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More on Columbia
RodeoBoy writes "It seems that regardless of what NASA and Boeing wants the public to believe there are still questions about damage to the shuttle's left wing. Some Boeing engineers have raised concerns that proper analysis of the damage was not done at the time, due to changes and cutbacks in Boeing. It is also coming out that more than one chunk of foam might have hit and damaged the wing. With Boeing having some financial troubles and NASA under public scrutiny again, what is the future of the space shuttle program..."
It seems strange to me that the left wing has not been located. No news story as of yet has highlighted any confirmed finding of the left wing. How can anyone make a determination without finding it?
Does anyone know how dense this foam is? I haven't found any mention of it. Is it like styrofoam density or is it much heaver than that?
The best outcome of the Columbia tragedy would be for NASA to get entirely out of the suborbital and orbital business altogether. As a pure launch vehichle, the Space Shuttle was not all that efficient, especially when considering the turnaround time involved. Handing over (what should be) relatively simple tasks to the private sector, would save millions of dollars of pork and mismanagement, thereby freeing said missions from a needless government bureaucracy and private sector 'contractors-for-life'. For it to remain viable, NASA needs to focus on extra-terran missions, both robotic and manned, if it wishes to remain a worthy vassal of the United States taxpayer.
For that matter, even lunar missions would be a better use of money than testing the effects of near zero gravity on ants.
You're only as smart as your brain.
The most important story of the past few days is the role of falling ice, not just "foam", from the central booster.
Because NASA *knew* about the foam collision from day one, and they had more than a *week* to analyze the event, and they *concluded* that it had no effect on the safe operation of the shuttle. If foam is the cause of the disintegration, then 7 people died because NASA's analysis was wrong. How's that for public image?
NASA works to (as I understand it) an even more restrictive version of the above. The probability theory involved is way above my head, so anyone is welcome to chime in and correct any misstatements. d.
Really though. I thought that space exploration was a pretty risky endeavour. NASA tries to be as careful as possible, but they have a limited budget and finite resources. Given the staggering risks involved, I'd say that they are still doing pretty well. This latest explosion will cause a new wave of safety checking which is all good stuff. How many of you wouldn't give you left nut to be on that next shuttle anyways. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
No guts, no glory...
Clickety Click
What probably will happen is that our government will waste a lot more of our tax money and make a bunch of stupid decisions that nobody really cares about.
What I say is we should do the following
1. Sell the space shuttles to someone else, China?
2. Make NASA a regulator agency, like the FCC of FDA.
3. Privatize the space industry.
This will result in money being spent to do useful things with space travel. People will be able to put up sattelites, space tourism will begin and eventually flourish. Someone might set up a hotel type space station. Or a moon base, or go to mars. All in all it should boost the economy by creating a new industry for people to work in and new companies to work for, as well as making life a hell of a lot more interesting.
Of course there are reasons not to do this, but this is what I want, not necessarily the best idea in the world, or the most realistic one.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
My dad works for Boeing and does lots of stuff with sattelites and space, though admittedly not rockets specifically. He can't imagine how insulation could've caused the damage in question. The insulation is extremely light and low density; it would've had to have been going rediculiously fast to have the force to cause damage to the tiles, and launching speeds aren't that fast until you're a few miles up. Ice is a more likely contender than insulation, since it's very hard etc, but it's rare to have a piece fall off that is massive enough to have much kinetic energy, and most of the ice is kicked off before the rocket gets going very fast.
I find it pretty insulting when people try to imply that NASA and Boeing are being anything but absolutely forthcoming about information. Sure, it's in their best interest to displace blame, but this isn't the X-Files here. If NASA knows something, they're going to tell the public.
Is it possible for the public sector to take on something like NASA though? Could the money be gathered? I can see where you are coming from, that the program would be better if it wasn't 100% government controlled and operated, but could such a huge, broad-based organization such as the present day NASA be assembled to successfully maintain a shuttle program?
SecondPageMedia - Wha
OK, we can't retire the space shuttle today. Nor tomorrow. But its time is drawing near...
