A question about the hole in the shuttles wing....

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I'm new here so I'd like to just introduce myself. Now that's over I'd like to ask this:Why is it that when the hole was "supposedly " made during liftoff that there was no "accident" at that time? The shuttle was going faster while being inserted into orbit, over 17,000 MPH, then it was while descending. While ascending into orbit it went through the same stress as when coming down so why wasn't there an "accident" then? It just seems strange to me that a hole that big , if it happened during liftoff, didn't affect the shuttle at all during the orbit insertion time. Why didn't the sensors pick up the heat building up during the ascending stage as it did when the shuttle was descending?Anyone want to give an explanation about this? Just curious.

 

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During the ascent stage, the underside of the shuttle wasn't being used for aerobraking, the shuttle was presenting it's most aerodynamic profile, so the rockets would have the easiest time lifting off. On the desent, the whole underside was presented to the air, at an angle that would provide maximum braking, but prevent the shuttle from burning up, so now the hole in their shield became a problem. The whole underside is constructed of a special kind of heat disipating tile, and if they aren't there, the shuttle is pretty much shit out of luck. Hope this helps.

 

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From what we were shown it was the leading edge that was struck and the leading edge was being used during ascent as much as descent. Remember when they showed the test firing of the foam at the leading edge? Your explanation therefor doesn't make sense to me. It is an interesting look at the problem though and thank you for trying.

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I was reading this and it occures to me different surfaces are used at different times for different things. During ascent, the surface may, or may not have been as critical to the shuttles operation, what are your sources?

 

During ascent

the shuttle isn't nearly as heat stressed as during descent. It had reached about 70% of its velocity on the descent, therefore about 1/2 the heat load had been encountered. It was also moving at a much higher velocity than when the atmospheric density was the same on ascent, so the air streamed to the back of the wing as a plume which heated when it encountered the rear of the wing, and the hot gas spread from there.

 

Tyger, thats what I thought too, but the leading edges have to withstand upto 750 degrees farenheit during ascent, and 700 during reentry, so i just think other stress are different

 

There's actually more stress descendin, abou t700 PSI, than ascending, about 200 PSI. Perhaps that was why nothing happened going up and because it was still attached to the external fuel tank. Those two things could have "masked" the problem couldn't they have?

 

Thats what I said originally.

 

During ascent the shuttle clears most of the atmosphere before gaining most of its orbital velocity, thus greatly reducing the drag.