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Updated Information On Columbia Shuttle Tragedy
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?"
NASA probably has a good idea whaat happened, but it's pretty safe to assume that they won't speculate until they know for sure.
If I'm not mistaken, the 3 main engines are used on launch only. They're useless in space, since they run off of the main fuel tank, which is jettisoned after the boost phase. The only engines of relevance in orbit/reentry are the OMS and RCS engines.
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Yes, Dr. Chawla was of Indian descent and grew up there, but she is a US citizen. She is an American astronaut, and no doubt proud of her Indian heritage.
OMS does have motors and fuel, but the OMS do not use the same lines and fuel as Main Engines.
"orbital maneuvering system provides the thrust for orbit insertion, orbit circularization, orbit transfer, rendezvous, deorbit, abort to orbit and abort once around and can provide up to 1,000 pounds of propellant to the aft reaction control system. The OMS is housed in two independent pods located on each side of the orbiter's aft fuselage. The pods also house the aft RCS and are referred to as the OMS/RCS pods. Each pod contains one OMS engine and the hardware needed to pressurize, store and distribute the propellants to perform the velocity maneuvers. The two pods provide redundancy for the OMS. The vehicle velocity required for orbital adjustments is approximately 2 feet per second for each nautical mile of altitude change."
"Before the deorbit thrusting period, the flight crew maneuvers the spacecraft to the desired deorbit thrusting attitude using the rotational hand controller and RCS thrusters. Upon completion of the OMS thrusting period, the RCS is used to null any residual velocities, if required. The spacecraft is then maneuvered to the proper entry interface attitude using the RCS. The remaining propellants aboard the forward RCS are dumped by burning the propellants through the forward RCS thrusters before the entry interface if it is necessary to control the orbiter's center of gravity.
The aft RCS plus X jets can be used to complete any planned OMS thrusting period in the event of an OMS engine failure. In this case, the OMS-to-aft-RCS interconnect would feed OMS propellants to the aft RCS.
From entry interface at 400,000 feet, the orbiter is controlled in roll, pitch and yaw with the aft RCS thrusters. The orbiter's ailerons become effective at a dynamic pressure of 10 pounds per square foot, and the aft RCS roll jets are deactivated. At a dynamic pressure of 20 pounds per square foot, the orbiter's elevons become effective, and the aft RCS pitch jets are deactivated. The rudder is activated at Mach 3.5, and the aft RCS yaw jets are deactivated at Mach 1 and approximately 45,000 feet.
The OMS in each pod consists of a high-pressure gaseous helium storage tank, helium isolation valves, dual pressure regulation systems, vapor isolation valves for only the oxidizer regulated helium pressure path, quad check valves, a fuel tank, an oxidizer tank, a propellant distribution system consisting of tank isolation valves, crossfeed valves, and an OMS engine. Each OMS engine also has a gaseous nitrogen storage tank, gaseous nitrogen pressure isolation valve, gaseous nitrogen accumulator, bipropellant solenoid control valves and actuators that control bipropellant ball valves, and purge valves.
In each of the OMS pods, gaseous helium pressure is supplied to helium isolation valves and dual pressure regulators, which supply regulated helium pressure to the fuel and oxidizer tanks. The fuel is monomethyl hydrazine and the oxidizer is nitrogen tetroxide. The propellants are Earth-storable liquids at normal temperatures. They are pressure-fed to the propellant distribution system through tank isolation valves to the OMS engines. The OMS engine propellant ball valves are positioned by the gaseous nitrogen system and control the flow of propellants into the engine. The fuel is directed first through the engine combustion chamber walls and provides regenerative cooling of the chamber walls; it then flows into the engine injector. The oxidizer goes directly to the engine injector. The propellants are sprayed into the combustion chamber, where they atomize and ignite upon contact with each other (hypergolic), producing a hot gas and, thus, thrust."
That is 40% out of 20 years.
And less than 2% out of the total number of launches. And?
The Apollo 1 fire occurred on January 27, 1967, killing three astronauts on the launchpad. The next flight was Apollo 7, which lifted off on October 11, 1968, a delay of one and a half years. Bear in mind that the US space program was under intense pressure to meet a December 31, 1969, deadline to land a man on the moon.
The Challenger disaster (STS-51L) occurred on January 28, 1986, killing seven astronauts shortly after launch. The next mission (Discovery, STS-26) took off on September 29, 1988, a delay of two and a half years.