Consider first that the shuttle was a massive compromise versus the original proposed designs. If the budget had been infinite, we would have had a better shuttle. If the budgeteers had had more foresight, we might (probably) have had a better shuttle. The shuttle we have now is a big series of compromises that limit its usefulness and safety.
Now consider that the shuttle program has been around since 1981. That's more than half of the time that's passwd since man first walked on the moon! It still seems shiny to some of us (myself included), because it was the only newsmaking bit of space exploration in our youth. However, it's old. It's an old (and limited) design, and we have learned a lot of what to do (or not) on the next go around. It's time to climb the next step of astronautical evolution.
So let's keep them in top shape, fly them as necessary (mostly as ferries to the ISS), while putting as much money as possible into a next-generation space vehicle.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
but this was a friggin car accident. Seven people died. The car happened to be very very very very very very very expensive.
Like this guy said. All this speculation is ridiculous. Let them do what they do.
Flame on.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
I was thinking to myself what NASA should do to increase mankind's presence in orbit and how to go about it. It is apparent to just about everyone that the current Space Transportation System (STS) is in need of replacement. The last time we tried to do that was under the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) under the Clinton administration. That program was a failure, not because of Clintons people, but because there were technological and monetary hurdles that couldn't be properly addressed. However there is a way to do this. Right now the STS fleet is grounded, so the immediate concern is how to keep the ISS in orbit and fully manned. Russian President Putin has promised to build more Soyuz space craft to insure ISS is manned and supplied. From what I've found, it cost Russian anywhere from 25 to 50 million bucks to launch a manned Soyuz and a little less for a Progress supply ship. I would propose that the US discontinue any crew transport missions for the Shuttle to ISS and pay a significant portion of the money needed to keep Soyuz ships flying to ISS instead. If these ships cost 50 million bucks then there is a savings of about 400 million bucks for each transport (the Shuttle cost an estimated 450 million to fly). When the Shuttle is back on in the air, it should ONLY fly construction missions to finish the ISS. The the STS should be retired. That begs the question, what do we do with 450 mil for each flight that doesn't go? Since there are typically 6 or 7 flights by the Shuttle per year, about half of them are for significant construction of ISS. So we are looking at a savings of nearly 1.5 billion per fiscal year. THAT money should be invested in a completely new Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) space shuttle like the X-33 was meant to be. But that's not all. In order for space travel to become affordable, space vehicles must become more affordable. Building 5 space shuttles cost the taxpayers between 3 and 5 billion for each one (the Endeavor cost 3 billion because it was built from spare parts). If we could build say 20 or 30 space shuttles, the cost could possibly be cut in half or perhaps more. NASA doesn't need 20 or 30 shuttles, however, if we could get the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russians, the Japanese, Aussies, and even the Koreans to join up with the promise of owning their own shuttles, the cost could be easily be spread out. You see, the Europeans would get out from under NASA's shadow which they have for so long hated. They wanted to build a ship back in the 80's called the Sanger but they didn't have the money for it. The Europeans don't have the experience of space travel that we or the Russians do but they do have a lot of technology and engineering that they can bring to the table. The Russians are obvious additions because of their experience. What they can't bring to the table in money, they can definitly bring in know how. The Japanese have always wanted a manned space program but they too don't have the money to foot the bill for all the R&D involved. In addition, their rocket program has suffered many setbacks. The Koreans might look on this as national pride IMO and a chance to play with the big boys. We of course know more about Shuttles than anyone and of course can bring more money to the table. America would still have it's leadership role in the project but would still have to work with members of the development and building team. You see, I no longer see space exploration as an American dream. This is a HUMAN endeavor. We as Americans (or Russians) just happen to be better at it than anyone else. If we build a shuttle or two that can haul cargo and personnel to low Earth orbit in a cost effective manner, we will see more and more people going and that is the goal. Get more up there so we can do more. NASA has already learned that it needs to get out of the space launching business and get into the Space Exploration and Space Science business. NASA was essentially going to sell the Shuttles to the United Space Alliance and lease them back. The USA was going to maintain the Shuttles and NASA or Air Force pilots were going to fly them. NASA needs to get away from the space monopoly that it has created so that competition can be built. The same thing happened when NASA got out of the satelite launching business after the Challenger disaster. Getting people to compete and getting a new reliable shuttle with the world behind it will establish a firm foothold in space for the human race. Right now we have had our foot in the door for too long and earlier this month it got jammed. Now it's time to kick open the door and step inside. Once we have a firm foundation in orbit and on the moon, then we can procede to the Planets and the stars.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Even if the foam hitting the wing at launch was the cause of the reentry failure, there's nothing they could have done about it, even if they had positively known that was going to cause a catastrophic failure upon reentry.
