 2½ years...
...mission control inside the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the sense of calm was noticeably higher than that during liftoff nearly a month ago when two minutes into the flight it was learned that foam debris which doomed Columbia had also fallen from Discovery's detachable fuel tank...
...back to Florida where it will be ready as Atlantis's backup for a mission tentatively scheduled for September. Had Discovery touched down in Florida, of course, it would have been easier to stick to their time-table. Before that next mission, NASA must continue to answer questions about foam debris. The growing consensus, however, is that personnel walking on the craft during preparations may have accidentally dented the external fuel tank, leading to the dislodged foam. In other words, NASA is beginning to think that is was not a problem with tank design...
...high degree of safety is a direct result of the new ability to examine the shuttle in flight with remote cameras. And while the dislodged foam caused much consternation at the space agency, Discovery had the least loss of foam when compared to the other shuttle launches. Still, the first-ever space walk to the underside of the shuttle was deemed necessary to pull cloth from between tiles, again to err on the side of caution. And despite the smaller amount of foam debris hits, NASA admits that the largest chunk to fall could have been equally disastrous...
...more apt to capture the imagination of the public that space flight has been known for. The Discovery flight was to retrieve two tons of garbage from a space station many often forget even exists. Now, NASA must ensure it can continue to secure the existing shuttle's foam coverage if it wants to continue flights through its planned 2010 retirement; it must also design a new manned orbitor and complete the space station-all while continuing to capture America's imagination...