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Breaking News: Space Shuttle Columbia explodes (1 Viewer)

Lee L

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The RTLS abort is pretty nasty and involves turning the obiter around with the main engines going full blast to return to the launch site they were previously leaving. My guess is they would not be going that fast on descent and that was probably the only thing that could have saved them if the damage was severe. Of course there is hardly any time to realize there is damage and initiate the proceedure before it is too late and the RTLS would normally be initiated by the computer based on certain performance parameters

I read that NASA wanted to make the first launch of Columbia a test of the RTLS proceedure but that Robert Crippen did not like the idea at all as he considered it too dangerous. NASA eventually decided the same and of course they did not do it.
 

CharlesD

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All the abort modes operate after SRB separation because you can't turn the SRBs off, and you don't want 600ft long flames shooting past the Orbiter if you let them go while still burning.

Af far as I know there has only ever been one use of an abort mode after lift off, when a flight lost a main engine.
Luckily the engie went down late in the flight and they did (IIRC) a "Press to ATO" abort to orbit.

There have been a couple of "RSLS" aborts (I watched one live) which of course are the safest as the SRBs never fire and the Shuttle never leaves the pad.
 

Francois Caron

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I sent an e-mail to Bob MacDonald, host of CBC Radio's science show "Quirks and Quarks" concerning Todd Hochard's suggestion that the main tank's insulating foam may have already turned into a solid block of ice by the time it fell off and struck the shuttle's left wing. He'll be speaking to a NASA engineer about this very possibility on next Saturday's show. The idea is being taken very seriously.

The show is broadcast on CBC Radio 1 Saturdays at 12:09 PM. If you can't receive the CBC in your area, you could listen to the live radio stream at http://www.cbc.ca/audio.html or download the show in MP3 or OGG format at http://www.cbc.ca/quirks about two hours following the broadcast.
 

Jack Briggs

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At no time whatsoever did NASA ever consider actually using Columbia in a real-life return-to-launch-site abort test. Absolutely no astronaut has confidence in the maneuver; it's a worst-case-scenario non-option solely.

STS-1 flew as intended (a two-day test of the system in Earth orbit).

No optical telescope on the surface possesses resolution enough to examine an orbiting spacecraft in any sort of detail. The atmosphere prohibits what astronomers call "good seeing."
 

Ted Todorov

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I think that we were a little hasty in trashing Gregg Easterbrook (the author of that Time piece). Here is a link to a piece he wrote in The Washington Monthly in April of 1980, before the shuttle was ever launched.

To call it prescient would be a big understatement. It predicts the causes of both the Challenger and the Columbia disasters and is devastating in exposing the dubious justifications behind the shuttle program, all the more funny and tragic in retrospect.

A couple of quotes:
The external fuel tank, for instance, is full of oxygen and hydrogen cooled to -400°F. to make the gases flow as liquids. Ice will form on the tank. When Columbia's tiles started popping off in a stiff breeze, it occurred to engineers that ice chunks from the tank would crash into the tiles during the sonic chaos of launch: Goodbye, Columbia.
Worth a read.

Ted
 

Glenn Overholt

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The article made it seem like they could have figured out this problem with any shuttle. I'd still like to know why they figured this out for this flight. We're not hearing something.

Glenn
 

Jack Briggs

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You're hearing nearly everything. This system has, for all its problems, been very public for a very long time. If you read about the basic STS design, you see lots of things that can go wrong.
 

Lee L

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I wonder what types of scary communications are floating around NASA from other, past missions. I have occaision to work with structural engineers in construction and they are always talking about the worst case scenario and designing for that. As far as the space program goes, I just don't see how you can design for the worst case scenario, if you did, you would just decide not to go up. Engineers are still engineers and I'm sure every time something goes the least bit wrong NASA has some people working on the worst case analysis. It does appear that this time the worst case is what happened. Now maybe NASA needs to have a better communication system so that these concerns are getting to the right people but the risks are real every time anything goes into space. We have just forgotten that.
 

Dennis Reno

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As far as the space program goes, I just don't see how you can design for the worst case scenario, if you did, you would just decide not to go up.
Well put Lee. Going to space is risky and, as of today, there are few ways to greatly reduce that risk. Every astronaut understands the risks involved. These people didn't get there because they are idiots.

