SPOOKY READING:

Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty: 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Goodbye, Columbia (Gregg Easterbrook, April 1980, Washington Monthly)

Down at Cape Kennedy, Columbia lies in an assembly hangar, imprisoned in scaffolding. Arc lights gleam off its impossibly smooth surface. They shine round-the-clock, as 500 technicians work double ten-hour shifts, six days a week, trying to make the shuttle spaceworthy. Columbia was supposed to be finished last March, when it was transferred from the factory of the prime contractor, Rockwell International. Instead, it arrived at the Cape only 75 percent complete, according to NASA. No one is certain when--or even if--the remaining work will be finished.

The drydocked Columbia represents at once all the shuttle program's problems. They are: delays; cost overruns; performance underruns; and lack of work for the horse to do. Delays, the least important problem, are the easiest to understand. "People don't appreciate that the shuttle, as a technical goal, is much more ambitious than the moon program," says Eugene Covert, an MIT professor and rocket-propulsion expert. "The schedule couldn't possibly have been met."

Considering what the Columbia is supposed to do, it's no surprise that it didn't fly in 1977, or in 1978, or in 1979, and it can't fly yet in 1980. The rockets it is supposed to replace have always been throw-away affairs for very pragmatic engineering reasons: the fiendish forces of space flight twist and sizzle machines into scrap. Rocket engines are essentially explosions with a hole at one end. Exploding gases roar out the hole, shoving the rocket in the opposite direction. The act of firing does such violence to the rocket engine, immolating and warping its components, it's impractical to use again even if you can get it back. Yet the shuttle's main engines will have internal pressures three times greater than those of any previous large engine, NASA says--and the goal is to use them on 55 flights before an overhaul.

To truly grasp the challenge of building a space shuttle, think about its flight. The ship includes a 60-by-15-foot open space, narrow wings, and a large cabin where men must be provided that delicately slender range of temperatures and pressures they can endure. During ascent, the shuttle must withstand 3 Gs of stress---inertial drag equivalent to three times its own weight. While all five engines are screaming, there will be acoustic vibrations reaching 167 decibels, enough to kill an unprotected person. In orbit, the shuttle will drift through -250¯F. vacuum, what engineers call the "cold soak." It's cold enough to embrittle and shatter most materials. During reentry, the ship's skin goes from cold soak to 2,700¯F., hot enough to transform many metals into Silly Putty. Then the shuttle must glide along, under control, at speeds up to Mach 25, three times faster than any other piloted aircraft has ever flown. After reentry, it cascades through the air without power; finally thunking down onto the runway at 220 m.p.h. The like-sized DC-9 lands, with power, at 130 m.p.h. Rockets are throwaway contraptions in part so that no one piece ever has to endure such a wild variety of conditions. The shuttle's design goal is to take this nightmare ride 100 times.

Mr. Easterbrook was on Imus this morning and said that the shuttle was supposed to be costing $5 million per flight by now, but instead costs $500 million.

MORE:
The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped: It's costly, outmoded, impractical and, as we've learned again, deadly (Gregg Easterbrook, February 2, 2002, TIME)

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2003 9:04 PM