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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.
If Russia is canning space tourism, does that mean we're stuck with Lance Bass?
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As with the Challenger disaster, there are many smart people trying to determine the cause of the accident. In addition to the wreckage, there are memos, notes, films, and other media to review. Investigations take time, and regardless of the desire to find an immediate smoking gun,I anticipate NASA will release an official report no sooner than may. Right now we have several media "experts" offering their opinions.
I am me...I think
"We continue to recover crew remains and we are handling that process with the utmost care, the utmost respect and dignity," said Ronald Dittemore, shuttle program manager.
They died advancing science so we could all live better lives. Let's keep this in mind...
I wonder if NASA will start making in orbit inspections of shuttles part of the flight plan. While things like this are obviously rare they are real and deadly.
I wonder how long it would take an astronaut to correctly inspect a shuttle in orbit.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
It's not really obvious why they're doing it. The article implies, but doesn't state, that it's because they now need to put cargo where the third, "passenger" seat would go on a Soyuz capsule.
Some people have suggested they're doing it because "space is now unsafe", which makes absolutely no sense.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
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.
There is no black box. This was a question at the first technical briefing on Saturday. While they do have various data recorders on board, they aren't hardened to survive a crash. For the most part, they aren't necessary, as all the relevant data is transmitted back to Mission Control in real time. Such information would only allow them to better reconstruct the last few seconds after communications were lost (some of which it turns out they did receive data from, only it was too low-power for them to process at the time). While that may be interesting, the useful information will be from earlier on in the flight when the problem first showed up.
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.
In this case, a stable, well-known and quite familiar technology is "the best kit we can." If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Upgrading for the sake of getting "newer" components is more likely to cause safety hazards than leaving older, perfectly good systems in place.
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
That Aviation Week article was the best recounting I've seen yet. I get so tired of that period of time between a catastrophic event and the time real information can be disseminated. Looks like I'm not alone
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
they could very well decide that a 20+ year old OS is too archain to be used on the shuttle.
And that would be a damn shame if they decide to switch so another OS Just Because The Current One Is Old. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" keeps echoing in my head.
Trolling is a art,
It seems unlikely that computers were to blame for this, but the kit in the shuttle is pretty old - if we're going to ask people to risk their lives like this we must give them the best kit we can.
that would be suicide... The older computers running in the shuttles are rock solid, space proven, and reliable. which are very different from anything that intel or AMD makes. the older and slower computers are doing the job fine without baing overloaded or needing to read sensors any faster. Remember, this is flight control computers... I'd rather have a known 99.999999999% uptime processor that was designed in the 80's running my spacecraft or aircraft than any of this unstable junk we use today.
outdated in the articles terms means it's nothing but a comment by an uneducated person trying to get their 15 seconds of fame.
The Software would have a larger potential for blame... I.E. the programmer did not make klaxons go off when sensors give bad readings, or there was any instance of throwing out data.
Until I see a report that states that the current computers on board are running at > 50% capacity and are getting near the overtaxed point then I'll believe it. until then it's fake news.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, the reasons for Russia to cease launching space tourists may be obvious if you know one major factor - the Soyuz is not reusable. Since the shuttle fleet is currently grounded, the Soyuz is the only link between Earth and the space station. The Russians don't want to waste a single-use mission on a tourist if they're going to run out of equipment before the reusable shuttle fleet comes back online - they want to keep them for station resupplies, crew changes, etc.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
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.
It's interesting to read Richard's story of the investigation of the first shuttle disaster, and his realization that the process was political, not scientific.
He had a great deal of trouble, as an official investigator, just being *allowed* to investigate, and of course to release his findings he had to engage in what amounted to guerilla tactics.
The end fate of the Morton-Thiokol engineers who "blew the whistle" must stand as some sort of object lesson in this case as well.
One would hope that steps are being taken to prenvent another go 'round of this shabby and shameful incident in American space history.
KFG
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.
Because it takes anywhere from a week to a couple months to get a shuttle ready for flight.
As it happens, Atlantis was on the pad already, but it still would've taken nearly a week to launch with minimal crew (pilot and engineer). Columbia had enough food and water to last half a week... although with rationing they may have been able to extend that sufficiently.
Even so, what do you do then? There's no way to "dock" two shuttles and Columbia didn't have jetpack suits onboard, and I don't believe everyone was rated for EVA. You can make a "jump" from one ship to another, but that's trickier than it sounds... fortunately if you do it right and have the supplies on board then only one person has to do it - you can tether the ships together, as long as their orbits are precisely matched and close enough together. The precisely matched bit is the hard part really - it's going to take several hours to transport crew from one shuttle to the other.
It'd probably be an effort on the level of Apollo 13.
Afterwards you have a shuttle in a slowly degrading orbit that's going to do an uncontrolled burn up in the atmosphere -- although perhaps you can set a navigation program to activate after the crew is saved to ensure splashdown in a safe area (like the Pacific ocean). Dunno. Of course, this would have been better than what did occur.
According to Fox News, the pictures were taken from a telescope located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. I haven't located the images on their site yet, but I did see them on the cabletv broadcast this morning.
