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Russia is suspending its space tourist program, for fairly obvious reasons. An NYT story notes that the obsolete but reliable computers driving the shuttle are to be examined as part of the inquiry. But most interestingly, a story in Aviation Week claims that a tracking camera trained on the shuttle detected damage to the wing prior to the breakup.
Haven't yall?
I mean, we cut back a ton of spending for some of the most dangerous quests known to man, and then we're shocked when their systems are failing on a thirty-year-old shuttle.
What I would like to see is a new branch of the military take over the space program. Call it Space Force if you want to be cheesy, but at any rate, whenever the military gets involved in programs they get an incredible amount of financing. And for those of you who are concerned that if it becomes military we'll never see it again, think DARPA Net. The military is a great way to get things started, and then let blatant commercialism take a choke hold...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
The O-rings in use on the booster rockets for the Challenger (and previous shuttles) were rated for warm weather, which was acceptable since the launches were in Florida. It was a cold day when Challenger launched. The engineers warned admin that day that the boosters might fail. There had already been numerous delays, so admin launched anyway.
Interestingly (or suspiciously?), the ethics site's page is down, but the cache is here:Roger Boisjoly on the Challenger Disaster
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Someone found this really cool article about the group that writes the shuttle software. I've always admired CMM level 5, having spent my entire career at level 1. ;) I wonder if they need more coders.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
[playing devil's advocate]
What would be the point of inspecting the spacecraft in orbit? There is no way they can fix it in orbit, they don't have the food or water to stay up, and NASA can't send a rescue craft. If it was a ISS mission, they might stay up longer, and maybe the russians can bail them out. Columbia certainly wasn't in a position to do that.
So, they inspect, and find out they are fuxored. What do they do? Say goodbye to their families Armegeddon style, and eat some cyanide?
The real way to fix this is to make more infrastrucure for space travel. Have more stations, more ships, more flights. Then, if you have a problem in low orbit, you might have a chance to survive.
[All of this logic STOLEN from Rand Simberg.. Please don't sue me!]
If the computer is still doing its job, then why is it obselete?
There are also good technical reasons why NASA uses "obselete" computers on alot of their spacebound equipment.
It turns out that it fell through the roof of a condo complex and totally destroyed the unit owned by a friend of my wife. She believes that if she were in the place at the time, she would have been killed.
They have hired a lawyer and are exploring their options -- most insurance policies don't cover falling objects from space.
Yeah, I know "friend of my wife" is rather FOAFish, and I will try to get more details (and perhaps pictures) if possible.
You could've hired me.
Just as a point of comparison: The 1675th Soyuz launch took place recently. There have been only two fatal Soyuz accidents, both over 30 years ago. I don't think the Russians have to apologize in any way for their safety record.
It seems to me that the building of winged reentry vehicles is more driven by a desire for Buck Rogers-style space adventures, not good, cost-effective engineering.
If Americans are not good enough to ensure a minimum security in-flight, that should be their problem. Russian are really experts.
NASA never had any problems with conventional space capsules during re-entry, and never lost a crew. The Russians have continued to use a well tested, relatively simple spacecraft, which has served them very reliably. Comparing a Soyuz to a Shuttle is like comparing a calculator to a computer, you can do many of the same things on either one, but they are fundamentally different, and designed for different purposes.
The decision to use fragile thermal tiles for the Shuttle is one that has faced much criticism over the years. It is a decision that is at the core of what happened to the Shuttle on re-entry, whatever the reason that some of those tiles were damaged or lost. The vulnerability to tile damage was known, but NASA thought they had managed the potential issues in a way that assured the safety of the Shuttle. It appears they were wrong, and the problems were not controllable in the long term.
The amazing thing to me is the number of missions they flew before these thermal tiles became an issue. I think the thermal tiles are a fatally flawed system, both because of their susceptability to damage in flight, and because they require huge amounts of expensive upkeep between missions. The fact that NASA flew over 100 missions before this kind of problem occurred is a tribute to their dedication. The fact that this system was selected shows that NASA is not perfect.
I concur with this sentiment.
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The moment that I heard the shuttle was lost, I immediately thought of a German by the name of Otto Lilienthal. This man, in the middle 1800s, is known as one of the first aviators. He designed gliders that he used to drop off slopes and glide for many minutes at a time. While in flight, he manuevered himself to actually control the gliders' direction
During the time when people thought flight impossible, his conceptions and his inventions were used by the Wright Brothers and Chanute.
From an article I found: "Lilienthal is not only one of the Father of aviation, he invented piloting, the controlling of aircraft. In any case, he was the first man to have maneuvered in flight, an "heavier than air" machine."
The point of this post (and small history lesson) was his last words. During a glide that he had performed a hundred times, something went wrong, and he plummeted to the earth. The wounds were lethal, but on his deathbed, he uttered the words: "Opfer müssen gebracht werden!", which roughly translates to 'Sacrifices must be made.'
++Om
P.S. To read a little about this man, go to: http://aerostories.free.fr/precurseurs/lilien/pag
Back before the proposed space station became the crippled bastardized joke that is the ISS, it was proposed to build a class of "orbital transfer vehicles" which would have lived entirely in space and would be used to ferry things from low orbits to higher ones. Had we had a real space station program, where the station is the hub of an entire orbital infrastructure, then plucking off the astronauts from a doomed Columbia would have been possible.
Then again, if we had a real functioning orbital infrastructure, the Columbia might not have been doomed... it might have been reparable (albeit expensively) in orbit. Indeed, with a real orbital infrastructure, we wouldn't still be flying these 1970s-era jalopies.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Um, any reason that Atlantis could bring along the jet-pack spacesuits and then have someone ferry them to Columbia? Sure, they weren't EVA-rated, but they'd have had a hell of an incentive to learn fast. And I've got to believe that a tethered spacewalk -- out, across, in -- is simple enough to be picked up by people already selected for high intelligence.
A rescue would have been thinkable
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
So, let us suppose that the conclusion of the post-launch analysis of the damage done by the foam chunk was that it was in fact fatal, with absolute certainty; what would you do when you were in a commanding position in Houston?
Would you tell the crew: "Sorry, your spacecraft is broken, we do not see any possibility for repair so you will certainly die during reentry?" I think that would have been absolutely horrible for the astronauts.
I don't know, but "given" the fact that nothing can be done about it anymore in such a situation, I think it would be a realistic option (after consulting silently any other appropriate authorities) to keep them and everybody else ignorant of the imminent disaster and let them have a good flight, let them enjoy it and let them die (almost) happily.
The most serious objection I would see against the latter decision would be of religious nature: for many religions it is very important to prepare for death, say prayers and so on (sorry for my clumsy phrasing, I am not religious myself). In order to respect this, the crew should have gotten a warning somewhat longer before the expected catastrophe.
Well, just a thought.