Harish Palaniappan's

NASA is still unable to fix shuttle foam cracks? or, I wonder whether the American policing and politics is at loggerheads to make big time money out of the sad issue... or, may be NASA is starting to feel the hierarchy problems of big enterprises (Big enterprise problems: When a company has grown bigger, it finally makes granularly small problems look the biggest and the biggest problems dissappear into Annual reports).

History:
The Space Shuttle blasted into pieces years back. Reason: Due to the increase in temperature inside the shuttle's fuel enclosure, which was ultimately caused by fly-aways of cracked foam insulation covering the fuel enclosure.

The US government, in an attempt to allay all fears of next space shuttle launch, said its investing 2 billion dollars into research and repairs for, this, one, foam problem.

.. of all the huge and complex parts in the shuttle, the foam finally became the costliest, work of all..even more important than the launch vehicle itself.

In India, our indian space research organization would launch 4 satellites within the cost of 2 billion US $. I wonder, what on earth US agencies and NASA did with 2 billion dollars for just foam repairs.. And if you are still wondering, the cost as of today for the foam research, testing and repairs has crossed 3.3 billion US $ and 3 yrs .. much more than planned...
finally, the problem is not fixed yet..

As you read the news today, one day before independence day in America, you will feel so dissappointed about how NASA, and the US government has swallowed greater than 3 billion $ of American tax money with the simplest excuse of FOAM repairs.

About FOAM experiments of NASA:

FOAM is characteristic of sponge.. and is artificial. Made with various materials, there are all types of FOAM. What NASA has done so far with the billions of dollars is lots of paper work and testing.. much more than the the actual final repairs. And still it has not pulled it off, because it looks like they spent all the money wasting time on understanding everything about foam, its properties, its reactions and stability with environmental changes, etc., but not about how it is used with shuttle and how to correct that.

On NASA site or elsewhere you would read that foam bullets or foam pellets are made and fired at a fan blade or other targets and the effect on the target's surface, is studied for varied speed of firing, distance of firing etc.,

Also, you will read that NASA use the practise of pouring foam on to space shuttle's surface like a thick liquid and it later converts into foam which should not be cracked or disconnected anywhere. If you made foam pieces and stuck them, they would obviously split under conditions. So, NASA does the pouring technique since the time shuttle was made.. so this technique hasn't kept the problem away..

Scientists would say .. though poured, air bubbles could create vacant portions of foam inside the foam making for cracks.. so the pouring technique was experimented, tested, researched,.... and all that .. again with huge cost effects.

Finally it comes down to the fact that the foam has cracks.. STILL.. and NASA blames everything on this crack.

Conclusion:

We have pretty simple household techniques to protect foam from tearing off surfaces, and an advanced version of one of these techniques should have solved the problem within the cost of peanuts. If this could cost Americans greater than 3 billion dollars, we can look forward to american budgets like, 'Inner wear malfunction prevention research and solutions - for pop stars' - costing 6.5 billions, 'American president's stain proof coat research - to protect from embarrasing enquiries' - costing 4.3 billions, etc.,

On this eve of American independence, Lets all hope NASA's space shuttle project comes back on track after all the political hogging that's on it now.