If your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover it, NASA is compensating for damages caused by the disaster: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/releases/200 3/03-041.html
This
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
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.
Did you actually read the article? Or are you just making assumptions based on the synopsis, which on this site are known to be highly inaccurate?
Quote the article: Plans to send tourists into space have been frozen by Russia after the Columbia shuttle disaster left its Soyuz capsules as the only working link between Earth and the International Space Station.
The point is not that space is any more dangerous as a result of the Columbia disaster. Since NASA has put flights on hold, Russia needs to use more room on the Soyuz capsules to pick up the slack. That leaves less rooms for space tourists. As quoted in the article, a Russian space agency spokesman said, "Space tourism is not a priority. State interests must come first, then commercial interests."
I know that many people on Slashdot don't actually read the articles, but it sure helps to clear up a lot of confusion.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Soyuz is characterized in the popular media as an aging, broken-down spacecraft, but the fact is that it is one of the most reliable and efficient manned spacecraft that has ever been produced. The Soyuz has a launch escape system which has been used once, in 1983, to blast the crew away from their exploding rocket (in the words of one site, "The crew landed close to the launch site, badly bruised after surviving nearly 20g acceleration, but they were still alive.") This is unlike the shuttle, in which escape is impossible for the first two minutes of flight, while the solid boosters (which can't be turned off) are firing. Soyuz has not had a fatal accident since 1971, and has had no major safety issue since 1988. Personally, given the choice between flying on the Shuttle and flying on Soyuz, I would pick the latter.
Spaceflight tends to reward simple and time-tested designs over new and complex. I have read at least one account suggesting that NASA resurrect the Gemini spacecraft for crew transfer to and from the ISS, since it was one of the most reliable spacecraft the US has ever flown.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
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.
But then, whether you call it cynicism or realism, we accept a level of failure in all transport systems which is capable of killing people. We allow people to ride bicycles in motorised traffic. We allow manufacturers to build cars that are capable of traveling fast enough that a brake or steering failure can kill not only the occupants but anyone who gets in the way. We allow the construction of ships that break up in heavy seas, of railways where trains can pass red lights and crash. There is no public contract about this: we never actually get a chance to vote on the level of risk we want in our transport systems. What we do is react to disasters, and politicians have to decide based on that reaction whether to take some kind of action.
Sometimes they do, and as a result we have anti-lock brakes, double-hulled ships, crash barriers on freeways and autoroutes, airbags, automatic train protection systems, and a host of other technologies.
The Shuttle crews are unusual, superior human beings. But they should not need to be heroes, any more than someone who gets on a plane in LA to fly to a meeting in Tokyo is a hero.
Because if the exploration of space is ever to become commonplace, we have to get rid of the idea that this is a dangerous enterprise for heroes. We need to follow the same rules that apply to everything else. We need to ask nasty questions like "Why can't tiles be replaced in orbit, since we have had 18 years to think about things like this?" .
A WW1 biplane could keep flying after it had been shot full of holes, yet the Shuttle seems to have a number of extremely fragile technologies failure of any one of which could destroy it on re-entry. If that's so, why haven't we developed a better technology? Is it the mindset that needs to change as much as the design?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
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
They did plan for it.
From Nasa's Human Space Flight pages:
The nominal maximum crew size is seven. The middeck can be reconfigured by adding three rescue seats in place of the modular stowage and sleeping provisions. The seating capacity will then accommodate the rescue flight crew of three and a maximum rescued crew of seven.
Make sure one other shuttle is always ready to go within a week like Atlantis was
Atlantis wasn't ready to go. It could be pressed into service, but only by eliminating all pre-launch testing. You know, the testing that routinely finds problems in the months prior to launch that have to be fixed and occasionally cause launch delays?
You want a shuttle ready to go everytime? Ok. You just doubled the cost for every launch. Because keeping a shuttle ready is a huge expense. The environment, even inside a building, is not friendly to the components and continual inspection is necessary for some areas... like the tiles.
It seems like a simple thing to rig up some camera or whatever to look around the corners.
It's not a simple thing. They've been trying to design one for ISS and it's problematic. And that's a vehicle that's not designed for reentry.
As long as you have water, and you can recirculate that pretty low tech, if they don't do that already.
Oddly enough, Columbia would have been in good shape here... They were actually testing systems to recycle water from waste. See here.
I expect something like this to be in place before the shuttles are taken in use again
I don't. Doing so at this stage would kill manned space flight. It's akin to eliminating seafaring exploring from Europe in the 1400s - 1600s because too many people died in the process, and so we won't do any more exploration until the infrastructure is in place to keep them safe. Except that until the exploration has been done it's impossible to put the infrastructure in place.
I'm not saying that a rescue couldn't have occurred - in fact I posited ways it could have been done (based off statements from NASA no less), but also stated the issues that would have been encountered. Nor am I saying that a rescue shouldn't be attempted in a future case.
But, realistically, we don't have the infrastructure yet. If we want to be able to prevent this kind of disaster in the future, then we have to do more missions, build more flight systems (hopefully more cost effective to run than the shuttle fleet), and put more permanent installations into space. But all of this is decades down the road... and trying to fix it the other way around is a nearly certain way to kill manned spaceflight all together.
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.