Blue Plastic O-Rings


Jamie123
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A few days ago my wife bought some little plastic containers which are supposed to use for portion control. There were 4 or 5 of them, and the tops have little blue plastic/rubber (whatever) "O-rings" on them to seal them. I washed up Sunday night and again last night, and the blue rubbery O-ring thingy of one of them has now gone missing. My wife went on and on and on and on and on......and on and on.....and on and on at me about this - about how she was "fed up" with things going missing and having to buy new ones. Blah, blah, blah...

Now I know I'm not perfect. I know I left the cap off the car coolant reservoir so it overheated needed a new engine. Mea culpa. (I suppose I should be grateful she didn't give me a hard time about that, but she DID give me a hard time about losing the blue plastic O-ring.) I didn't lose it on purpose. I DID do the washing up and I did cook for her last night even though I was tired. But I still had to listen to her droning on and on about how "fed up" with me losing things. And it's not like she's perfect. She's lost plenty of stuff...including two cameras and our daughter's birth certificate. It's the pot calling the kettle black. But have you tried getting any woman to accept that she's the pot and you're the kettle? Oh now...she'll always find some way of making it your fault

OK - rant over.

P.S. I should count my blessings. I have a friend whose wife was so mad with him the other night she told him "not to come home till morning". He told me what it was about but I can't remember what it was. Certainly nothing very serious.

Women, hey!

Edited by Jamie123
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On 7/8/2022 at 4:25 AM, Jamie123 said:

A few days ago my wife bought some little plastic containers which are supposed to use for portion control. There were 4 or 5 of them, and the tops have little blue plastic/rubber (whatever) "O-rings" on them to seal them. I washed up Sunday night and again last night, and the blue rubbery O-ring thingy of one of them has now gone missing. My wife went on and on and on and on and on......and on and on.....and on and on at me about this - about how she was "fed up" with things going missing and having to buy new ones. Blah, blah, blah...

Now I know I'm not perfect. I know I left the cap off the car coolant reservoir so it overheated needed a new engine. Mea culpa. (I suppose I should be grateful she didn't give me a hard time about that, but she DID give me a hard time about losing the blue plastic O-ring.) I didn't lose it on purpose. I DID do the washing up and I did cook for her last night even though I was tired. But I still had to listen to her droning on and on about how "fed up" with me losing things. And it's not like she's perfect. She's lost plenty of stuff...including two cameras and our daughter's birth certificate. It's the pot calling the kettle black. But have you tried getting any woman to accept that she's the pot and you're the kettle? Oh now...she'll always find some way of making it your fault

OK - rant over.

P.S. I should count my blessings. I have a friend whose wife was so mad with him the other night she told him "not to come home till morning". He told me what it was about but I can't remember what it was. Certainly nothing very serious.

Women, hey!

My wife has a habit of thinking however things are going in any specific moment is how things have always been through all time.
 

If we are having a good day, she will talk about how perfect of a marriage we have and how things are just so good all the time. 
 

If things are going bad and I fail to meet her emotional and social needs, then she will talk about how how bad things are all the time and how she thinks we have been growing apart.

She is aware of this so we have a good laugh (or fight) when this happens.

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Frankly, I think there’s a behavioral double standard between men and women generally in society—a man treating a woman as the OP describes would be described as “gaslighting”, “abusive”, etc.  I think LDS theology sort of imposes on men a duty to put up with this:  an LDS woman who is unhappy in her marriage is often supported and her husband presumed to be the problem, whereas a man unhappy in his marriage is expected to suck it up and “fix it”; ensuring that his children in particular don’t bear the psychological, social, and financial burdens of a broken home.

Theologically, I suppose this is somewhat justifiable because LDS men have had a disproportionate amount of both hard and soft decision-making authority vis a vis their wives in the domestic sphere (“presiding authority”, “harken to his counsel as he harkens to the Father”, etc)—increased authority begets increased responsibility and increased self-abnegation, so, OK.

If not for LDS teaching, though—I think in this day and age a single man has few secular incentives to share his home with woman, let alone to create children with her.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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On 7/8/2022 at 4:25 AM, Jamie123 said:

But have you tried getting any woman to accept that she's the pot and you're the kettle?

Women, hey!

