how generic are space shuttle tiles? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2025, 02:03:35 am
content: I was reading about the space shuttle program for a few hours and it seems that there was a great deal of cost related to the tiles.I was wondering instead if you can machine them with special tools, now that things like single crystal diamond cutters are being manufactured more. So the idea would be to basically make a ceramic CNC mill on wheels and have it crap machined tiles out on demand from a database of tiles, and maybe it could be coupled to some kind of oven for curing coatings like a PCB conveyor belt. The idea is you would load a hopper of base tiles into the machine and it would produce shaped tiles right there next to the technicians that need to install or replace them.Would it cut good with the right kind of tool? If it was efficient you can replace them at a whim, probably increasing the safety factor and time because they would not scrutinize something suspicious and instead replace it

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2025, 02:28:04 am
content: Manufacturing is only a portion of the cost. A much of the cost of using these tiles was logistics. Removing the old tile and preparing the space. Keeping track of what is needed, verifying that the correct specs and revisions were there and then doing the installation on an awkward spot far off the ground.SpaceX tried to reduce these costs by making almost all the tiles identical and using a snap lock mechanism. They seem to have backed off on both of those approaches after the first test flights.The shuttle tiles had a great variety of shapes. It would take a large standard blank to accommodate all of them, leading to a lot of machining time and wasted material.There is another issue with your approach. The tiles are not a homogeneous material. At the least the surface is densified. I don't know how that process would work of a machined ceramic.Still, such an approach might work. I have no idea if it was considered.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2025, 03:30:08 am
content: I thought the coating was denser and the inside was uniform density. Well I guess you might have a few types of starting stock, but it seems that you can get it down to like a dozen base parts maybe?The prep too, I don't know how it was done, but you would think it could be done with a motorized jig that attaches to the area like a magnetic drill, maybe with a big suction cup.. or if you put a big compressor nearby it could just be 'thrust' in place by compressed air jets. Can't be much more then some kinda die grinder ? They have those nice diamond coated cup brushes now too, for millscale removal, from pferd.. that should make short work out of surface prep. Glue can be applied to a tile with some kind of motorized dispenser jig too. -it does seem that they still had technicians packing wadding between the tiles manually, that one looks hard to automate..I thought about painting it in place too, then curing it with something like a nichrome 'cookie cutter' heater that gets shoved into the gap around the brick and warms up after its glued inhttps://imgur.com/gallery/give-me-entire-sheet-why-bother-cutting-oejhzUZ

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 02:13:01 pm
content: I guess most of the cost was due to NASA organizing the whole process.But overall, the whole space shuttle program was a fiasco from the start. The thing itself was a marvel of technology for it's time, but a 14 year old child could have deduced that attempting to make a reusable spacecraft in a time that the technology was not advanced enough to make a reusable spacecraft was not going to be a money saver.And also re-using that same thing was hampering innovation. But apparently it did not matter much, even after the space shuttle NASA did not manage to improve much.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 02:30:23 pm
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on May 11, 2025, 02:13:01 pmThe goal wasn't to save money. The goal was to win the space race and have a platform that can deploy weapons.And it totally achieved those goals.

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 03:02:02 pm
content: remember starlight ?in 1 of the NightHawkInLight videos there was this commentQuote

