From: jrfrank@ibm-pc.borg.retro.com   
      
   "Keith F. Lynch"  wrote in   
   news:cci9ag$j69$1@panix3.panix.com:   
      
   > Henry Spencer  wrote:   
   >> ... and note that it wouldn't have saved Columbia's crew, since they   
   >> didn't know something was badly wrong until too late.  (Nor is there   
   >> any plausible scenario where they would have.  Suspicions about TPS   
   >> damage were focused on the tiles, not the RCC leading edge, and no   
   >> plausible imaging -- from the ground or from elsewhere in space --   
   >> would have been at all likely to notice a small dark hole in a black   
   >> surface.)   
   >   
   > How difficult would it be to mount lots of lights inside the wings,   
   > and paint the inside white, so that any hole in the wing can easily   
   > be detected from a great distance?   
      
   How great a distance? That's potentially going to take a *lot* of   
   electrical power.   
      
   And in the end, it *won't* *save* *you*. Post-Columbia RCC tests have shown   
   that even cracks or quarter-inch pits that don't completely penetrate the   
   RCC can be fatal.   
      
   Much more practical would be to instrument the inside of the wing leading   
   edge with accelerometers and other sensors so that any impact to the   
   leading edge can be detected and localized early in the flight after it   
   happens. And that is, in fact, exactly what NASA is doing.   
      
   --   
   JRF   
      
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