Out of the bazillions of ways I've heard try to explain the difference between men and women, this one is in my top five:

Women are like the ocean, and when men take it into their heads to get into a boat and set sail, they'd better remember it.  The ocean can be calm and peaceful, bountiful and fruitful, grey and dreary, or a violent and deadly angry mass of crushing waves.  It's possible that sometimes the man is the reason the ocean is that way, and it's possible that sometimes man can have an impact on the weather once it is a certain way.  But if you're gonna look at the approaching killer wave and act like the ocean should be all calm and peaceful, you're gonna experience the result of that thinking.

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19 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I'm just glad it wasn't the green O=Rings that you lost. Otherwise, the foundations of the universe would be trembling, round about now. 

 

4 hours ago, LDSGator said:

I think O-rings are the reason (or one of them) the Challenger exploded. I’m not sure-I could have misunderstood and physics/mechanical engineering are not really my thing. 

Yes, you are correct. These were green O-rings. Thanks to the quick work of the O-ring Loss Response Team, we were able to limit the resulting destruction to just 1 shuttle while keeping the rest of the universe intact. 

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43 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Thanks to the quick work of the O-ring Loss Response Team, we were able to limit the resulting destruction to just 1 shuttle...

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-challenger-disaster-changed-nasa

The engineers submitted their warnings about the ambient temperature. Management was more concerned about public image, and ignored them. 

Seven people died, so did America's dream of exploration.

I'm not aware that they made any change any change to the design.

Later, when the Columbia blew up, we found that heat can kill jist as well as cold.  This disaster was also preventable.  But it was a result of the engineers not focusing on the right thing.  But they told the President that it was not preventable due to other reasons.

Bush finally declared that after the ISS was complete, we would retire the space shuttle program. 

Edited by Carborendum
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Fun fact:  the Challenger did not technically explode.  It was basically torn apart by aerodynamic forces after it lost attitude control and got spun crosswise into the apparent wind as the solid rocket boosters detached.  The fire/smoke/steam you see in the photos was the result of the disintegration, not the cause.  

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12 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Fun fact:  the Challenger did not technically explode.  It was basically torn apart by aerodynamic forces after it lost attitude control and got spun crosswise into the apparent wind as the solid rocket boosters detached.  The fire/smoke/steam you see in the photos was the result of the disintegration, not the cause.  

I believe there was no fire or explosion at all. The "explosion" was the fuel and liquid oxygen forming a cloud, which looked like smoke. Actual smoke from an explosion would have been black due to incomplete fuel combustion, and would have been accompanied by a tremendously bright flash.

The so-called space shuttle was NASA's single worst decision ever. What a boondoggle. Even the Soviets never built a platform so deadly and failure-prone. Out of 355 people who flew on a space shuttle, fourteen of them, representing two complete crews, were killed. That is a deadly failure rate of almost 4%. FOUR PERCENT. The blood of the astronauts lost on the Challenger flight is spread on plenty of hands, most obviously the NASA managers who pushed the flight through despite record cold temperatures at take-off and warnings from engineers that it was foolish to attempt a launch. But plenty of that blood is on the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats whose desire for power and money led them to okay a fundamentally flawed, fatally compromised, vastly overpriced Swiss army knife of a vehicle that tried to do everything, and as a result did exactly nothing well.

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9 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Fun fact:  the Challenger did not technically explode.  It was basically torn apart by aerodynamic forces after it lost attitude control and got spun crosswise into the apparent wind as the solid rocket boosters detached.  The fire/smoke/steam you see in the photos was the result of the disintegration, not the cause.  

You might want to read the article I linked to.  You're close.  But there are some details...

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On 7/11/2022 at 4:42 AM, Vort said:

I believe there was no fire or explosion at all. The "explosion" was the fuel and liquid oxygen forming a cloud, which looked like smoke. Actual smoke from an explosion would have been black due to incomplete fuel combustion, and would have been accompanied by a tremendously bright flash.

The so-called space shuttle was NASA's single worst decision ever. What a boondoggle. Even the Soviets never built a platform so deadly and failure-prone. Out of 355 people who flew on a space shuttle, fourteen of them, representing two complete crews, were killed. That is a deadly failure rate of almost 4%. FOUR PERCENT. The blood of the astronauts lost on the Challenger flight is spread on plenty of hands, most obviously the NASA managers who pushed the flight through despite record cold temperatures at take-off and warnings from engineers that it was foolish to attempt a launch. But plenty of that blood is on the hands of the politicians and bureaucrats whose desire for power and money led them to okay a fundamentally flawed, fatally compromised, vastly overpriced Swiss army knife of a vehicle that tried to do everything, and as a result did exactly nothing well.