At the present time there is pressure to continue construction of the International Space Station. Unless the ISS is to be mothballed, this will probably mean that at least one launch will have to happen within a year or so.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Not sure of its been posted by anyone on the two threads, but here's a Radar Image of the debris rain being picked up by weather stations.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Basically it's the same thing you do when you're skiing and want to bleed off speed. It's a pretty common aviation maneuver used to bleed off speed, or in the case of general aviation, to check your blind spots before landing.
Essentially, it's a series of slow, lazy turns from side to side in a sort of half figure eight (resembling and S, ergo: S turns).
-E2
The evil monkey commands you to dance.
If these same seven individuals were coal miners that lost their lives in a coal mine collapse, and the space shuttle was unmanned, and blew up on the same day, which would get more news coverage and why?
Karma: 0 (But I wield a mean +10 Vorpal Apathy)
"Wouldn't they have been vaporized in the atmosphere at that speed ?"
Completely? I doubt it. They were inside a structure designed to handle those temperatures.
Well the short answer is that there is no way to know.
If its a design flaw like with Challenger then it could easily be a simlar kind of time scale which will likely have a ripple effect on ISS. Though if Soyuz and progress launches could be stepped up there is no reason to abbandon ISS. However construction efforts would cease as they have been the purview of shuttle and soyuz can't launch the mass. Perhaps some Heavy Delta or Arian launches could be substitued but I would imagine that would take a couple years at the least to set in motion.
On the other hand if its a unique failure related to say the foam break off at launch or to some uncharted space debris on re-entry then they might not even miss the next scheduled launch.
In either event shuttles plate was pretty full with only 4 orbiters. Losing columbia does not effect any of the scheuled ISS missions as it was incapable of making the ISS orbit with enough payload so long as the remaining 3 remained cleared for operations.
So ultimately the quetion is if this is a fundamental problem in shuttles design or if it was a unpredicatable and unavoidable risk which comes with spaceflight operations.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Shawn Shephard discusses the potential "tire pressure problem". From the video:
If I'm not mistaken, the 3 main engines are used on launch only. They're useless in space, since they run off of the main fuel tank, which is jettisoned after the boost phase. The only engines of relevance in orbit/reentry are the OMS and RCS engines.
;-)
Wow-- someone who knows the STS architecture
I think that there is a likely chance that what occured was that the foam which struck the left wing during launch probably caused enough damage to the ceramic tiles on the left wing to cause substantial structural heating, tire failure, and hydrolic failure. As this continued, the structure would have failed-- remember that aluminum does not survive well when being heated to 3000F.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Here is a link to the last audio received from Columbia: http://www.canada.com/toronto/globaltv/info/video/ 020103audio.ram
First, this is a tragedy for the astronauts and their families. I extend condolances to all who have been affected.
N ews.Rele ases/Previous.News.Releases/97.News.Releases/97-03 .News.Releases/97-03-28.Shuttles.New.ET.Completes. Testss tsstat/ 1998/sep/9-10-98s.htma ce/updates/sto32.htmle dc/newsreleases/1999/99 -041.htm/ releases/2 002/02-234.html
However, this problem is nothing new. The insulation material on the external fuel tanks was changed in 1997 and immediately caused problems. Lockheed-Martin was recently contracted to provide an external camera to monitor insulation loss. I have not found any documentation of the insulation problems from late 1997 until the cameras were installed.
See:
http://spacelink.nasa.gov/NASA.News/NASA.
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/status/
http://ltp.arc.nasa.gov/sp
http://www.arnold.af.mil/a
http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news
for details about NASA's work on the problem.
This is going to be me, rambling. I'll be accused of being a liberal, tree-hugging, deficit-loving bitch, but it needs to be said.
Bush has, from day one, been all about, or so he says, cutting budgets. Everything but Defense, he says, is spending far too much. Education. Health and Human Services. AIDS research (his "broad" plan announced in the State of the Union address was a joke). NASA.
Time and time again, he has harped on cutting NASA's budget. He has forced the agency to abandon most all other programs, except extending the life of the shuttles.
Democrats and others have pleaded for Bush to reconsider. He hasn't.
One year ago, CNN discussed Bush's plans to dramatically reduce NASA's budget, INCLUDING safety spending, in favour of learning more about nuclear technology in space.
This PDF from the House Democrats makes Bush's cuts clear, in terms of NASA and science in general.
Worse yet, a year and a half ago, people were warning that these cuts were leading to an inevitable disaster in the shuttle program. A freaking year and a half ago.
