Nasa Cuts Bird Strike Risk With Roadkill Posse
They landed a man on the moon; now Nasa's brainiest engineers are wrestling with a challenge much closer to home - how to protect the space shuttle from a potentially fatal bird strike during lift-off.
The problem of vultures at Cape Canaveral, situated in a 60,000-hectare (150,000-acre) wildlife preserve on Florida's east coast, was highlighted last July when the shuttle Discovery hit a large bird at high speed as it left the launch pad.
With barely two months until the next scheduled shuttle launch, Nasa is scrambling to eliminate the risk to the mission's seven astronauts. The space agency has formed a "roadkill posse" of workers charged with finding and removing animals struck and killed by traffic along the space centre's roads.
"We're trying to remove the vultures' food source and if we can do that, there's a good possibility they will move on and find another place to hang out," said John Shaffer, a scientist in the environmental programmes laboratory at the Kennedy Space Centre. "As far as the shuttle programme is concerned, it's unacceptable if there's another chance of an accident."
Shuttle missions were grounded for more than two years after the Columbia tragedy of 2003, in which seven astronauts died when hot gases seeped into the orbiter on re-entry and blew it apart.
The cause was found to be a large chunk of insulating foam filler breaking off from the shuttle's fuel tank at lift-off which then knocked a hole in one of the wings, something Nasa engineers fear could be replicated by a bird strike.
The roadkill project was launched two weeks ago, and 225kg (500lbs) of animal carcasses have already been removed. Another option is to try to scare the turkey vultures away by playing recordings of jet aircraft and explosions over a sound system at the launch pad.
It is not the first time the shuttle programme has fallen victim to the vagaries of wildlife. In 1995, Discovery's launch was delayed a month when a woodpecker took up residence in the launch gantry.
The problem of vultures at Cape Canaveral, situated in a 60,000-hectare (150,000-acre) wildlife preserve on Florida's east coast, was highlighted last July when the shuttle Discovery hit a large bird at high speed as it left the launch pad.
With barely two months until the next scheduled shuttle launch, Nasa is scrambling to eliminate the risk to the mission's seven astronauts. The space agency has formed a "roadkill posse" of workers charged with finding and removing animals struck and killed by traffic along the space centre's roads.
"We're trying to remove the vultures' food source and if we can do that, there's a good possibility they will move on and find another place to hang out," said John Shaffer, a scientist in the environmental programmes laboratory at the Kennedy Space Centre. "As far as the shuttle programme is concerned, it's unacceptable if there's another chance of an accident."
Shuttle missions were grounded for more than two years after the Columbia tragedy of 2003, in which seven astronauts died when hot gases seeped into the orbiter on re-entry and blew it apart.
The cause was found to be a large chunk of insulating foam filler breaking off from the shuttle's fuel tank at lift-off which then knocked a hole in one of the wings, something Nasa engineers fear could be replicated by a bird strike.
The roadkill project was launched two weeks ago, and 225kg (500lbs) of animal carcasses have already been removed. Another option is to try to scare the turkey vultures away by playing recordings of jet aircraft and explosions over a sound system at the launch pad.
It is not the first time the shuttle programme has fallen victim to the vagaries of wildlife. In 1995, Discovery's launch was delayed a month when a woodpecker took up residence in the launch gantry.
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