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Space Shuttle Columbia Breaks Up Over Texas
An anonymous reader writes "NASA lost communication with space shuttle Columbia shortly before its scheduled landing on Saturday. It was unclear whether there were any other problems." Various news programs have been showing debris falling from the sky, and NASA has declared an emergency.Update: 02/01 15:29 GMT by H : Confirmation has come - the shuttle has broken up over Texas while coming in for landing Florida.
Remember how long it took to reinstate the STS program after the Challenger Incident?
What are the chances NASA will send up STS 108 on schedule?
Will they use the soyuz emergency capsule to return earthside?
But once we are done with the grief and morning for these great people, the space program will be severely hampered from further progress. We need this program to continue, and I'm afraid we've just killed it for twenty years.
Maybe it is not so bad for the space program itself. It was the first failure of the Apollo mission that sparked NASA's motivation, and inherent success, thereafter, I believe. The results of this, although acutely tragic, could certainly bring about renewed motiviation. If that is the case, then at least this loss will not have been in vain.
Following the Challenger disaster 17 years ago, Richard Feynmann came to the conclusion that catastrophic shuttle disaster had odds off approximately 1 in 100 (See RISKS Digest 18.09) based on the fact that 4% of unmanned space shots go bad - and presumably manned flight gets that 'extra' attention that would reduce their rate a bit.
Challenger was flight STS-51L - this was flight STS-107. I'd say even Feynmann may have been somewhat optimistic (although 2 failures is a thin data set - anyone want to figure a chi-square on it?).
NOAA weather radar / short range reflectivity for Mid-Texas shows a line of high return paralleling and just south of a line between Dallas and Tyler. It's time lapse. Quite a remarkable radar image.
Not exactly something most people probably want to see, but heres the radar track showing the breakup... http://www.srh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS.p19r0/si.k shv.shtml
At the risk of running OT, I highly doubt this is the end of project prometheus, although it is an excellent argument against it: just doesn't seem safe to fire up rockets full of nukes anymore.
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As evidence that the project will continue, I refer to this PopSci article:
"The New War in Space"
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/art
Not because PopSci is really the definitive source on such issues, but because it contains some quotes from Rumsfeld about his (hence, the administration's) intent to "weaponize" space, and some analysis thereof.
The choice quote, which I can't track down at the moment, is something like "All media (land, sea, air) have been used for combat, and it's unrealistic to think space will be any different." Unfortunately, I doubt the administration will be dissuaded by the deaths of 7 astronauts, or the broader implications of this tragedy relative to the safety of sending *anything* into space.
" 20 or minutes or so " to hit the ground... i have to disagree. nowhere near that long. a minute or so, at most.
You are correct, it wasn't 20. It was a bit over 3 minutes. My memory seems to have exaggerated after almost 20 years.
"Analysis of crew cabin wreckage indicates the shuttle's windows may have survived the explosion. It is thus possible the crew did not experience high-altitude cabin decompression. If so, some or all of the astronauts may have been alive and conscious all the way to impact in the Atlantic some 18 miles northeast of the launch pad. The cabin hit the water at better than 200 mph on Scobee's side. The metal posts of the two forward flight deck seats, for example, were bent sharply to the right by force of impact when the cabin disintegrated.
"The internal crew module components recovered were crushed and distorted, but showed no evidence of heat or fire," the commission report said. "A general consistency among the components was a shear deformation from the top of the components toward the +Y (to the right) direction from a force acting from the left. Components crushed or sheared in the above manner included avionics boxes from all three avionics bays, crew lockers, instrument panels and the seat frames from the commander and the pilot. The more extensive and heavier crush damage appeared on components nearer the upper left side of the crew module. The magnitude and direction of the crush damage indicates that the module was in a nose down and steep left bank attitude when it hit the water.
"The fact that pieces of forward fuselage upper shell were recovered with the crew module indicates that the upper shell remained attached to the crew module until water impact. Pieces of upper forward fuselage shell recovered or found with the crew module included cockpit window frames, the ingress/egress hatch, structure around the hatch frame and pieces of the left and right sides. The window glass from all of the windows, including the hatch window, was fractured with only fragments of glass remaining in the frames."
Several large objects were tracked by radar after the shuttle disintegrated. One such object, classified as "Object D," hit the water 207 seconds after launch about 18 nautical miles east of launch pad 39B. This apparently was the crew cabin."
