In Let's get a tank now (6-13) panamabob mentioned 16 ft diameter
but my NASA literature gave dimensions as 27.5 ft diameter
x 154.2 ft length x 73,861 lbs inert weight.
that NASA recovered them at sea with tugboats presumably for
reuse. Has anyone heard of NASA already reusing these tanks?
Ed S.
The dimension I mentioned was for module inside the shuttle, not the
external fuel tank.
what the engineers quoted me regardon opportunity to reuse fuel tank.
To my understanding the recovery at sea is for the two solid boosters on the
side that are parachuted down,
bob
--- In spacesettlers@y..., "Ed Schonert" wrote:
> In Let's get a tank now (6-13) panamabob mentioned 16 ft diameter
> but my NASA literature gave dimensions as 27.5 ft diameter
> x 154.2 ft length x 73,861 lbs inert weight.
>
> This sounds heavy enough for reuse & I could swear I read once
> that NASA recovered them at sea with tugboats presumably for
> reuse. Has anyone heard of NASA already reusing these tanks?
>
> Ed S.
allysometime around the 20th flight. They are now about 66000 lbs
empty.
NASA recovers the solid rocket boosters as you describe, but the ET
is hauled to 99% of orbital velocity, then dropped. A circuit the
opens the "tumble valve" at the zenith of the O2 ogive, which sends
the ET tumbling and spinning (don't want it "skipping"). The
external tanks burn up in the atmosphere and the remains land in the
Indian or Pacific oceans.
:) ed
The solid rocket boosters are recovered from the sea near Kennedy. The
external tank is dropped, and destroyed, in the Indian ocean (usually).
> This sounds heavy enough for reuse & I could swear I read once
> that NASA recovered them at sea with tugboats presumably for
> reuse. Has anyone heard of NASA already reusing these tanks?
>
Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html