There's a book called "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane which chronicles the whole shuttle story from the perspective of an insider. I got it for a birthday present a few years ago. It's an excellent read. Funniest are the stories of the astronauts' "goofing around" when off duty - they really were like a bunch of kids!

The Soviets had their own equivalent of the Shuttle which looked almost identical to the NASA one:

See the source image

I don't believe they ever actually did much with it, but one difference was that they flew the first few missions unmanned. The US shuttle had people aboard from the very start though (to give credit where it's due) they had ejector seats for the first flight or two. When the crew was increased from 2 to 7 this became impractical, so if the shuttle crashed the astronauts died. I don't know if the Russian one ever had ejector seats.

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8 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

There's a book called "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane which chronicles the whole shuttle story from the perspective of an insider. I got it for a birthday present a few years ago. It's an excellent read. Funniest are the stories of the astronauts' "goofing around" when off duty - they really were like a bunch of kids!

The Soviets had their own equivalent of the Shuttle which looked almost identical to the NASA one:

See the source image

I don't believe they ever actually did much with it, but one difference was that they flew the first few missions unmanned. The US shuttle had people aboard from the very start though (to give credit where it's due) they had ejector seats for the first flight or two. When the crew was increased from 2 to 7 this became impractical, so if the shuttle crashed the astronauts died. I don't know if the Russian one ever had ejector seats.

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blast_Off_(G1)/toys

Fun fact: the US and Soviet space shuttle designs are so similar that there's actually a mild dispute as to which craft the Transformers character Blast-Off transforms into. Some fan sites list the NASA vehicle, others list the Buran, and a few just treat him as a generic design. 

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On 7/10/2022 at 12:36 PM, LDSGator said:

I think O-rings are the reason (or one of them) the Challenger exploded. I’m not sure-I could have misunderstood and physics/mechanical engineering are not really my thing. 

Technically, Challenger did not explode, it was the external fuel tank that exploded.

Edited by Emmanuel Goldstein
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14 minutes ago, Emmanuel Goldstein said:

Technically, Challenger did not explode, it was the external fuel tank that exploded.

As JAG mentioned, the fuel tank disintegrated rather than exploded. The fuel did burn and created an orange fireball of sorts, but it was not an explosion in the sense of a detonation, which by definition is supersonic.

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7 hours ago, Emmanuel Goldstein said:

Technically, Challenger did not explode, it was the external fuel tank that exploded.

 

On 7/10/2022 at 11:10 PM, Just_A_Guy said:

Fun fact:  the Challenger did not technically explode.  It was basically torn apart by aerodynamic forces after it lost attitude control and got spun crosswise into the apparent wind as the solid rocket boosters detached.  The fire/smoke/steam you see in the photos was the result of the disintegration, not the cause.  

7 hours ago, Vort said:

As JAG mentioned, the fuel tank disintegrated rather than exploded. The fuel did burn and created an orange fireball of sorts, but it was not an explosion in the sense of a detonation, which by definition is supersonic.

Thanks for the info guys. I’m the farthest thing from a physicist/engineer/math/science guy so no, I didn’t know the details. I do remember watching it live though. It’s one of my first memories of a major event. 

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Just now, LDSGator said:

Thanks for the info guys. I’m the farthest thing from a physicist/engineer/math/science guy so no, I didn’t know the details. I do remember watching it live though. It’s one of my first memories of a major event. 

I had had surgery on my ankles several weeks previously, so I was stumping around my parents' house in casts up to my knees. I remember the news programs repeatedly showing the "explosion". I thought it was rather gruesome to keep repeating the video clip. I think that was the beginning of my intense dislike of the space shuttle. I had previously been aware of many of its shortcomings—I am a child of the 1960s, and thus a space-age kid, so I have been interested in astronauts and rockets and space travel almost from birth—but watching the shuttle disintegrate and kill those on board brought to reality the idea that people had been getting paid to cut corners and approve a deadly system that was nothing more than a giant compromise, a jack-of-all-trades that most certainly was the master of none.

