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Maybe a two part foam cover for the shuttle would increase the safety of the space shuttle launchings.
If you made a heavy outer foam dome, and whisk it away at the last minute via helicopter, you would reduce the weight of the remaining foam, thus lessening the potential for accidents, and you would increase the payload of the shuttle by a few pounds. My understanding a while back was that it cost about 1 million dollars for each usable pound thrown into either earth orbit or landed on the moon, I don't remember which, but in any event it would certainly allow for one more high school science experiment to go into space.
The only design problem would be the two layers sticking together, and I would solve that with a radial array of compressed air tubes that could be expanded with a blast of compressed air, provided by the helicopter.
Dear NASA, sorry to be so late in offering a solution, but you've got 16 more flights to go, so maybe it can be used for them.
sincerely,
Doug Keachie
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