WESTERVILLE, OH — Nearly one year after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the Republic of Haiti, engineering and concrete experts at Georgia Tech report that concrete and other debris in Port-au-Prince could be safely and inexpensively recycled in…
CORVALLIS, Ore. — There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the “Great Garbage Patch” between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis by an Oregon State…
A balloon angioplasty device that sucks up dangerous plaque debris could trigger a “paradigm shift” in how physicians treat peripheral artery disease, researchers write in the current issue of Endovascular Today.
“We will see a shift in how we tre…
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) continues their work into the investigation of the accident and a number of hearings are now being held in public. The chairman of the NASA Columbia Task Force (the body that supports the CAIB) gave a detailed briefing a few days ago to ESA and the other International Partners on the status to date. Over 40,000 lbs of debris have been recovered, representing 20% of the total Shuttle mass. However, nothing has yet been recovered west of Texas despite the fact that there is filmed evidence that debris had fallen over California. The search for debris in this area still continues.
The Orbiter Experiments Recorder is the latest piece of important equipment to be found. This is a magnetic tape recorder that records data from various sensors during ascent and re-entry, which had not been tele-metered down to the ground. The recorder is currently at the Kennedy Space Centre and undergoing analyses.
To assess the wear and tear on jet engine parts, mechanics used an old technology called ferrography to run the aircraft’s lubricating fluid through a magnetic device to separate out metal shavings and other ferrous engine debris. A University of Rhode Island researcher uses a similar process to assess the wear and tear on artificial hip and knee joints so patients can reduce the number of follow-up surgeries they must undergo or reduce the time spent in revision surgery.
If an impact from space debris was a factor in the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, NASA had been given ample warning. A report published in 1997 predicted a scenario that has disturbing parallels with what may have befallen the spacecraft. Written by an expert panel convened by the US National Research Council, Protecting the Space Shuttle from Meteoroids and Orbital Debris, warns that debris impacts that penetrate the leading edge or underside of a shuttle wing or fuselage might not be immediately critical or detectable.