Bummer. These guys really need to start getting some lucky breaks.

OK -- that does it. Whoever hired Joe Btfsplk as Chief Engineer for Dawn just has got to be fired...

-the other Doug

This is one where I just have to hear the rest of the story. A person doesn't just "fall" on solar panels, unless maybe the pizza delivery guy took a wrong turn and went through an unlocked door.

I had visions of an old Chevy Chase skit from SNL.

I was thinking more the princples of comedy with pies and planks from Monty Python
http://youtube.com/watch?v=seIdHOrUNSs

On a serious note - after than NOAA accident a couple of years back - this is a bad thing to happen

Doug

"Hey, I bet that was a.... Say, do you's think that it.... Hey, could that have been a... gremlin?????"

I thought of the NOAA tumble myself, and hope it's not going to be as bad as that. It makes you want to cry out - "COME ON!!! This type of stuff just doesn't happen!" But I guess it does...

Calm folks, please. When there are people, there are mistakes. This should not be about blame or ranting. I am sure everyone of us has made mistakes. This is not nice, but it is human. Btw, it looks like there will be no delay:

Link

Analyst

Well, now that we know the real story, you are right, that is just a simple mistake and those things happen.

Sure. Why, just yesterday I was working on a $200 million xenon-powered leaf blower (with a tightly constrained launch period) and I slipped. So yeah, I know exactly how the Dawn tech feels.

So were you the guy with the wrench, Analyst?

I was thinking that, or that he was the guy who fell into the guy with the wrench

I have to get one of those. They banned the hydrazine-powered leaf blowers in my town.

It appears it is nothing major and no delay:

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12...for-launch.html

Whew. Now I feel better. Hopefully, New Scientist won't have to retract this story.

LOL, And *I* was showing off the Picasso I'd just sold for $139 million and punched a hole in it with my elbow...

I, Steve Wynn, can definitely relate.

You know what? I feel romantic that Dawn could still be launched on 07-07-07.
So, I'll not have to question myself if the date is written mm-dd-yy or dd--mm-yy or...

It was Steve Bartman who fell on the craft.

New pics of Dawn's Delta II continuing to be prepped:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

"Marc Rayman who is helping oversee the Dawn launch campaign team at KSC has told SpaceDaily.com. "The report of a worker falling [on the Dawn spacecraft] is wrong; I don't know how such a rumor even got started. A tool made inadvertent contact with the back of the solar array (i.e., the side without solar cells). There is no reason to expect this to have an effect on our plans to launch on July..."

http://www.SpaceDaily.com

In another really big 'OOPS' moment, Toronto lawyer Gary Hoy hurled himself at a 24th floor office window to impress some visiting interns, and smashed through, earning himself a Darwin Award in the process.

How about the bottle of 1787 Margaux wine, with Thomas Jefferson's signature on the bottle, which owner Bill Sokolin accidently broke while rushing to show it to Le Grande Orange, Rusty Staub. It had reportedly been worth $500,000 (pre-breakage).

Too bad. It could have been used to christen the Delta II carrying Dawn .

Bill

Not to go too far OT, but humanity and precision technology can often be a dangerous mix...

Back in the day when I was a young, dumb airman at Edwards AFB I had just finally repaired a KC-135 autopilot dual-channel coupler that had given me nothing but grief for two days. As I proudly carried the heavy component towards the safety of its container, I somehow got one of my feet entangled in a pile of test equipment cables that I knew full well were there on the floor waiting to be inventoried and inspected...

Boom. Thud. Crunching sounds. The thing hit the concrete floor on a corner and bounced a few times.

Later, sound of supervisor chewing me up one side and down the other...the component was hopeless, we ended up condemning it to Depot maintenance where they undoubtedly cannibalized anything still useable & tossed the carcass. Never dropped anything else, though!

The way things are going, it would probably have missed...

"...Boom. Thud. Crunching sounds..."

I've never done anything THAT stupid.......so far today........

(gimme another 15 minutes).

Or the bottle wouldn't have shattered at all

No, the bottle would have shattered. And the combination of the wine and the glass shards would have managed to debond the cork insulation on the upper stage, forcing a launch delay, which would have been the cause of yet another delay since they wouldn't be able to find the proper bonding agent, and/or it would be applied incorrectly...

"Destiny! Destiny! No escaping it for me!"



-the other Doug

It's just a little crack:
Click to view attachment

Voyage to the Giant Asteroids
Science@nasa.gov
June 15, 2007

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