And through all of this, the best Bush can say is "May God continue to bless America."
Oh, and Saddam is an evil, evil man.
Growl.
jrbd
I was only in 5th grade when the Challenger exploded. I remember thinking that someone would find out what happened and fix it so that it doesn't happen again. But of course, that's a pretty naive thing to think.
Later, when I was older, I read an account of the Challenger investigation in some compilations of interviews with Richard Feynman, the Nobel Laureate physicist. He was made a member of the investigative panel, even though he was strictly a civilian scientist. And in his words, when he was doing his investigation by going through documents and talking to people, it sounded that he felt like he was fighting a gigantic institutional bureaucracy that was being very slow, passive and reluctant to divulge information. On the committee were members of the military, former astronauts, etc, who likely had ties to NASA in some personal way, at least more so than some physicist from Caltech.
I don't know what sort of hard conclusions came out of the investigative committee in the end. Feynman was flamboyant and made a great show of the O-ring problem in front of TV cameras, an unrehearsed and disruptive performance, according to his accounts. But I think this flamboyance and disruptiveness was a good thing, because here was some guy who didn't give a crap about whether or not NASA was going to get its butt kicked for being negligent whatnot, and that's the sort of investigators that will be needed to bring the facts to light.
We will need people who are independently minded, and who are going to dig at the truth even if it might hurt a lot of people at NASA, assuming that the destruction of Columbia had a man-made origin. And even if NASA does become hurt and demolished in the process, that's for the better in the long run, because we will, hopefully, build anew and better, and send our tendrils even more deeply into space with or without the current incarnation of the thing we call NASA.
I grieve along with all the others affected by this disaster. It wasn't only the death of seven people, it was a little bit of death in all of us, of all of our wonder and awe and our eagerness to propel ourselves beyond our planet.
The fuel lines which were repaired have nothing whatsoever with the failure today.
The three main engines are fueled by liquid hydrogen, the propellant, and liquid oxygen (LOX), the oxidizer. The propellent and LOX is provided only during the takeoff of the Shuttle. The fuel and LOX is pumped from the large brown-colored external tank attached to the Shuttle. During the ascent to orbit, the external tank is totally exhausted of LOX and fuel, and is jettisoned by firing explosive bolts which hold the external fuel tank to the Shuttle.
The fuel lines which formerly were cracked are not used in any way after the external tank is jettisoned. Those three main engines you mention are not used at all after the external tank is gone. They can't be. The fuel is gone. And the fuel lines which feed those engines are fuelless as well. They cannot explode by leaking, as there is nothing to leak, and nothing to ignite.
You may want to know that there are two much smaller engines (the two shrouded "bumps" on the rear top of the Shuttle on each side of the horizontal stabilier fin) which are not fuelled by liquid hydrogen. These are the orbital maneuvering engines, used for orbital changes, as well as the all-important de-orbiting burn which slows the Shuttle down enought to start falling back to Earth. The engines, it must be stressed, are not fuelled by the fuel lines which feed the three main "ascent" engines I mentioned earlier.
I would assume, but do not state authoritatively, that the two smaller orbital maneuvering engines are purged of fuel and oxidant after the Shuttle begins its descent to Earth. It would be incomprensible if there was any explosive whatsoever in any of the propulsion systems, because after the Shuttle begins the drop out of orbit, the engines are never used again. The fuel would be dead weight, not to mention a hazard which would serve no purpose.
Remember, the Shuttle is a dead stick glider after it enters the atmosphere. No engine power is possible. The engines are shut down, and never used after the de-orbital burn.
Whatever took the Shuttle apart was not explosive. There was no explosive mix on the Shuttle.
Opinion: Something fell off, unbalanced the craft, and pinwheeled it at 12,500 MPH, at which point it simply tore apart.
Speculations:
- A damaged wing tore off?
- The tail tore off?
- Somehow, one or more of the cargo bay doors opened?
- Somehow, a wheel bay door opened, even partially, and at that speed, flipped the craft?
- catastophic skin failure somewhere on the nose or belly of the craft?
- one of the engines came loose? Reaching here.
- one of the tiny attitude control rockets fired, swing the ship out of true, and slamming into a Mach-speed wind? This seems unlikely - I'd think those hypergolic fuel tanks would be purged before reentry.
- control surface(s) on the wing somehow moved, rolling or pitching the Shuttle?
- the rudder somehow moved?
