What would happen to the old shuttle?

Question

In a worse case scenario: I heard the astronauts could stay in the space station for 65 days, in the event it is deemed to dangerous to come home. They said a space walk is pretty risky, to try and repair the shuttle. How many docking points does that space station have? Sure hope it's more than one? If another shuttle went up with a rescue crew, would they try to fix the other shuttle?? What would make a space walk for the rescue crew any less dangerous? Would they possibly jettison the damaged shuttle and let those millions of dollars just float? What if the rescue shuttle has damaged tile too?? Don't want to be negative, but it seems like every flight of late??

Answer 1

Even in tha absolute worst scenario possible, the Progress M-61 cargo ship could be moved up in schedule, loaded with all the necessary tools and materials to repair the shuttle -- IF they didn't have the proper tools and materials already. As for risk to spacewalkers -- that far outweighs any risk they would have versus the risk they would have by not repairing the damage (IF IT IS NECESSARY!).

As for the negative stuff: blame the media. Normal old sucessful operations are deemed too "boring" for the public. They think the public wants to read excitement and intrigue (not me -- I watch NASA TV for hours at a time sometimes especially now with the shuttle coverage). So, even the smallest scratch in the heat shield of the shuttle will be made to look as a gash 5 feet by 5 feet.

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Answer 2

In the worse case, the Shuttle could be destroyed, I really don't know how long the extra people could remain on the station, that would depend on if there is enough Oxygen to breath and enough food for that many people for that much time.
If NASA had of used my suggestion, they would not have the problem of ices foam coming off of the main tank and damaging the tiles on the Shuttle.
My suggestion was to slip a net made on the same thing bullet Prof vests are made of, where this net would only have one half square holes in it, that way the loose foam coming off the fuel tank could not hit the shuttle, because it would be held in place.
Lets just hope that they get back OK.
Do you know that you are in more danger that the people on Bord the Shuttle?
So for in space flight there has only been seven America Astronauts killed coming back from space, and only two Russians, but how many people each day that has never went into space killed?

Answer 3

Lots of questions. I think the Astronauts will successfully fix the shuttle over the next day or two. They would never just jettison the shuttle away............if need be, they'd let it burn up upon re-entry with no one in it. Keep in mind that the Shuttle is over 25 years old. It's very old technology with designs going back to the 1970's. The modern car has about he same computing power as the current shuttle. newer more stream line craft are o0n the way, new propulsion systems, lots happening over the next 10 year.

Answer 4

if NASA deemed it too risky to repair the shuttle's thermal tiles, they could send one of the other two shuttles with a crew to rescue the on orbit crew. this is a plan that NASA has implimented since the columbia disaster of 2003. however, nasa has said they are prepared for an event like this and have taken precautions to (hopefully) ensure that something like the columbia accident doesnt happen agian.

Answer 5

Hi Jimmy I am sure that it wont take that long to replace the tiles