A similar event occured during Apollo XII, the second manned Moon landing. During launch, the Saturn V rocket was struck by lightning, causing a number of failures which were rapidly corrected. After they were out of the atmosphere, back at Mission Control, they pondered whether or not the lightning strike might have damaged the pyrotechnics that cause the parachute to deploy after reentry (they could hit the "chute deploy" button, but nothing would happen -- the pyros would already be burned out). Just as in the case of the Columbia, to know this information they'd need to have done an unscheduled EVA, and the additional information would have really changed nothing: If they did an about-face and reentered right then, they'd have been just as dead reentering then as they would after a successful Moon landing. So there was really no point even knowing; the knowledge would have changed nothing about the reality of the situation. (Of course, in the case of Apollo XII, the pyros were undamaged and the chutes deployed without incident.)
The point is, even if they positively knew that it was a problem, knowing and then reentering and dying isn't any different from not knowing and then reentering and dying.
While I agree that if this is the case they will get a lot of flak for this. But they really should not.
In the first explosion NASA ignored many engineers advice, even ignoring a no-go from them. In this case it was one guy. In thier position - one guy saying this - many saying not a problem - I would have gone with the no problem people also. For some reason (probably that the media focuses on them) people focus on the one or two people that had a correct conclusion and why didn't any one listen to them. Well, that's becuase we can't see the future and they were a VAST minority. You also saw this after 9/11 - one report to the govt was worded exactly as this occured. Of course it was ignored because it was one of thousands of possible terrorist attacks. If you document all possible outcomes one must be correct.
The appropriate quote: "even a blind squirril finds a nut sometimes"
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
I think some NASA contractors are hoping that they can lay the blame on space debris or even another contractor rather then take the blame themselves.
Shuttle is and allways was a dangerous overrated toy. It is robbing the public of money that could be better used and taking the lives of men and women that could be doing more useful work then silly tests in space and housesitting a useless spacestation.
If we aren't going to colonize space, the moon, or mars then keep people out of it. Or let those who want to go there PAY for it themselves.
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There is no possible way NASA could fend off such criticism by just pretending mistake C happened instead of mistake G.
Oh yes, there is.
On one hand they have a very public evidence - foam or possibly ice - hitting and damaging shuttle's left wing. NASA says they and Boeing analyzed the incident and determined to be not of significant concern that would break up the orbiter. Now these articles, if you read them, bring out more evidence that these analysis were done by mostly inexperienced engineers. Moreover, as one article mentioned, they ignored several of the "worst case scenarios" brought out by the software they used for analysis. All this data is becoming public and directly blames NASA and Boeing for not being careful/accurate/[insert your adjective].
On the other hand, NASA could conclude that the crash was a result of a long-standing defect (structural, mechanical, etc.) that nobody knew about until now.
Now, in the former case, blame directly goes to NASA and Boeing for basically "screwing up". In the latter case, they could market the idea that "look, space travel is dangerous business, you can't see everything coming" and then shift attention to astronauts being heroes and so on. There is a big difference between saving the face, keeping the job and public perception, program funding, etc. not only on NASA's local level, but consider financial, political, and international stage; and on the other hand being directly blamed for the disaster. Also consider public opinion difference between these two scenarios.
more in http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.ht ml
on a lighter note (not really light)
in http://www.terindell.com/asylum/filk/other/burton- west/nature.txt
you'll find a song
-- Avishalom is usually vish
We had a confirmed strike on the orbiter's left wing by debris from the main tank.
