Nonsensors
December 9th, 2007 | 
Author: 
The shuttle launch has been scrubbed again. Technicians have been unable to fix the faulty engine cutoff sensors since last Thursday. The same sensors that have plagued earlier launches too. Which suggests they were never fixed in the first place. Which is scary, because a bad sensor can result in cutting the engines before the shuttle is in orbit.
You don’t want that to happen.
From this CNN article, the following quote had me frown..
The sensors are much like the low-fuel indicators in an automobile. As the shuttle rockets toward space, the sensors monitor the amount of liquid hydrogen in the external tank and automatically shut off the main engines when the tank is empty.
I have a tip for NASA: remove those sensors!
That would fix the problem with them reporting an empty tank, while in fact it still contains fuel.
But, you may ask, how would they then tell when the tank is really empty?
Easy: the engines will shut off!
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Posted in Diary, In the news
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I asked myself exactly the same questions yesterday (why the repeated failures, why so critical). Did not get an answer to the first question, but obviously, they are making such a deal out of it because “running the engine dry” is “not recommended”. As in “potentially catastrophic” 🙂
See http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/050716ecographic/
“…to make sure the ship’s engines don’t run too long, draining the tank dry with potentially catastrophic results, after other problems that might prevent an on-time shutdown.”
Now, WHY this can be catastrophic, I did not find the physics behind it (yet). But a “funny” story why you always want to be able to rely on your fuel gauges popped up. Enjoy:
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=744