- the parachute system released the chute, causing enough turbulence to flip the shuttle around?
- window failure?
- airlock door failure?
- (sadly) action of a crew member?
We must keep in mind that the Shuttle is the ultimate experimental aircraft. In a sane world, we would have evolved safer and cheaper craft in the last thirty years. But we were cheap, and cut the program to the bone -- down to the marrow.
The Delta Clipper would have been a smaller, cheaper, reusable single-stage-to-orbit wingless space taxi. We could have developed it on the cheap for a few billion over a period of ten years. But we went for the ultrasophisticated and ultimately unbuildable superspaceplane.
Now we have three X-craft that are proven to fail about every decade.
Developing simpler and safer craft is of maximum importance. The shuttle as it flies is too dangerous -- a compromise for the Air Force and the spooks during the early seventies, built to fly giant spy sats instead of the tiny taxi it was supposed to be. The tiles are impractical. The flight surfaces are unstable and parasitical weight.
We need to spend real money, and NOT just to fund Boeing/Lockheed-Martin. We need to build a real fleet of ships that do what we need them to do. Small passenger craft.
We can't keep trying to reach the stars with a budget that can't even pay for a repainting of NASA HQ. You can't cheap out R&D -- it doesn't work. People die. We must spend what the ENGINEERS say they need to build the next gen of craft, and the gen after that, and after that.
We built the equivalent of a biplane, and froze time. We must build the DC-3. The 707. The tech has to evolve naturally, as engineers learn from past flaws. We do not do this. We have insisted that NASA first build a flying boxcar it didn't deem necessary. Then we wanted this experimental craft to last for forty years or more.
The real miracle is that the NASA engineers have kept this sad can flying since the late seventies.
Has anybody explained why they couldn't have done a spacewalk to inspect the damage from the insulation strike?
Yes, they have. It was not possible to inspect the bottom of the shuttle during this flight because (1) the cargo bay was being occupied by the science package and had no remote manipulator, (2) there are no handles or tethers on the bottom of the shuttle, and (3), shuttles are simply not equipped nor is it recommended for spacewalks to occur without tethering or the robotic arm. Thus, no spacewalks to the bottom of the shuttle.
All I've heard is that it wouldn't have made any difference if they had done one, since they weren't equipped to repair it.
I think also that the Columbia is too heavy to make the higher orbit of the ISS, and OMS and RCS thrusters would not have been enough to boost it to that level. The Columbia is heavier because it was overbuilt... the later shuttles are much lighter. This is why the Columbia has *never* gone to the ISS.
Even if they did find the damage, they also have no way to fix it. All of the tens of thousands of tiles on the surface of the shuttle are unique. Each one has different dimensions, and fits in only one place. Obviously, it would be impossible to carry a replacement for every one.
Lastly, if they discovered the problem during reentry maneuvers, it was still too late. The best NASA could have done was say "It was nice knowing you. God be with you." Once the reentry sequence has started, there is no way to abort. Either they make it, or they don't.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
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To be brutally pragmatic, 3,000 people getting killed in the WTC and the Pentagon getting attacked probably has greater relevance for the average American than even 3,000,000 people dieing to famine and intra-tribal warfare off in Africa. My neighbor had 3 former coworkers die on 9/11.
It's not numbness to injustice, although that may be true. It's sheer pragmatism- the enemy of idealism perhaps but not necessarily the enemy of wisdom.
(Plus there is the news-vs-business-as-usual aspect you mention. If you want publications focusing on justice issues, not just "new"s, try donating to various charities dealing with the injustice. I have. Believe me, you'll get more information on such topics than you have time to read._
--LP
P.S. While it is worth remembering that media will most-likely show you what will help their advertisers, it's pretty well documented that various media outlets lost serious money with their 9/11 coverage due to a lack of advertising in the immediate aftermath. I'm sure though that the moneymen viewed it as a necessary investment in 'credibility', ironically viewing it as a 'justice' issue akin to the ones you feel get inadequate coverage.
Watching CNN, you'd think that Ramon' death was a greater loss than that of the other 6. Too much airtime is being dedicated to Ramon and the Israeli reaction to his loss. I don't care about Palestinian reaction either.
To me, Dr. Chawla's story is more interesting. An Indian born female who migrated to the US, obtained a PHD in engineering, and finally became an astronaut is an inspirational story. Especially when you consider that an Indian born male (to my knowledge) has never been in space.