Best guesses for the point of impact were around the left wheel well.
The orbiter then experiences a thermal breakup, apparently originating around the left wheel well.
We have Boeing engineers in California saying that the folks at Boeing Houston were inexperienced at doing the risk analysis (this was their first 'live' outing since they moved the office out to Houston), and *ignored* the results of the CRATER impact simulator because it predictated Orbiter destruction. This is the program the Boeing California engineers (who have all the experience doing strike analyses) wrote.
Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explaination is the most likely. Something hit the wing, the tiles were damaged, the orbiter was destroyed. The only thing remaining is whether or not the damage was detectable *before* re-entry. And it's looking like it was, based on e-mails that have been released and interviews given by California Boeing engineers. Everything else is a Cover Your Ass Squaredance between NASA and Boeing, neither of which will admit that the orbiter was lost because of budgetry cutbacks and bad management.
Its just that most journalists dont understand scientific uncertainty or getting all the facts before reaching a conclusion. Time and again NASA has said that they dont know what caused the shuttle to break up for the simple reason that they dont KNOW for sure what caused the shuttle to break up. They know it had something to do with the left wing, and they know that foam hit the left wing. They dont have the "smoking gun" that connects the two causally. While the media may be willing to jump to that conclusion, NASA isnt because there is not enough evidence to draw that conclusion.
The same ceramic tiles which, at least on Challenger and Columbia (the first two shuttles built), took years to install because they kept breaking my the force of being pressed by a human finger onto the hull.
The original tiles were very delicate and obscenely hard to attach. New glues were developed, but it still took a long time because they kept breaking. It wouldn't take much to damage it, especially since Columbia was the first operational shuttle of 20 years service, with all the first-generation problems that implies!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Just as the problem with the O-rings was with Morton-Thiokol.
Nonetheless NASA is still essentially in charge, and the root issue is actually the shuttle design itself, which was political.
You'll note also that it took people outsid of NASA to subversively reveal the trouble with the O-rings. NASA itself ( as well as Morton-Thiokol) tried to everything they could to bury the whole thing under "spin." They're going about it now too, if you look carefully.
Contrast this to the development model of Daimler, Mercedes or Curtis in their first 20 years.
How much better are space shuttles today than they were 20 years ago?
KFG
Jerry Pournelle's Site has several interesting articles on the space program. He's a science fiction author (see 'Fallen Angeles') at the Baen Free Library who worked in aerospace for many years, has testified before Congress and given speeches to the Air War College.
Yes, but one factor you've left out is that in most cases, the goverment also funds the development and research. Most companies aren't going to risk the capital to develope something the goverment "might" buy. Sure, they might throw some bones at certain projects and programs which have great potential, but in reality, no dough - no show.
Why are they trying to hide the obvious possibility that it was ICE and not foam insulation that broke off and hit the left wing of STS-107?
o st s?page=1464
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/835531/p
Foam insulation is light and fluffy and reddish-orange. Ice is white and collects quickly on the outside of cryogenic containers, and near the leading edges of aircraft, and can be hard and heavy enough to knock a few ceramic tiles off when moving at supersonic speeds. These are not stupid people in charge of this investigation. So why are they so slow to make this disclosure?
The US needs to separate their manned space activities from cargo delivery. Sure, we can use the current design for a while more, but it would make more economic sense to stop driving an 18-wheeler to the supermarket. What we need is a toyota.
What I mean is that we need a smaller, manned spaceplane and a larger, heavy-lift system which can carry the spaceplane as an addition to a medium-size payload.
What I propose is to have a system where 8 SRBs launch two shuttle main tank assemblies. One filled with fuel, with a rocket motor on the ass end. The other can be filled with cargo. Some of the things we need to launch are not so much HEAVY as they are bulky. A good example would be an inflatable habitation module for lunar or ISS use. Not particularly heavy, but it's bulky.
