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Columbia Coverage
ke4roh writes "Space.com offers a list of questions and answers about the events and hardware surrounding Columbia's destruction Saturday. They address suspected causes, foam, tile, and some of the alternatives had NASA known the ship would not be able to re-enter the atmosphere." viewstyle writes "PC Magazine has a pack of stuff put together on the space shuttle accident, as they recognized the fact that the space program inspired a lot of tech people in general. What's pretty cool is the section written by a guy there who worked on the computer components in the shuttle." And naturally, the idea of a space elevator is back in vogue again.
I've been hearing a lot about the 30 seconds of telemetry that was too weak for the computers to display during the shuttle break-up but that is now being analyzed from backups. Does anybody have any more information on what this data?
As I understand it, the last 'good readings' were full-scale low or high on a lot of the temperature sensors, which to me would indicate sensor failure. Several of these sensors reported such values before communication was lost. This kind of makes me wonder what benefit there would be in examining whatever else came back after those failures--I can't imagine the data would be particularly accurate, though there may be some valuable information. Can anybody elaborate?
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
One thing that suprised me was how FEW detectors there appeared to be on the shuttle. You'd have thought that it would be mostly wiring and lots of redundancy and measuring every millisecond, but it appeared to be much coarser and less often. Surely in 1980 they had small electronic detectors so as to enable more accurate reporting ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I've seen the footage that CNN et al see fit to publish regarding the Shuttle, but where are all the street-level pics being posted these days?
... as an avid space nerd, I want to see as much as I possibly can about this incident (save, perhaps, pics of the charred skeletal remains that were found the other day ... I can leave that for stile.)
Surely there are sites out there for folks to upload pics of debris they've taken out in the field, etc? I'm tired of having these sorts of things filtered for me by mainstream news - so anyone got any URL's?
Pissed me off that I have to *subscribe* to CNN to see the amateur video that was taken in California of the breakup
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
In the editorial, the author complains about commericalization of the event...but when else is a 1.5 hour news conference given by NASA going to be broadcast uninterrupted by commercials on CNN? I sure haven't seen one on there in quite some time...I thin CNN had far fewer commercials on Saturday than they have on any other given day... Cynicism is not always = to insightfulness...
I couldn't agree more, which is surprising since I usually don't agree with anything he says. But I really believe that changing NASA's focus might be the ideal solution to the public's (read: media's) boredom with our space program.
The Space Exploration Act of 2002 seemed a great first step, but received very little backing. NASA's NExT group plans look very promising - but do they have any money, even in this year's budget? The goal should be human exploration, development, and settlement of the solar system. The National Space Society has a clear roadmap for space development, and a vision of people living and working in thriving communities in space - but membership there has been dropping for years. The goals actually are pretty obvious - what's needed is for the public to get behind them. Go join these organizations, write your senators and congressman! If you care about space, do something about it!
Energy: time to change the picture.
Very good.
Also, broken telemetry readings and strength of signal can be used to determine the attitude (read : orientation, not height) of the shuttle since transmitters are usually directional.
The attitude data of the shuttle at its final seconds would be the most useful information. For example, you can use it to determine how the shuttle begin to tumble out of standard flight reentry modes.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
As early as the day after Columbia was lost, we are starting to see reports of management decisions that affected safelty, design, and ignored problems what were spookily predicted when it came to the foam. Sure, lots of letters might cross managements desk in regards to shuttle problems. But it's the fucking shuttle, you check them ALL or you just don't DO the shuttle. Suddenly the pointy haired boss in Dilbert strips isn't so funny, knowing how accurate he is to real managers in the real world.
In the past four years as a computer programmer (doing other shit now, self employed, NO management to harrass or to blame) I've gotten to enjoy the view as in each and every company I worked at, managers were the cause of almost every problem that happened with the products. To all the managers reading this: goto www.dilbert.com and check to make sure you are not an idiot leading a team of people who know a lot more than you. THINK. LISTEN. THINK MORE. TRY TO DO SOME FUCKING GOOD since you do the "planing of the work" and not the actual "work". Make the best of your time in your leather chear and wall-side office, and LEAD. Watch Braveheart, get motivated!
Having worked on the shuttle program I can tell you that everyone involved would have done everything possible to save the crew. I agree that if they thought there was a good chance of a problem and a second launch was possible they would have gone up with a second shuttle and brought them back down.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Why is this tragic accident SO much more important than so many others?
Not to sound too crass, but it's the quality, not the quantity (up to a point) that counts here. You're right, 100 average joes/joettes die somewhere and nobody blinks an eye. Seven astronauts die and the nation is in mourning and the flags are half mast. Why, well it's because the astronauts are celebrities. Why do people make pilgrimages to view Elvis's grave, but wouldn't take to time to stop at the Vietnam war memorial? Why does an entire nation come out the mourn the death of a single "princess"? It's all about who you are. This is no different.
Well ... as of this morning NASA is focusing on the foam hit as being the most likely cause, so I don't think red herring status is appropriate.
It turns out the shuttle was on the pad during drenching rainstorms and there's (NASA) speculation that ice may've built up. Given that the piece of foam that broke off was near the strut that attaches the shuttle proper to the external fuel tank, with the strut surrounded by foam, it's possible that water could've accumulated there. Which would've frozen once the tank was filled with LOX and liquid hydrogen.
If the chunk that fell off contained a lot of ice it would've been a lot heavier than foam alone. And the engineering analysis that was done apparently only looked at the case where the foam was foam alone.
This is all in today's NYT and my local paper (which goes to bed later than our edition of the Times as I'm on the West Coast) and all comes straight from NASA.