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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 12:44am Feb 22, 2003 EST (# 9196 of 9200)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Engineer 'warned of shuttle problems'

A Nasa safety engineer warned two days before the Columbia space shuttle disaster that the shuttle might be in a "marginal" condition, according to internal e-mails disclosed on Friday. The engineer expressed concerns that the space agency was failing to investigate thoroughly the possible damage caused when debris struck the shuttle during take-off.

"We can't imagine why getting information is being treated like the plague," one of his e-mails read.

Other documents released by Nasa showed the shuttle may have been struck by up to three pieces of foam during lift-off, not just one, as previously believed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2789423.stm

gisterme - 02:14am Feb 22, 2003 EST (# 9197 of 9200)

WRT the Columbia tragedy, I have to wonder if any of the study of this event has focused on statistical analysis of telemetry from the flight control system during the ascent.

If a chunk of brick-hard foam damaged Columbia's left wing significantly, then there should be evidence of increased drag on that side during the ascent, starting from the point the damage was done. That evidence would show up as tiny but consistanty biased corrective commands to the flight controls and gimballed main engines. I can't say for sure but I assume that an exact flight control command log is included in the flight telemetry data.

No doubt for small damage, the corrective effects of the flight control system would be tiny but perhaps measurable by careful analysis. If it were to turn out that the effect of significant wing damage were detectable during the ascent by carefully watching small trends in the guidance controls, then perhaps something can be gained from this tragedy.

Perhaps a monitoring program to watch for those exact effects, in real time, during launches could produce an early enough warning to allow the mission to be aborted before the shuttle builds up more kinetic energy than it could survive giving up in a damaged state.

That might mean landing in Spain and postponing the mission but saving a crew and shuttle.

Just an idea.

gisterme - 02:29am Feb 22, 2003 EST (# 9198 of 9200)

Ummm, guess who pays the lion's share of the UN budget, lchic? I think it's the Eagle.

http://learning.turner.com/efts/un/unbudget.htm

Although this is apparently 1993 data, the ratios are still probably about the same. The perecentage of the UN budget paid by selected nations that year were:

US 25% Japan 12.45% Germany 8.93% Russian Federation 6.71% France 6.00% United Kingdom 6.00% Canada 4.29% Spain 3.11%...

Gee, lchick I'll bet the UN would have plenty of funding if everybody paid the same amount. Don't you think so?

I notice that Japan pays more than twice as much of the UN budget as the French.

gisterme - 02:51am Feb 22, 2003 EST (# 9199 of 9200)

Lou,

I wish Saddam would go away by a wave of your magic wand. The Iraqi people would probably make you their president!

gisterme - 02:57am Feb 22, 2003 EST (# 9200 of 9200)

Here's a website that might interest you, lchick:

http://www.usaid.gov/

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