author: Stray Electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 03:40:33 pm
content: NASA has already won the race to the moon and that was the only race that anyone cared about. The Space Shuttle was; well, Oh so Ho Hmm. And the US AF, US Navy and US Army all had launch vehicles that could carry weapons so the shuttle wasn't needed or used for that, which is part of the reason that NASA used many non-American crew members. NASA was trying to create a demand for satellite launch services with the shuttle but the cost was still much too high. Largely due to the shuttle's very poor performance and 99% non-reusablity and it's extremely slow turnout time. The tiles were a major factor in a lot of that.There was nothing generic about any of the shuttle tiles. Many of them had different composition depending on where they were going to be placed and ALL of them were shaped differently and all of them had to be hand fitted after meticulous cleaning and preparations. It was a very slow process and took weeks to accomplish after each flight. And in case you didn't already know, ALL of the US shuttle tiles had stepped edges where they seated next to other tiles so that flames wouldn't reach the underlying metal structure. (Flame doesn't like to go around corners.) That was something that Russians didn't know and when they launched their own shuttle they used tiles that had square joints but the flames from the reentry went right between the joints and very nearly cut through the metal below. Consequently they only launched their shuttle once or perhaps twice before they realized that there was a very serious problem and they gave up on the whole project.We used to buy gaylord boxes full of surplus from KSC and NASA (Cape Kennedy) and the bottoms of the boxes would be full of tiles, nearly all of them unused but that were damaged in some way. Tiles were so common that we just threw them away. I would love to know what the reject rate was! EVERY single tile had it's on design and it's own specifications, it's own part number and it's own serial number, it's own packaging and it's own complete set of documentation just like every circuit board, every value, every wiring harness, every piece of tubing, so on and so forth. I never kept any of the tiles but I do have boxes full of wiring harnesses and hardware and other bits and bobs that I thought that I might be able to use for future projects.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 08:21:38 pm
content: it sounds like the future of a space shuttle might depend on making tiles of uniform composition because I think cranking them out from tile stock using super cutters would at least get rid of 20% of the problem lolsomeone just has to make a super ceramicI think the logistics of actually having a cheap space shuttle program depend on reducing the unique parts count. The wiring harness stuff is I think less of a problem because that might come down to panduit holders and crimp tools and a big wiring rack. But 24000 parts for just the skin (which is always breaking) is like excessive. If you could have say a dozen or two dozen starting units and some robot to shape them. Then it says you just have 2.5 million more parts to go.Imagine a big CNC wire harness assembly fixturing machine, that adjusts all the wire clamps on say a big magnetic chuck for a special harness, then has a wire feeder put the wires into place. Then technicians would just need to crimp em... It would literarly be a robot arm that has access to alot of different cable holders (like panduit stretch type), and various elevation blocks if it needs to be three dimensional (like a big gauge block which would be put into place with a slot for a wire holder. And it would all get held down by a strong magnetic chuck. Or just make it all compatible with a pin board (no magnets to hold it in arbitrary positions). I think that would mitigate the problem of having too many unique wiring harnesses. And if its a long run, imagine it had a spooling drum, so you do one end, then it spools it up for you, and you do something that comes out the middle, it spools it up, and then you do something at the end.... I am sure some generalized method can be madeAnother nice machine for cable would be like a fan out bot, so after you strip a cable, it would fan out the wires inside (and color organize them). When I timed harness making this part was a big pain in the ass. I made a color coated comb to try to make it easy for the assembler to seat the wires into it. So the idea is if you have a cable that is red, green ,blue, white, you would make a comb for the wires to be fanned out in that is colored orange, light green, light blue, grey (so you can see that the wire is in place and its correct).. then you would crimp them all and seat. Some robot with micro positioners could do this part. With the color comb it was like easy to get the right one into the MTA crimperbut I bet they use braid. when there is braid involved itslol. I am convinced there is a entire industry of specialized hand tools for shield braid working that does not exist yetI wonder if that is what jeff bezos thought, to have basically a amazon warehouse repurposed to do requisitions for space shuttle partsBut it says 747 has 6 million parts (vs space shuttle 2.5 million), so overall parts count can't be the problem.How fucking nice is it when your job lets you get the right color stuff ?? So you can use colors for work flow?(i.e. its OK to buy 10 different colors of the same wire gauge). And colored heat shrinks. That's what sets apart a shit operation from a goood one, where they don't make you buy a 50 foot roll of black heat shrink and let you use a cabinet of different colored segments so your stuff can be color ID'ed. For 'hydra' cables its so nice to have different color heat shrinks on the end. I am convinced the cheap skates don't have color receptors in their eyesI wonder if they do that kind of assisted cable making already. Then you would need to verify if your design is OK (like a DRC) with some particular cable harness machine)and they should look where razors are being used, then throw an absurd amount of money to get rid of razors. Unless its for box opening. I think if someone is using a razor it means there is a big problem with machines not existing... get rid of the razor or get rid of the thing that needs a razor. thats like a traffic jamm. It's like seeing a chizle in a machine shop being used for not repairs

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2025, 09:10:55 pm
content: and i think the interlocking tiles is the right thing, I have lower confidence in the design that says its going to use 100% of the same shape micro tile, unless they do some thing really tricky. Even fish scales are not all the same and nature had billions of years to develop fish, but they all grow from mostly similar cells . I wonder how that will turn out in 5 years. And fish scales are half interlacedEvery single ceramic to something interface I have seen is basically shit, and the only walls that work are interlaced (stone mason). Brick walls fall apart, the stone wall might stand nearly forever (usually the foundation is the problem)... but they require a few different shapes of stones to work right. That's why so many DIY wall projects fall apart.. the incorrect stone positioning and bad fit.like look at these sick tools that are becoming affordablehttps://www.amazon.com/Reishauer-Diamond-Tools-Type3-Monocrystalline/dp/B07ZKMZ2GC?th=1https://www.cncendmillcutter.com/sale-12426782-d4-d20mm-monocrystalline-diamond-cutting-tools-side-bottom-edge-cutting.htmlhttps://www.tokyodiamond.com/english/product/detail/39Quotejust what you need for ceramic tilesAnd there is crazy low temp growing options for crystals that are starting to come around. I was amazed. I thought you needed gigapascals and white heat, but like sapphire is grown in anti-freeze at 300psi? and hot plate heat now!. regardless its hugeEdge-defined Film-fed Growth.. by the kilo's. like a underwater ceramic treeI wish i can find that youtube video about the japanese company just making like 10lb chunks of saphire in like a drum of antifreeze.. they basically pulled a 'tree' out of a vat with giant crystals for 'fruit'.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2025, 02:50:10 am
content: The Boeing analogy is flawed. Yes there are more than twice as many parts. But they made more than 1500 of them. So quantities nearly 400 times greater of even the most unusual parts. The space shuttle never planned to build more than four, and then after the "production line" shut down they made one more as a Challenger replacement.Part of what Musk is betting on is building what are huge quantities (for space) of similar vehicles with the hope or belief that markets will appear to justify the investment. He appears to have won that bet with Falcon9 and Starlink, but you will remember his comments about the enormous cash chasm that separated initial deployment of Starlink and profitability. It remains to be seen whether he will win the current bet. Re-entry is just one of the problems he has to solve, and relatively quickly if his company is not to bleed out.