The shuttle spaceplane should be much smaller and lighter. For operations requiring extravehicular manipulation of cargo, the shuttle and heavy lift system could simply dock in orbit. An added benefit could be that we build a spaceplane that can dock with a fuel tank in orbit and head off to the moon. We really should be building there instead of in low earth orbit. There are building materials on the moon, and none in the vacuum of space. The moon doesn't need energy to maintain orbit, and we can safely park a nuclear reactor there without worrying about reentry. That power can be used for excavation. This way we don't have to bring our entire living quarters with us. We can make cement structures on the moon instead. It seems very reasonable to do this instead of all this mars crap.
This just doesn't seem like good engineering. The traditional Apollo/Soyuz reentry vehicles had few if any of those risk factors. Compare what happened to Columbia with what happened to Soyuz 5: the reentry module failed to separate from the service module and entered into the atmosphere backwards. But when the service module had burned off, the reentry module righted itself (just because of its weight distribution--that's what it was designed to do) and Volynov landed and survived. Those reentry vehicles require no electronics and no flight control. The only thing that needs to happen is that the parachutes open some time before the capsule hits the ground. I think I'd have a bit more confidence in something like a Soyuz reentry vehicle than in the shuttle. And they are probably a lot cheaper, too.
I recently saw an analysis of the space station that said most of the time spent by the ISS crew was dedicated to station maintenance and NASA's own research (how people work and live in space). Only about 15 man-hours of non-NASA research is conducted each week. Of that, Russia directs half and the US directs the other half.
So let's face it, NASA is unable to do real space exploration and instead is running an unreliable shuttle service to an incredibly expensive 7.5 man-hr/wk research facility. We have to make a choice. We can either continue to pour money down this hole or we can scrap it altogether and reset our priorities to fit whatever money we want to spend on truly worthwhile projects.
Unrelated to the news at hand....
I heard in the news that some 1,500 + parts have been recovered. Are there any estimates as to what percentage of the space shuttle this might comprise? It would be interesting to see how much of the shuttle they expect to recover and wether or not the amount recovered so far might help to elimitate other theories.
Did you even read what I said?
It is possible for the astronauts to hand-fly the reentry sequence. Joe Engle did it on STS-2 (due to incorrect drag parameters for the flight control system). So if a new reentry profile could be designed, it could be used. ALSO, I think the OPS programs that do the actual reentry have numerous parameters that can be modified in orbit.
Heating on the wings is even when the vehicle is banked, eh? The fuselage of the vehicle produces no shielding of the "up" wing when atmospheric density is so low? Not to mention that spending more time at bank means that you descend quicker. THere's also "skip" trajectories like many of the Apollo missions flew (these provide two very short windows of extreme heating, as compared to the "moderate" heating of a normal re-entry)Obviously the re-entry profile that is flown affects the degree of stress the orbiter goes through. Are you saying it's impossible to design a reentry profile with different stress characteristics? I'm not sure what profile/loading on the vehicle is ideal for the damage the shuttle suffered (for we don't even know what that damage is), but thermal, mechanical stress, and aerodynamic simulations could establish that.
Shuttle managers said that if they were willing to skip testing, they could have a shuttle in orbit 2 weeks of having it on the pad. Atlantis's prep was finished. The critical thing is the ability to get rid of CO2. Humans produce -much- less CO2 when at rest. Thinking about stretching mission time by 50-75% is not out of the question. You'd have to do EVA to shuttle people between shuttles.
Opening the door does NOT depressurize the entire space shuttle. The lab that was in the cargo bay had provisions to just depressurize the lab to do an emergenecy EVA. Keep in mind that valuable weight is spent on every shuttle mission to be able to manually close the payload bay doors if they stick open.
THe thing is, all of this stuff I'm describing is extremely hazardous stuff, especially to try and pull off in two weeks without practice ahead of time. But if you know you've got no other choice, and that the vehicle is almost certainly lost-- you might want to try something like this.
