I know he’s still in the honeymoon phase of being Administrator, but I’ve been appreciative of the headlines he’s garnered so far in mainline news sources. Seems to be doing his job which is all I can ask.
Hopefully he keeps it up.
helicopter-enjoyer on
> However, toward the end of the meeting, the NASA team agreed to discuss something that “no one really liked to talk about.” This was an analysis of what would happen to Orion if large sections of the heat shield failed completely during Artemis II. Formally, this is known as a “damage tolerance evaluation,” the engineers said. Informally, it’s known as “What if we’re wrong.”
> The Avcoat blocks, which are about 1.5 inches thick, are laminated onto a thick composite base of the Orion spacecraft. Inside this is a titanium framework that carries the load of the vehicle. The NASA engineers wanted to understand what would happen if large chunks of the heat shield were stripped away entirely from the composite base of Orion. So they subjected this base material to high energies for periods of 10 seconds up to 10 minutes, which is longer than the period of heating Artemis II will experience during reentry.
> What they found is that, in the event of such a failure, the structure of Orion would remain solid, the crew would be safe within, and the vehicle could still land in a water-tight manner in the Pacific Ocean.
> “We have the data to say, on our worst day, we’re able to deal with that if we got to that point,” one of the NASA engineers said.
I did not know Orion was this resilient to reentry, but it fits with the pattern of Orion building on all the safety lessons of past spacecraft. One of the big things we got from Columbia was an understanding how the spacecraft and crew *could have* survived the off-nominal reentry with relatively simple design improvements, i.e. a more resilient hydraulic system and automatically pressurizing Launch and Entry Suits. It’s comforting to know Orion carries this level of redundancy
FloridaGatorMan on
Is this something that’s expected and normal or is this closer to “Boeing CEO tours production line and announces all problems have been fixed.”
It could be true but also a bit Trumpian / North Korean “leader reviews something he knows little about and gives thumbs up in a situation he has every incentive to do so.”
SpaceInMyBrain on
Convening a meeting with reporters and two prominent outside objectors is the important point of this meeting. Yes, this wasn’t the go/no go meeting but the public audience needs to see the basis for NASA’s confidence. The heavily redacted public report didn’t do that, in fact all of the redactions actually had the opposite effect. Having the NASA Administrator put his name to this meeting/interview is significant to the public, no matter what his name is or how long he’s been in the position. Please note that only now is a larger portion of the public, not just us folks, becoming aware of Artemis 2 in the ramp-up to the launch. I’m sure the NASA public affairs office will be happier to see this as a source of quotes and reporting than everything that’s preceded it. (Unfortunately it’s probably too late for that, the media sharks have too much bloody meat in the water from all the previous coverage.)
FrankyPi on
Nelson: *The heat shield on AII is not an issue*
Berger: *Shut yo bitchass up they’re ALL gonna DIE NASA SUCKS*
Isaacman: *The heat shield on AII is not an issue*
5 Comments
I know he’s still in the honeymoon phase of being Administrator, but I’ve been appreciative of the headlines he’s garnered so far in mainline news sources. Seems to be doing his job which is all I can ask.
Hopefully he keeps it up.
> However, toward the end of the meeting, the NASA team agreed to discuss something that “no one really liked to talk about.” This was an analysis of what would happen to Orion if large sections of the heat shield failed completely during Artemis II. Formally, this is known as a “damage tolerance evaluation,” the engineers said. Informally, it’s known as “What if we’re wrong.”
> The Avcoat blocks, which are about 1.5 inches thick, are laminated onto a thick composite base of the Orion spacecraft. Inside this is a titanium framework that carries the load of the vehicle. The NASA engineers wanted to understand what would happen if large chunks of the heat shield were stripped away entirely from the composite base of Orion. So they subjected this base material to high energies for periods of 10 seconds up to 10 minutes, which is longer than the period of heating Artemis II will experience during reentry.
> What they found is that, in the event of such a failure, the structure of Orion would remain solid, the crew would be safe within, and the vehicle could still land in a water-tight manner in the Pacific Ocean.
> “We have the data to say, on our worst day, we’re able to deal with that if we got to that point,” one of the NASA engineers said.
I did not know Orion was this resilient to reentry, but it fits with the pattern of Orion building on all the safety lessons of past spacecraft. One of the big things we got from Columbia was an understanding how the spacecraft and crew *could have* survived the off-nominal reentry with relatively simple design improvements, i.e. a more resilient hydraulic system and automatically pressurizing Launch and Entry Suits. It’s comforting to know Orion carries this level of redundancy
Is this something that’s expected and normal or is this closer to “Boeing CEO tours production line and announces all problems have been fixed.”
It could be true but also a bit Trumpian / North Korean “leader reviews something he knows little about and gives thumbs up in a situation he has every incentive to do so.”
Convening a meeting with reporters and two prominent outside objectors is the important point of this meeting. Yes, this wasn’t the go/no go meeting but the public audience needs to see the basis for NASA’s confidence. The heavily redacted public report didn’t do that, in fact all of the redactions actually had the opposite effect. Having the NASA Administrator put his name to this meeting/interview is significant to the public, no matter what his name is or how long he’s been in the position. Please note that only now is a larger portion of the public, not just us folks, becoming aware of Artemis 2 in the ramp-up to the launch. I’m sure the NASA public affairs office will be happier to see this as a source of quotes and reporting than everything that’s preceded it. (Unfortunately it’s probably too late for that, the media sharks have too much bloody meat in the water from all the previous coverage.)
Nelson: *The heat shield on AII is not an issue*
Berger: *Shut yo bitchass up they’re ALL gonna DIE NASA SUCKS*
Isaacman: *The heat shield on AII is not an issue*
Berger: *Yes sir all glory to NASA*
Another Berger classic as usual.