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Updated Information On Columbia Shuttle Tragedy

Posted by timothy on from the we-grieve dept.

Thanks to all the readers who have sent links related to today's shuttle disaster. An Associated Press story carried on Salon says that an independent board (with members from the Air Force, Navy, Transportation Department and other federal agencies) has been appointed to investigate the disaster. CNN is carrying official statement from President Bush. Rediff.com has an article on the life of Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla. borisonanovitch points to "more info on the science aboard Columbia and links to other NASA research." fabel reminds us "Most of the media is focusing on the slight damage that ocurred at takeoff (that NASA discounted at the time) but STS-107 was *delayed* for 6 months (original launch date 19 Jul 2003) Update: 02/01 23:51 GMT by T : [Note, should read "2002."] because of cracks in the propellant feed lines to the 3 main engines. A defect that could have caused catastrophic failure. Did the fix work or not?"

2 of 1,273 comments (clear)

  1. Profiteers by Some+Bitch · · Score: 3, Redundant

    There are reports of people in Nacogdoches (where most of the debris appears to have fallen) buying large bags at Walmart in order to scavenge for pieces of the wreckage in violation of federal law and ignoring personal safety concerns.

    Pieces of the shuttle are expected to appear on Ebay before too long, I wish I were making this up :(

  2. Probably Heat Tile Failure from Damage - But How? by Glasswire · · Score: 1, Redundant

    The heat tiles on the shuttle have to be virtually 100% perfect for safe re-entry and as 110 or so safer re-entries have proven, NASA has done a good job of keeping the tile sets fixed. But...
    I fear that something happened to them this time, either through:
    1) Sloppy re-tiling - loose adhesive, incorrect placement, etc. Some QA check procedure breaks down (al la the Hubble lens)
    2) Launch debris (eg big chunks of ice) falling off the fuel tank (this happens all the time) and hitting a vunerable spot (like the leading edge of a wing where the tiles curve and are probably most vunerable. I wonder if there any way for the crew in orbit to do a visual inspection of the high (bottom) face of the shuttle to check for damage (-not sure they would be able to DO anything about it, perhaps that's why there's no procedure to look...if it were bad you wouldn't want to know)
    3) (Hate to say this) Sabotage... This could occur several possible ways, either intentially poor install at the re-tiling works (good question: Is this the first time Columbia has flown since it's last retiling?) Or perhaps it was damaged remotely (rifle bullet) while on the pad or being transported? New Republic has an execellent article recently about the fad of inexplicably legal huge .50 cal rifles that can take down an airliner at two miles. Probably wouldn't need something this lethal to target the shuttle from a few miles away and simply break or crack a few tiles in a way that visual inspection wouldn't pick up. Normally I'd consider the sabotage scenario paranoid, but there was an Israeli astronaut aboard...