Additional countdown hold for Shuttle Discovery

[Chris Bergin]

lmike - 16/6/2006  5:51 PM



LOL!  Ok.  I get it.  Why is the "rooski" not whited out, then?

Cause it's not racist If you find it is, then I'll wipe it out......and you can stop posting it!

[Sergi Manstov]

I've got zero problem with that word    I could call Americans a lot worse

Now, where is my Bushisms handbook

[lmike]

Chris Bergin - 16/6/2006  9:50 AM

Rooski to me is like calling an American a Yank....

You are mistaken (f&7k if I know about the "yank" ".  It's a term meant to depriciate and to degrade.  Trust me.  As much as the N word.

[zerm]

I thought this thread was about birdstrike holds?

[kevin-rf]

zerm - 16/6/2006  1:12 PM

I thought this thread was about birdstrike holds?

You know the bird strike hold is making a lot more sense in light of what the conversation has started to degenerate into.

I wonder, will they micromanage it down into a mosquito hold in case any are found to close to the shuttle.

[astrobrian]

Maybe we need to call a bird strike hold here and take a deep breath.

[Chris Bergin]

This thread stays on the reference to the article from now on.

[zerm]

The birdstrike hold is a good example of how micromanagement actually turns out. This all started with the foam, which was a real problem that needed attending to. As always happens when management responds to media, however, NASA managers shifted from their position that an engineering problem was seen as a "dead issue" to wanting to show the public that they could manage every risk, no matter how small out of the STS caused by the foam or any other object.

Someone please correct me here if I'm wrong, but I do not recall any proof that the birdstrike on STS 114 did anything other than the killing, plucking and instant roasting a couple of wayward buzzards. Since the film coverage was greatly expanded on that flight, the unlucky buzzards were recorded and that film was then open to use by the morons producing the 24 hour news media. This is then presented as a hazard in much the same way that an RMS arm EVA to snatch a couple of hunks of gap filler was presented as "The most daring and dangerous EVA ever..." And so the buzzards must now be managed and micromanaged. I'm not one to use costs as a measuring stick- but think how many meetings and how many man-hours went into proposing, deciding upon and then composing and inserting this hold into the process of a shuttle countdown. I picture a whole bunch of engineers, managers and other NASA folks muling over this issue- forming mission rules and a whole bunch more rolling their eyes. God forbid they should discover an onboard toilet hazard! The blue bags would come back.

[Flightstar]

zerm - 16/6/2006  4:37 PM


Someone please correct me here if I'm wrong, but I do not recall any proof that the birdstrike on STS 114 did anything other than the killing, plucking and instant roasting a couple of wayward buzzards.

That is correct, no damage to the tank.

[psloss]

zerm - 16/6/2006  5:37 PM

Someone please correct me here if I'm wrong, but I do not recall any proof that the birdstrike on STS 114 did anything other than the killing, plucking and instant roasting a couple of wayward buzzards. Since the film coverage was greatly expanded on that flight, the unlucky buzzards were recorded and that film was then open to use by the morons producing the 24 hour news media.

That would have been picked up by any number of pre-114 cameras, perhaps even at night; the difference is that there were lots more eyeballs for 114.  (And some really deaf vultures.)

Seems that there should be some kind of risk assessment for "bird debris," (Chris?) but that vulture probably carried with it some decent momentum, even at low speed.  Unless vultures have a "thing" for the tank like the woodpeckers did, how much certainty is there that it wouldn't have hit the orbiter?

[astrobrian]

I dont ever recall a bird strike before this flight. That may also be due to the previously mentioned eyeballs on 114, but still 1 in 114 shouldn't really require a hold unless it is a migration season or something where the odds are much higherof a hit. As to the deafness of the vulture in question, the noise was probably so loud that he was more busy trying to figure out what the unconventional noises were and if they were a threat. The watching where he was flying I think was put to the back burner until he tasted foam which by then it was too late.

[psloss]

astrobrian - 16/6/2006  11:09 PM

I dont ever recall a bird strike before this flight. That may also be due to the previously mentioned eyeballs on 114, but still 1 in 114 shouldn't really require a hold unless it is a migration season or something where the odds are much higherof a hit. As to the deafness of the vulture in question, the noise was probably so loud that he was more busy trying to figure out what the unconventional noises were and if they were a threat. The watching where he was flying I think was put to the back burner until he tasted foam which by then it was too late.

I don't recall seeing it before 114, either, and there's lots of footage of all the launches before the vehicle clears the tower.  That was the biggest surprise of the launch for me -- seeing those buzzards fly towards the conflagration and sound well after the pad water release, the main engines, and the SRBs had started.

It's not the odds that will cause a hold, but a similar appearance at the top of the FSS probably would...it's something they don't have much control over, like weather.  (They'll wait for weather to get out of the way, too, in several places.)

[zerm]

Part of the sillyness of this whole thing is that for flying machines, birdstrike damage- like foam damage- is directly related to speed. The speed of the STS stack while in the envelope of probable buzzard contact is very slow compared to a minute later when the speeds are far higher. Even if one of these buzzards had hit the orbiter at the time when the film shows them interfacing with the stack, they would have done little and probably no damage (IMHO).

Please- someone who works on the shuttle chime in here...

These buzzards- although they have the ability to fly quite high- do not tend to do so. Rather they remain quite low so as to be able to spot food and secure that same food. Once a food source (a dead anything) is located they guard it. Odds are that something very yummy and very dead was very near the STS114 pad at launch time... err lunch time. So the buzzards were there too.

[Jim]

the buzzards usually hang out around the VAB and on top of it, using its updrafts.  The new world vultures (buzzards) detect carrion by smell, not by sight.

[zerm]

Sorry- I'm not a buzzard expert. Guess I should have said "sniff food" rather than "spot" food.  

So- if they're hangin' out around the VAB, how're they a threat to a launch? Do they just glide on over for a front row seat?... or should I say roost? (I wanna be more than generally correct).

     

[Mark Dave]

Imagine how hard it has to be to get bird crap off the windows of the orbiter. I'm sure the vehicle has that stuff here and there. Maybe this time someone shoud get a big dinner plate to catch the cooked poultry. lol Hey, it's fresh food ready to eat. The bird problem is that they see the shuttle as a big tree, something to live on or in- as woodpeckers have pecked the foam of the tank before. They'll learn then they die from the stuff or fried at launch. *gets a bottle of hot peppers* Now where's the fried birds? Maybe we can have adobo. Adobo is a filipino dish- at least as far as I know from my mom's cooking.

I may draw a funny shuttle pic soon. One idea came to mind from the anime cartoon Outlaw Star. Well the reason is the first photo of the OBSS I saw, I at first thought the orbiter got a new RMS. One book I'm sure you guys all know of called "Back to the Moon" by Homer Hickam Jr has shuttle Columbia  do just that. It's a mix of X-files meets NASA with conspiracies and a secret society. A cool story for shuttle buffs and also a great adventure story.

I read the older posts on the older pages of this thread. Hmm, correct on all points. Sorry to add my bit but the "yanks" term was started in the Civil War. Yeah derogetory terms do bug me as I did have a few problems with ignorant people years back. IMO words are words, but it is the context the speaker uses them in that offends others.