Space Shuttle
Why is the space shuttle experiencing continued heat shield problems?
Why is it that apparently just NASA's space shuttle seems to be experiencing continued heat shield problems, whereas the Russians NEVER report any such problems with their space crafts? Do they have better scientists than NASA?
The Russians don't have a shuttle -- they have Soyuz 3-man spacecraft. They also have Progress cargo ships (unmanned Soyuz) which, btw, burns up in the atmosphere after every flight.
The 2 designs are very much different, and the techniques for protecting the 2 spacecraft (shuttle and Soyuz) are very much different.
I wouldn't call this problem with the shuttle heat shield a 'continuing' problem ,either. This problem is not related to anything in the past with Endeavor's heat shield system. Ice chunks and pieces of foam have been hitting the space shuttle tiles during launch since probably since the first Columbia flight in the early 1980s. It wasn't considered a problem until Columbia burned up a few years ago -- now they really pay attention to missing tiles, gouges, etc.
The cause of the problem may be labeled as continuing but there will always be condensed water turned to ice on most any rocket vehicle that uses cryogenic materials for launch fuel (liquid hydrogen and oxygen), and this ice will tend to break off in chunks no matter what NASA does.
The next NASA manned space vehicle will be closer in design to a Soyuz type vehicle, so ice chunks hitting heat shield tiles won't be a problem in the future.
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