Lets see... you are strapping into a confined space sitting on top of TONS of highly explosive fuel that will send you at over 17,000mph into the void of space only to make a fiery return in glider that only has one shot at a landing... sounds a bit risky to me and I'm not an astronaut nor do I play one on TV!
 

Kirk Gunn

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Yup, and they clamor for the opportunity to accept that risk. I'm sure they've got teams lined up waiting for the next mission.

There is no way anyone could walk up to a shuttle (or any other rocket), strap themselves in, feel the roar of the boosters, shrug their shoulders and say "I'm comfortable, this is low risk"...
 

andrew markworthy

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The video of the crew during the fateful descent has just been shown on Brit TV. Obviously macabre, but please can anyone tell me if this video survived the crash (in which case, *how*?), or was it a recording of a broadcast?
 

Ashley Seymour

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I have read where thay had a camera attached to the arm that takes out the satellites, but that it is was not on this flight.

Why could not a light cord be attached to a very small camera and platform with miniture jets so do inspection of the exterior of the shuttle while in orbit? Kind of like that robot that went around the Titanic, Bismark, etc. The camera could be the size of your fist and not take up much space or weight.

Of course if there were a breach in the hull, it may not do any good, but the Apollo 13 flight showed how ingenuity got those astronauts back.
 

BrianW

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The key missing ingredient was not ingenuity and determination; it was insight into the seriousness of the original damage.
Alas, Columbia didn’t make known her weakness until it was too late, unlike Apollo 13. Ironically, the heat shield on the Apollo 13 capsule was under suspicion, but they could do even less to inspect and mitigate heat shield damage than we apparently could have done for Columbia.
 

Jack Briggs

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I've been reading Jim Oberg's stuff ever since he popped up in Analog magazine back in the late 1960s. And I just loved his 1980 tome about the Soviet space effort, Red Star in Orbit.

Great guy.
 

Ashley Seymour

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Retired Air Force Officer Aloysius Casey suggests NASA should trim shuttle crews and use robots when it can.

Casey a reitured Air Force lieutenant genaral and a missle and rocket expert (rocket scientist?) also recommended to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board that space shuttle flights resume as soon as possible. The work force, skills and even morale could erode to dangerous levels if the fleet is grounded for a long time, he said.

Casey put the shuttle's reliability at just over 98 percent, far better than for unmanned rockets,"but, in fact, I don't think it's good enough for optional human flight operations."

Casey, a consultant, spoke in the third round of hearings before the board.

John Logsdon, newest member of the board said he is not sure 98 percent is a reliable number (the implication is not clear whether he thinks it is too high or too low.) "I'm not either," Casey replied.

"but you're basing a lot of recommendations on that," Logsdon told him. "You're not saying, 'Don't fly more humans than you have to'? "That's correct. I am saying that," Casey Said

High reliability is achieved through redundant shuttle systems and adequate margin, Casey told the board.

He also said that a significant redesign of the shuttle could be a wast of money that wouldn't address the next most probable faulure cause.

Steven Wallace, a board member in charge of accident investigatins for the FAA suggested that a reliability level of 98 percent would not suffice for commercial airlines (Duh!)

Casey suggested reducing the thinckness of the insulating foam on the tank in addition to other concerns.
---------------------------------------

Seems a perfectly rational observation to me by General Casey. In WWII, B-17 crews initially faced a 2% casualty (killed and wounded) rate per mission. That seeming low rate helped the flyers morale, but not the statisticians who flew. The 25 mission limit resulted in a loss rate of 67%.

If a pilot, co-pilot and one or two other crew members are willing to assume the risk, then fine. Inviting scientists, teachers, foreign ride-a-longs just seems a sensless act.

A commercial airliner goes down and the next day you can sit next to a passenger on any flight in this country and see sweat and white knuckles on take off, flight and landing. And these people have not the slightest understanding of the extreme low level of risk of airline flight.

Shuttle flight is one of the most risky endeavors a person can undertake. Don't stop them, but lets stop being so sanguine and cavelier over selling the safety aspects. A new shuttle should be (thought may not be) flying in ten years. We can do this space flight thing cheaper and safer.

If this board meets again in 2007 to investigate the loss of the third shuttle, then we won't see significant human space flight again in our life times.
 

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