NASA's Three Ring Circus

NASA finds cracks in shuttle fuel tank foam - Space.com - MSNBC.com

Engineers investigating a debris shedding problem with NASA's shuttle fuel tanks have found a series of hairline cracks in the same area where foam popped free during the July launch of the Discovery orbiter, agency officials said Tuesday.

A total of nine cracks -- only two of them visible on the surface -- were detected along a protective foam ramp on NASA's External Tank 120 (ET-120), one of several under scrutiny at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, tank officials said during a briefing at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We're still trying to figure out what this means," said NASA's John Chapman, external tank project manager at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "I wouldn't consider that a eureka [moment] or smoking gun at all."

I have a few suggestions on how NASA can improve their operations. First of all, whatever they're making all those Mars probes out of, make the manned space shuttles out of the same materials. I mean, these things whiz through space for years, travelling 35 million miles, then manage to successfully land on Mars and release their roving cameras which ultimately take some pretty incredible pictures. They're clearly built to last.

My next suggestion is to just stop making stuff out of foam. Maybe NASA hasn't gotten the message, but It doesn't work. I had my share of Nerf footballs as a kid and I can tell you from personal experience that they don't last for longer than a season. That's just from normal kid-style usage, not even subjecting them to re-entry into earth's atmosphere.

Also, and this is more of a suggestion regarding decorum, when you do manage to successfully shoot a bunch of people off into space without incident, don't freak out like you just won the Super Bowl! Show a little class and act like you've been there before for God's sake. I mean, all the hootin' and hollerin' that goes on at "Mission Control" doesn't exactly give one the impression that you actually expected it to work.

Lastly, I'd just like to say directly to NASA, when humans are involved in the missions you probably should try extra hard to get it right. We have enough movies about astronauts getting killed, stranded and attacked by aliens. I know you probably can't do anything about the aliens, but I'm sure you can improve in the other areas because frankly Hollywood has plenty of ideas already and doesn't need your mistakes to further inspire them.