It’s been more than 40 years since the first successful space shuttle launch. However, as we saw with the recent NASA launch, we still have launch failures. Why is it so tough to achieve reliability in space shuttle launches? Does this apply to all space technology?
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No one has specifically mentioned extreme temperatures and/or corrosive fuels as another problem on top of trying to keep the weight to a minimum. Liquid oxygen is about -340 degrees F or -207 C, and this causes 2 types of problems: making materials brittle, and thermal contraction/expansion. For the first, materials that we think of as strong become weak at very cold temperatures – there are plenty of examples of freezing things with liquid nitrogen (-320 F, -160 C) and then shattering them. Putting that liquid oxygen (LOX) into the tanks cools them down, which causes the metal to contract – if the launch has to be postponed, they pump it out, and the tank / surrounding parts warm up and expand. Do this enough times and the connections will weaken and screws may loosen. I’m sure they design for such, but such extremes will eventually find any weak points, material defect, bad weld, etc. We have the most demanding energy/strength requirements for a mechanism that we need to build as lightly as possible.
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