Page 9 - 200303 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2003

Shuttle Columbia Special 9 Shuttle Columbia Special 9 Thermal tiles 1986 Thermal tiles 1986 key to shuttle's Challenger key to shuttle's Challenger survival explosion last survival explosion last shuttle disaster shuttle disaster So long as they work, the white and black tiles that Shuttle Tiles (AP) -- On January 28, 1986, cover NASA's space seven crew members, including shuttles hardly merit a a New Hampshire second glance. schoolteacher, took off aboard the space shuttle Challenger from Kennedy Space Center in The tiles, some no Florida. larger than adhesive floor Seventy-three seconds coverings available at later, the shuttle disintegrated in home-improvement the sky. All crew members, stores, are crucial to a including New Hampshire spacecraft's survival. They teacher Christa McAuliffe, were form the thin skin that • A newer type of black tile, called separates the shuttle and its crew from temperatures that exceed 2,000 degrees fibrous refractory composite insulation, Fahrenheit as the craft hurtles back into has replaced some of the older black tiles the Earth's atmosphere. on selected areas of shuttles. Heat-deflecting devices have been • Low-temperature reusable central components on all of NASA's surface insulation tiles are used on parts craft since the agency began suborbital of the forward, middle and aft fuselage. flights around the Earth more than four They also appear on parts of the vertical decades ago. Scientists have performed tail and upper wing, and are designed to unceasing research, striving to improve protect the craft where temperatures are below 1,200 degrees. They are white to their thermal qualities. The Columbia was covered with provide better thermal protection in orbit. 22,000 tiles and thermal-protection • Advanced flexible reusable blankets -- some designed to handle the surface insulation has replaced much of extremely high temperatures of the white tile. It is a blanket made of killed while millions watched on live television. insulation batting between two sewn- atmospheric re-entry, others engineered On Saturday, space shuttle Columbia to respond to the demands of orbital together layers of white fabric. Tests apparently disintegrated in flames over Texas flight. They had served that shuttle and showed that the blanket thermal minutes before it was to land. A gas leak in the right booster rocket others well, said Ron Dittemore, NASA's protection was more durable and lighter was blamed for the Challenger blast. In the top shuttle program manager. than the white tiles. [End] explosion, the crew module separated intact "Our tile has performed from the fireball, went into a two-and-a-half- More Shutte Trivia wonderfully," he said at a news More Shutte Trivia minute free fall from 50,000 feet and plunged conference Sunday afternoon in Houston, into the sea. The crew members had no parachutes Texas. - The two Solid Rocket Boosters generate and no way to jettison the hatch. According to NASA, about 70 a combined thrust of 5.3 million pounds, The public had embraced the crew percent of a shuttle's exterior is shielded equivalent to 44 million horsepower or members, including McAuliffe; commander by tiles made of a silica fiber compound, 14,700 six-axle diesel locomotives or Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, pilot Michael J. a material derived from common sand. 400,000 subcompact cars. Smith; specialists Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. The fibers are mixed with deionized McNair and Ellison S. Onizuka; payload water and other chemicals and poured - At liftoff, the two Solid Rocket Boosters specialist Gregory B. Jarvis, a Hughes Aircraft Corp. employee. into a plastic mold, where excess liquid is consume 11,000 pounds (5000 McAuliffe was selected from among squeezed out. They are then baked in the kilograms) of fuel per second. That's two more than 11,000 teachers who applied for the nation's largest microwave, in million times the rate at which fuel is Challenger mission. She was chosen by NASA Sunnyvale, California, and fused in a burned by the average family car. in 1984 and took a leave of absence that fall to 2,350 degree oven. train for the mission. NASA put the shuttle program on hold The tiles vary according to their - At 149 feet, 1.6 inches tall, the Solid after the Challenger accident until 1988. The location on a shuttle and the demands Rocket Booster is only two feet shorter agency has put the odds of a catastrophic placed on them: than the Statue of Liberty. But each 700- accident during launch -- the most dangerous • High-temperature reusable ton (63,500,000-kilogram) loaded part of any shuttle mission -- at 1 in 438. surface insulation tiles are used on the booster weighs more than three times as upper forward fuselage and most of the much as the famous statue. underside and other areas that can be exposed to temperatures reaching 2,300 100 Mb of Disk Storage, 1 Gb of degrees as the craft returns to Earth. They Transfer a month, much more! $19.99 are black Canadian! Visit www.rel-mar.com today!