In search of the Space Shuttle thermal tile database
shuttletiles.space
shuttletiles.space
Not every other craft in the museum was built for war or commerce as there were many experimental aircraft built by hobbyists, but the shuttle was an iconic thing. I'd had shuttle toys in the 80s. Where other exhibits were more "Oh, that's cool", seeing the Discovery had a real impact on me.
If you're ever anywhere near that area, go take a look. Free entrance, $15 for parking, and you will spend hours there. It's a separate facility to the National Air and Space Museum that most people would visit in the centre of Washington DC - which is also very good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_F._Udvar-Hazy_Center#Co...
That was two years ago. I’ve asked a lot of people since then, but after making a web site for the project (on @doingitwrong’s advice), this week is by far the most attention it’s gotten. I’m hoping this is what finally gets word to someone who knows something.
I haven't dealt with Ceramic tracability before but I deal with steel tracability on a daily basis.
A quick primer on steel: When you buy steel from a mill, you usually get it in plates or sections. These will be stamped with a Heat Number which links it back to the conditions under which it was made; the chemical ladle analysis and properties to meet a particular specification. These then undergo visual, non-destructive and destructive testing to verify everything is acceptable.
A third party / independent verification body (or IVB) will also confirm this by basically shadowing every step of the way and confirming everything is legit; right from the internal processes and systems of the company down to the certification of testing equipment involved and witnessing the tests.
If this is the case and everything lines up you will get something like an EN 10204 3.2 cert with your plate/section.
Then to maintain tracability from plate to part, there are standard processes and requirements (either industry standard, or client imposed) which then help maintain a chain of custody as it were.
I would hazard a guess that it's similar for ceramics.
Back in the cold war there was the fear that this information would be useful to another country that could learn from our experience and develop a shuttle that is faster and cheaper to turn around. Maybe things are different now.
It was the first space shuttle to perform a totally autonomous flight, even landing on a runway without any human intervention.
They had scheduled a second flight for 1993, but that pesky 'fall of the Soviet Union' happened, and they never got around to it.
Kinda sad, clone as she is, she deserves a spot in a museum.
Imagine someone asked you to spend a few days (minimum) looking through storage to find the boxes with the data in some warehouse.
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This is a common myth. It’s false: http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/08/09/limbaugh-promote...
This is also why "Myth vs Facts" or sarcastic "How to do X Very Wrong" articles are bad style -- they undermine the goal. Better to write using language that affirms the truth, not multiple negations.
I find the opposite to be true. Once I've identified something I thought to be once true was in fact misleading/wrong/a myth, it seems to be forever stamped as a falsehood in my brain. Likewise when I know going into it reading it that it is a myth/false.
But everywhere I did read, the tiles have been a plague on the Orbiter since day 1. And of course the man hours needed to change them was crazy.
That didn't stop Rush Limbaugh et al from blaming environmentalists.
The whole history of the Shuttle system is a history of dodging disaster left and right and then hitting it after leaning too heavily on luck for too long. The very first flight of the Shuttle involved an "anomaly" during launch which the crew said would have resulted in them attempting to ditch if they had known about it during liftoff. On the 9th shuttle flight there was a leak and fire of two out of three of the APUs right at touchdown. Had that happened much earlier during entry it could have easily resulted in loss of the crew and vehicle. Not to mention the many near-misses with the problem that ultimately doomed Challenger.
The tile glue isn't implicated here, for one because withstanding a hit from fast-moving chunks of foam, and for another because the area that took the hit wasn't protected with tiles anyway.
edit: just to confirm, i did clear all caches to pull in any new style etc