And what about the other non-ethnic Americans who were lost? Nobody willing to come on TV and state how remarkable they were?
Infact only the computer can land the plan because any angle that is more then a few degree's off what the designed limits are would brake apart the vehicle. The computer probably was confused since it could not recieve a sensor reading on the left wing but decided to go at it anyway which caused the shuttle to spin out, burn and break within seconds.
The astronaughts just sit there untill the final part of the mission near the runway. The computer takes care of everything and a human is not capable of handling the precision.
I just found out about the temperature reaching extreme conditions for a few milliseconds before the shuttle broke. New news. My guess is the cabin leaked and filled with fire when the the seal seperating the cabin air from space broke open bringing in super heated air. The rudder probably flipped voilently upward or downward due to the lack of hydro fluid which probably boiled away if the left wing really did infact overheat.
Even if the astronaughts did not run the program the cabin would turn into a furnace anyway from just the lack of a heat shield where the landing assembly broke as well as the left wing. The layer seperating space from cabin air is as thin as a blanket and can break easily. They did what they had to do and just hope it would work because you really have no options. At least it was quick and painless.
They were not wearing spacesuits so I am sure they did not meet the same fate as was rumoured from Challenger astronaughts. The orange suits only provided oxygen and pressure. No heat insulation.
http://saveie6.com/
No they weren't. The Orbiter is built largely from very normal aluminium. The thermal protection is provided by tiles. There are two types of tiles: black and white. Only the black ones can stand the full temperature of re-entry, and they are placed over the nose and flat bottom of the craft. The white tiles on the top and sides can only deal with the lesser temeratures that leak around.
The shuttle re-enters "bottom first", not in a glide like an aircraft (that bit comes later). The black tiles on the flat bottom create the same effect as an Apollo or Soyuz capsule, and cause an area of ionisation which actually takes the brunt of the heat like a buffer.
So it requires fairly precise alignment to make the whole thing work. Once a wing rips off, the structure will tumble and rapidly decelerate. If there are organic remains, it is because the temperatures were not very high for very long, not because the crew were encased in something that was designed to withstand that temperature from any orientation.
~Chris
Ice hasn't disloged or damaged any tiles for some time now. The ice used to build up on the top of the external tank (ET), and was shed during the liftoff. Nowadays, there is a big cap over the external tank, and dry nitrogen gas is blown down over the ET nose, so no ice forms. On this launch, some of the foam insulation was shed. It isn't hard like ice; it's kind of light and foamy like a dry sponge. It could have done some damage, but not like the ice used to do. The ice used to damage the external tile surfaces of ceramic (white) tiles (not the back carbon/carbon tiles).
In addition, whole tiles used to come off because they weren't glued in place properly. This hasn't happened in the last 75 flights, because of an improved pull test, which yanks off the improperly glued tiles.
The final tile failure mode which has been fixed was this: water intruded into the joints between the tiles while the bird was on the pad (in rainstorms etc). The water flashed to steam during reentry (if memory serves) and that popped the tiles off. Improved seals between the tiles fixed that problem around the same time as the improved "pull test".
In spite of all these improvements, some problem needs to be found and fixed. Given the very low aerodynamic loads when it came over the coast (at 7:43) a chief suspect would be still have to be a failure of the Thermal Protection System (TPS), just as you say.
I don't really think they're "heroes" either (in the same way getting trapped in a mine doesn't make you a hero) but there is something "heroic" about peopel who willingly risk their lives to explore space, etc. Or at least a lot of people feel that way about it.
I had this frined, in a wheelchair. People used to come up to him and tell him how "brave" he was. It really pissed him off. It's really self-serving to tell some poor guy whose legs dont work that he's brave. Even if he is. All it does is make *you* feel good that you have compassion for others. I think it's the same with calling (insert victims of tragedy here) "heroes".
But if you're gonna pick someone in today's world to call "hero", astronaut is probably a pretty good choice. They're very disciplined, highly trained, responsible people. It's really really hard to become an astronaut and they dedicate (sometimes) their whole lives to it.
they were not "heroes" - they knew the risks
Soooo....Understanding the risks of your actions excludes your actions from being considered heroic? Wow, that's truly 'insightful.' And I thought most people would *define* heroism that way.
Yeah, lots of people say they would go, but these people have dedicated their lives to advancing the engineering and life sciences, and they did indeed know the risks that went with this.