Which is exactly what I was asking myself when the Challenger exploded.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
No, the second teacher was supposed to go to the Columbia after landing, to get a good look at it after landing and whatnot. There's all sorts of nice neat tidy coincidences on this flight, and I'm sure the data will be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. It's the week of the Challenger disaster, the Columbia flight right before it took up the second teacher to be green-lighted for a Shuttle mission, and the first Israeli in space was on this flight. I don't think that necessarily means that something evil was afoot, but there are certainly a number of interesting coincidences that make it more probable.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Interesting facts aside, this is a terrible tragedy. After an appropriate period of introspection and mourning, I hope that our government has the foresight to use this as the impetus to rethink the space program from the ground up, and reinvest in the types of endeavors that made the U.S. recognized leaders in the advancement of science and human exploration in the 1960s. It is time for NASA to be completely redesigned, and a new human space initiative begun with the bold, risk-taking nature that Americans have always been known for.
Unfortunately, our current governemnt is led by what is most likely the most short-sighted administration of the past 100 years. The chances of this President using this tragedy constructively as a catalyst for postive change are about the same as one of the Shuttle astronauts phoning in from a payphone in East Texas.
I'm a lawyer with excellent karma. Something's gotta be wrong.
DFW's outstanding local coverage of the tragedy (the anchor is a pilot and really knows his shiznit about aviation tech) pointed out what must have been a huge piece breaking off before the contrail begins. I immediately said "bay door". He followed with that a moment later.
It's obviously way early, but it's possible that the shuttle bay door was not secure, the ram pressure of reentry levered it open, the shuttle tumbled due to new aerodynamic forces, and the rest is, sadly, history.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Space.com has a series of pictures put together with captions that were taken during the past 2 weeks on board the shuttle.
You can also find a copy of the mission patch and an explanation at spaceflight.nasa.gov (don't remember the direct link, sorry).
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I'm not a space expert, but the most sensible thing for my country (I'm Russian) would be to fully support ISS operation with its Progress and Soyuz spacecrafts, until the things are sorted out with the Shuttles. Perhaps cough up some extra cash on the Russian side, yes. That would also be a politically correct thing to do.
This would mean the construction activity is halted (Shuttles were to deliver most/all new modules), but at least the station can be operated in its current configurations for the time being.
I view the dual delivery systems (STS + Russian crafts) as a partial redundancy built into the ISS program. Don't we now have the exact case when this redundancy should be used?
Any knowledgeable person to comment?
17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
Two years ago, I was a highly decorated NASA engineer. I was awarded their highest medal, for Exceptional Achievement -- something that is usually reserved for senior managers -- because of my expertise.
I was a safety engineer.
I was removed from my GS-13 position, as an internationally-recognized authority on hypergolic propellants and explosives, and forced off the Kennedy Space Center. At gunpoint.
Their excuse was that I had "abused government equipment." Because I sent a friend an e-mail joke.
The reality was that I wouldn't play their "political ball."
I F-ING WARNED THEM.
I told them that the technicians and engineers were overworked. I told them that there were too many managers and too many meetings and "dog-and-pony" shows. I told them that their senior "face time" play games, while they spent all their time plotting how to give each other pay raises, and left the guys on the floor to struggle day to day with obsolete and overpriced and unqualified equipment, was going to result in another Challenger.
I was there for Challenger.
I saw the same exact conditions happening again. Overpaid, lazy, irresponsible managers concerned solely with their climbing up their ladders.
I told them they were skimping on inspections. I told them that the ground crews were asleep on their feet from exhaustion. I made as much noise as I knew how to make about the top-heavy bureaucracy sitting around in their fancy panelled offices, giving whorish press interviews in their smugness, while they did not have a clue what was going on in the real world where I was working.
They fired me. They fired a GS-13 civil servant, with an Exceptional Service medal and ten dozen commendations. For sending an e-mail joke.
In reality, for objecting to political fat-cats sitting on their fat rear ends and failing to do their jobs.
Like Challenger, those who are most guilty are the ones who will attempt to make the most political capital out of it. But the blame for Columbia lies entirely and totally with the NASA administrators. They should all be investigated for their criminal negligence. They should all serve time in jail.
I warned them. They did their best to destroy me, because I warned them.
It's too bad that innocent astronauts paid with their lives for NASA managers greed and political ass-kissing.
But I am not surprised.
Two years ago, I warned them.
Dian Hardison
Cocoa, FL 32927
Note: Her NASA biography is still online at a NASA site.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.