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40 minutes ago, Vort said:

nothing more than a giant compromise, a jack-of-all-trades that most certainly was the master of none.

Sad. The space shuttles were originally built as a spaceships they could use several times a year, correct? Were Columbia and Discovery (is that the other name? Sorry if I’m wrong) also built poorly?

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11 hours ago, LDSGator said:

Sad. The space shuttles were originally built as a spaceships they could use several times a year, correct? Were Columbia and Discovery (is that the other name? Sorry if I’m wrong) also built poorly?

Yes, they were supposed to be reusable and thus save the US government a ton of money. The opposite occurred; each shuttle launch cost about half a billion dollars in today's money, far more expensive than simply launching an Atlas rocket to take something into space.

To be honest, the shuttles were marvels of technology and engineering. But they were pushing the boundaries of engineering know-how. For example, the main shuttle rocket engine was one of the most efficient and powerful (for its size) rocket engines ever made to that time, but it cost a fortune to develop and construct it.

The shuttle itself was very difficult to bring back down from orbit safely. A huge amount of effort and money was expended to figure out how to make the ceramic tiles stick to the shuttle or how to protect them from falling debris (mostly ice that formed on the cryogenic external fuel tank) during takeoff. The fact that they never really figured that one out was made clear when the Columbia was ripped apart on reentry because some tiles were damaged and missing due to takeoff debris strikes.

The entire system was so vastly complicated that no single person could possibly understand it all, and it was exceedingly difficult for various teams to communicate effectively about every item that arose. This is important because when you're talking about manned rocket launches, even a minor-seeming issue or small complication can lead to vehicle failure and the death of the astronauts.

There were also the inevitable political machinations. For example, the infamous o-rings that failed in Challenger (Discovery did not fail, and was retired at the end of the space shuttle program) were used because the enormous solid-fuel booster rockets strapped onto each side of the shuttle's external tank could not be manufactured and then shipped across the country in one piece. So they were made in two pieces (by Morton Thiokol in Brigham City, Utah), taken to Florida by rail, and stacked together, with an o-ring to seal the joint and provide limited articulation.

Back in the early 1970s, it was clear that Apollo was not going to be an ongoing program. NASA was trying to figure out how to move forward with rocket usage. Many possible plans were proposed:

  • A heavy-lift rocket to put large loads (like a space telescope) into low earth orbit
  • A smaller, less expensive launch vehicle to put satellites into higher orbits and launch planetary probes throughout the solar system
  • A program to put men into space on a long-term orbital platform
  • A program to use a few Apollo-style rockets to establish a moonbase and keep astronauts there on a rotating basis
  •  The good old trip to Mars

And so forth.

The various proponents for each of these fought for his or her own idea. The moonbase people didn't think an orbital research platform would be either useful enough or sustainable. The heavy launch people worried that a lightweight satellite-launching rocket could not put important platforms into orbit. Blah, blah, blah. In reality, any of the individual proposals would have been useful and cost-efficient. Even the people who championed this or that idea admitted that anything was much better than nothing.

What was needed was a leader, someone to take the reins and make the tough decisions. But leaders of that caliber just were not to be found at NASA in the early to mid-'70s. Instead, politics as usual played out, and the thing was decided by committee. Unsurprisingly, the committee went with the stupidest possible option. Instead of choosing just one of the ideas, they would build a platform that would allow all the ideas to happen! Everyone wins! What could possibly go wrong?

Anyway, I'm older than most of this list's participants. I'm sure that few share my views on the matter, and those who do likely skew toward my age. For children of the 1970s and 1980s, the space shuttle represents the very pinnacle of technological sophistication. I don't see it that way; as with many '50s and '60s babies, I remember the Apollo moon landings and look at them as one of the transcendently amazing things the human race has ever accomplished. The STS represented a step backward in ambition. Rather than establish the foundation of a spacefaring infrastructure, it was an impediment to that foundation. Just an unfortunate and ultimately poor choice all the way around.

And you have to admit, Apollo was waaaaaay cooler than the space shuttle. Just in looks alone, Apollo was a magnificent machine the size of a skyscraper that went to the moon, while the space shuttle was an ugly moth squatting on an ungainly triple-rocket-looking thing.