*That's* the difference between the family of four that's killed on the way to church by a drunk and this disaster; these people knowlingly took the risk of dying for humanity. And don't give me crap about glory and money -- the Astronaut program pays a salary of approximately $40-$75k, the range of a decent sysadmin. And not everyone makes as much as Glenn on the tour circuit.
And yes, you could then argue that military deaths are equally as notable and noble, and at that point I would agree that the sensationalism of the vehicle and its history come into play. But for Christ's sake, these people were amongst the brightest and highest performing individuals on Earth--many would have articles and books written about them if they'd grown old and died of *natural* causes, let alone a horrific death at 200,000 feet. To say nothing of the loss humanity takes as we take one giant leap backward before crawling back to where we were yesterday.
As for cheap replacements, my dear god you must not be a design engineer. Why don't you go read about some fundamentals of aerospace and CMM level 5 coding practices, and THEN come back and talk with the big boys. This ain't no P2P software or Tivo hardware we're talking about.
Sorry to everyone else for the rant -- but jesus I'm so tired of ignorant people opining on topics of which they are clearly ignorant. 'Insightful' my ass.
The Challenger disaster O ring problem only came to light several months after the disaster. And it took Dick Feynman's demonstration with the ice water for the theory to be accepted as fact.
The O-ring problem was more insidious and reflected terribly on NASA. The engineers knew about the design defect from actual twisted and scorched O-rings recovered from previous flights. The failure of the O-rings to seat properly on booster ignition was exacerbated not created by cold temperature. The Challenger launch was about 20 below design spec limit of 53F.
NASA repeatedly disregarded the advice of the engineers who designed the system and issued itself waivers to fly well below the design temperature cutoff. The booster design could have been better, and now is, but it is false that the Challenger accident was what brought it to NASA's attention.
Here is a brief account of the history as I have come to believe it occurred. There are many more thorough accounts.
This is not to dismiss Feynmann's role -- his insistence brought O-rings to the fore -- but whistleblower MT engineer Robert Boisjoly was complaining loudly long before the accident.
Why bring this up now? Because we're still hearing the sound bite that Challenger "was due to faulty design" which is true but kind of like saying the drunk died because of his faulty seat belt that didn't save him on hitting his seventh tree.
Challenger was a matter of time. The complex failures of management often set the stage for disaster, and I'm sure Columbia will be far more complex that "act of God."
One of my earliest memories is seeing the last of the Apollo launches from the beach in Florida. I watched the first launch of the Columbia with my class in school. I got to see it in person, once, when it was being kept briefly at Ft. Campbell, KY, to avoid some hurricane or other.
My ten-year-old doesn't understand why this is a big deal. Space travel, to her, is like CDs and PCs and microwave ovens -- a routine part of the world as it is. She was born after the cold war, after the glory days of the space program. Maybe when she's older, she'll understand that the space program transcended all the petty factional divisions and murderous religious and political ideologies of this sad world and was for a lot of us a shining example of the very best of the human race and a beacon of hope for a better future.
Growing up in the 70's, astronauts were the only people I ever really thought of as heroes. NASA was the only government agency I could admire, whatever its faults, without a trace of cynicism. That hasn't changed.
I wish I could somehow take my daughter back in time to that day on the beach when I looked southward towards the Cape and saw a Saturn V rise from the horizon on a pillar of flame. Maybe then she could understand why her parents were crying in front of the TV today. Instead, the best I could manage to say was, "They were astronauts. Our dreams went with them."
Godspeed, folks. You were the best of the best. You will not be forgotten.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
And that shows you just how risky space flight is, there's a 2% chance that the trip you're about to take will result in your death.
I bet you wouldn't drive your car much if those were the odds, and if you only had a 98% chance of surviving an airplane trip, you wouldn't see nearly as many business trips.
Assuming you'd die every 1 in 50 trips with your car, if you were lucky, you might make it safely through your daily commute for 2-3 months before the odds caught up with you.
I'm wondering if life insurance companies would even write a policy on an Astronaut. I'm betting the answer is no.
Astronauts work their asses off for most of their lives to get one of the hardest and most competitive jobs ever in human history. How many people have gone in to space? 100? That's a pretty elite club, demanding not only technical skills, intelligence, but a tremendous amount of patience and discipline over the course of several years.
In short, they are heroes, they risk their lives on a glorious adventure, and do real science that benefits all of mankind.
The fact that many people would be willing to go to space doesn't diminish the courage of those who do, there's a hell of a lot more to it than just hopping into the rocket, this is something these people have worked towards for decades.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein