{"id":12181,"date":"2011-10-28T00:09:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T23:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=12181"},"modified":"2011-10-28T03:20:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T02:20:27","slug":"matt-melis-shares-30-years-of-the-space-shuttle-at-the-london-science-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2011\/10\/28\/matt-melis-shares-30-years-of-the-space-shuttle-at-the-london-science-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Melis Shares 30 Years of the Space Shuttle at the London Science Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are so many science events going on in London at the moment, it’s hard to know what to join and what to skip.\u00a0 But last night’s London Science Festival <\/a>talk by NASA’s\u00a0 Matt Melis<\/a> was a no-brainer – and quite excellent.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/a>
Matt Melis, NASA Glenn Research Center at London Science Festival (Photo:Tim Jones)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not only is Melis an ‘insider’ who’s up for sharing those tidbits of information and video clips you don’t normally see; but he’s also an engineer with a math and physical modelling background that resonates a little with my own research roots; so I guess I’m a fan.\u00a0 The event was organised by Francisco Diego<\/a> (UCL Physics & Astronomy) and Melis was introduced by writer\/film-maker Chris Riley<\/a> (In the Shadow of the Moon, First Orbit, Space Shuttle the Final Mission<\/em>).\u00a0 Melis collaborated with Riley on his production Final Mission<\/em> with Kevin Fong, and has his own movie Ascent<\/em> out on YouTube (embedded below).<\/p>\n

\"Francisco<\/a>
Francisco Diego, Chris Riley, Matt Melis at London Science Festival (Photo:Tim Jones)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kicking off with an all-round engineering tour of the shuttle, the focus soon turned to the intensive ‘return to flight’ programme NASA pursued after the STS-107 Columbia disaster of 2003.<\/p>\n

The cause of the accident was traced to a wing leading-edge being damaged by a briefcase-sized piece of insulating foam detached from the fuel tank during launch.\u00a0 Melis described the variety of model tests used to confirm the analysis and help pre-empt future impact scenarios.\u00a0 So, lots of high speed film of various projectiles, from foam to ice, impacting various bits of Shuttle; the whole thing made more real by the samples of foam, orbiter leading-edge material, and a cross-section of the aluminium\/foam fuel tank composite he passed around the audience.<\/p>\n

Feeling the foam’s super-lightness in your hand brings home just how counter-intuitive reality can be.\u00a0 Travelling fast enough – over 500 mph in this case – the impact of an apparently harmless piece of foam is devastating.\u00a0 Melis showed the clip in this video of a full-scale impact test of foam hitting an actual Shuttle leading-edge section:
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