So, the US pours tons more money into their program, and gets the same amount of research time as the underfunded Russians. Hmm...
Here's my proposal: shut down NASA altogether, then take all the money we were using to fund it, and send it to Russia instead. Obviously, they'll make far more effective use of the money than we will.
If you think about it, that means the shuttle is an even worse deal than usually assumed. Lifting mass into orbit is hugely expensive. First, we spend all that money lifting the huge mass of the shuttle itself into space, and then we bring it all back again? Imagine if every shuttle launch had left a carefully designed, multi-purpose transport vehicle and container of the size of the shuttle in space and returned the astronauts via a Soyuz-like capsule--the ISS could have been completed long ago from those vehicles and transport containers.
The more one thinks about it, the more wasteful and bizarre the shuttle program becomes.
How so?
First thing is they did not have the docking equipment to dock with another craft (shuttle or otherwise)... and they only had 2 EVA suits onboard...which would have required an almost impossible minimum of 4 EVAs...but assuming that, against all odds, they could do the impossible and get all 7 members safely aboard, you have the logistics problems to consider...
The Soyuz needs 2 ppl (1 if safety is thrown to the wind) to launch...it can only take 3 back with it...which means they would need to put up at least 4 Soyuz capsules to get all 7 back...and this is if they had 4 of them ready to launch...which they don't...
Atlantis could be ready in ~2 weeks if safety checks were thrown out...they'd have to prep the crew (2 man launch crew is the absolute minimum)...and make modifications to carry 9 crew members...
This mission wasn't scheduled to dock with the ISS...so aside from not having the docking kit, it was not aligned correctly...which also means it would not have had enough fuel to get to the ISS...
So, assuming that you didn't lose any astronauts in this amazing feat...you would also have to explain to the American taxpayers why you had to spend billions of dollars, risk many lives, and leave a billion dollar piece of equipment to burn up in orbit because of a "possible" risk...
Also remember that the crew only had enough supplies to last them until the 5th of February (4 days from when it burned up)...the problem was that there are not enough CO2 scrubbing canisters...Now, they only use up a portion of all of the canisters, so if they dug the old ones out of the trash and went to the threshold of pain for each one, they could maybe have made that last for a maximum of 7 days...
I have to stress that I do not agree with the original poster. I think the astronauts knew the risks as well, but I don't think they were somehow going on knowing that they would burn up on reentry...they would have listened to the engineers who were telling them that it didn't prove any significant risk to the success of the mission...while all of the astronauts were extremely smart human beings, they are only trained in what they need to know...they are not going to be second guessing the decisions of the ground crew...
>>Either that or the shuttle was shot down by an Al Quaida operated railgun lent to Osama by Saddam and fired from Cuba! (those railguns have long range you know).
;)
Actually Osama was taught how to build railguns by the CIA.
Saddam has railguns too but those were bought from the Brits.
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
What wonders me most is not the talk about foam damaging a wing(thats so unbelieveable to me ... I wait some years before I consider to believe that) ... what wonders me is: it seems there was no man with a space suit on board who had the ability to go outside and examine the space shuttle in orbit. Right?
... I simply start to believe that NASA and even the pilots and commanders get realy uncautious. Obviously there is no safty margin at all.
... especialy if you consider the lost lives wich could have been saved easy.
... or a robot wich is able to walk on the surface of the craft?
... very sad.
If that is the case
I mean, why do we have an ISS? I would say to be able to stay there for some days if reentrance is to dangerous.
Why do we have EVA capabilities? To get out and investigate, I would say.
Obviously even that was to expensive, no person with the knowledge or training was on board, no one went outside and looked how server the space craft was damaged.
Wouldnd it make far more sense to drop one scientist and have an EVA specialist on board, allways? The extra weight for an additional suit can't be that much IMHO
Further more, why is the robotic arm of the cargobay not able to examine the outise with a simple camara, probably thats even easyer
I think the whole responisbility chain is run by idiots. A simple SF author would come up with 20s of scenarios how to react more proper in such a situation than the NASA did
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.