Edited by Vort
Paragraphs! It's this new thing to increase readability. Thought I'd give it a try.
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8 hours ago, Vort said:

The shuttle itself was very difficult to bring back down from orbit safely; a huge amount of effort and money was expended to figure out how to make the ceramic tiles stick to the shuttle or how to protect them from falling debris (mostly ice that formed on the cryogenic external fuel tank) during takeoff. The fact that they never really figured that one out was made clear when the Columbia was ripped apart on reentry because some tiles were damaged and missing due to takeoff debris strikes.

The sad part of this came from what is known as "scope creep" or "design creep".  That is, as we proceed with design, additional items of scope are added or modified.  This is inevitable because additional factors become evident as we get into the details of the design.

In this case, one cardinal rule of space flight is "reduce weight".  When they realized that the weight of paint on the large external fuel tank was a significant quantity, they decided to stop painting it.  That is why it changed from white to that orange/brown color that we saw in later years. 

It is interesting that something as simple as paint contributed to the insulation debris that damaged the tiles which then caused the Columbia to rip apart.

8 hours ago, Vort said:

The entire system was so vastly complicated that no single person could possibly understand it all, and it was exceedingly difficult for various teams to communicate effectively about every item that arose.

Yup, that is always a problem.  I've known only one man who could have acted as project manager for such an endeavor that would have been able to work with this.  But he would still have to depend on top notch leaders within each discipline.  I've known of two people who could have been effective discipline leads on such projects.  But the shuttle would have taken a dozen or so disciplines.  Good luck with that.

8 hours ago, Vort said:

But leaders of that caliber just were not to be found at NASA. Instead, politics as usual played out, and the thing was decided by committee. Unsurprisingly, the committee chose the stupidest possible idea: Instead of choosing just one of the ideas, they would build a platform that would allow all the ideas to happen! Everyone wins! What could possibly go wrong?

...

8 hours ago, Vort said:

This is important because when you're talking about manned rocket launches, even a minor-seeming issue or small complication can lead to vehicle failure and the death of the astronauts.

My engineering statistics/economics professor made a statement about that.  He pointed out that the percentage from an engineering perspective makes the shuttle design an engineering success.  But it is considered a failure because lives were lost.

It is interesting to note that when designing aircraft, there are some aspects of the design which use a factor of safety less than 1.0.  That's insane.  But the industry has set standards for exactly which items can be set this low, and what other mitigating measures can be implemented to allow such a condition. 

  • One method of mitigation is to have regular inspections to check for wear/damage at the expected locations.  
  • Another is to train all pilots to go easy on the controls so that higher stresses are not introduced into the aircraft structure.
8 hours ago, Vort said:

Anyway, I'm older than most of this list's participants, and I'm sure that few share my views on the matter (and those who do likely skew toward my age).

I resemble that remark.

8 hours ago, Vort said:

For children of the 1970s and 1980s, the space shuttle represents the very pinnacle of technological sophistication. I don't see it that way; as many '50s and '60s babies, I remember the Apollo moon landings and look at them as one of the transcendently amazing things the human race has ever accomplished. And you have to admit, Apollo was waaaaaay cooler than the space shuttle. Just in looks alone, Apollo was a magnificent machine the size of a skyscraper that went to the moon, while the space shuttle was an ugly moth squatting on an ungainly triple-rocket-looking thing.

I kind smell what you're cooking.  But I see it the difference between expectation vs reality. It is kind of like saying that the Sean Connery - James Bond films were better than modern ones.  Well, yes and no.

From having nothing but airlplanes for comparison, the Apollo program was a marvel and a wonder.  That first image of the rocket stages separating and seeing the earth beneath!!! Whew!!!  That set the world's imagination blazing.  Neil Armstrong's first words as he stepped out on the moon inspired the entire world!  (don't go on about his word choice!)  Basically, NASA took us from a 3 (technologically) to a 7.  That really was a GIANT LEAP.  No wonder the world was dreaming of space travel.  But the shuttle was an 8. 

The things that caused the world to dream were the images and the dreams.  But with the shuttle, there really weren't any different images.   We got to see the bay doors open and the articulating arm work.  That was all.  It was an incremental increase while we were wading through mud technologically.  It wasn't a wonder.  We'd already seen the wonder. We were expecting another giant leap.  But what we got was a small step. 

Basically, there is no denying the shuttle was a step forward in technology.  It's just that the step was so small that it didn't inspire the wonder that the Apollo Program did.

Edited by Carborendum
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