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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..."
Find problem, examine problem, fix problem, learn from problem, push forward. Sure worked (and still does) for trains, planes, and automobiles...
SecondPageMedia - Wha
I haven't been following this closely, but why would NASA want the public to believe in a non-foam-related cause, rather than a foam-related one?
I'd share your cynicism if they were saying, "It wasn't foam, it was Saddam!" But given a failure, why would the foam collision be worth burying in favor of something else?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You know, it's quite easy to call the race after it's over. However, there are a whole lotta parts on a space shuttle that could lead to potential disaster, and all in all, I think reasonable precautions are being taken. Yes, you can't put a price on human lives, however, there's an associated risk with driving, flying, and launching into outer space, and I think reasonable precautions have been met. I find none of what happened to be neglegent or careless. That's just my $0.02 for what it's worth.
what would the astronauts want? would they want you to stop exploring space because of them? they knew the risks of exploration, and took them. and let's face it, with NASA down, down comes the ISS, which signifies the unity of the human race dedicated to one cause. don't dishonor the memory of all astronauts by going under.
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?
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Is here: http://www.io.com/~o_m/home.html
Excellent work by this guy. No irrational conspiracy theories, no useless speculation, no NASA asskissing.
Sorry if it's a dupe.
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.
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.
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.
Note that I didn't make any particular value judgment, per se. I was simply stating facts that make it difficult or impossible for NASA to operate under what would be called "normal" circumstances. They are not truly a scientific or engineering firm. They are a political agency with all the faults thereof, which just happens to be in charge of building things that go "Whooosh" into the sky.
Certainly up to this point what they have accomplished would have been simply impossible otherwise. It would be like asking some ancient Egyptians to get together and build a pyramid in their back yard.
However, even a cursory examination of the history of the whole shuttle project will reveal it to be a purely political affair.
Apollo and its forbears may have had politics as their genesis, but then, at least for a time, the politics dictated that the politicians get the hell out of the way and let the engineers get the job done.
That time has long since passed, whether public perception has caught up with the times or not.
KFG
Aviation Week and Space Technology (which doesn't have a free web site, alas) reports this week that Columbia has had a problem in a few of its flights with a premature transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The Shuttle reentry profile nominally has the airflow under the wing transitioning to turbulent flow around Mach 9, but on a recent Columbia flight it happened much sooner, around Mach 19.
Turbulent flow mixes the air near the surface much more, causing far greater transfer of heat to the Shuttle. There was some 'slumping' of tiles in that previous flight, temperatures reached ~2000 degrees, right at the limit of what the tiles can take.
This happens because Columbia's wing was far less smooth than the other (remaining) orbiters.
If there was significant roughness added by the foam/ice/whatever gouging the wing, that would increase the heating even more.
Another problem they were concerned with was an asymmetric transition to turbulent flow, which would cause the drag on one wing to be higher than the other, yawing the shuttle -- but it seems that there is more than enough control authority in the elevons and RCS system to counteract that if it happens.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
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.
We're just one step away from conspiracy theory time here, folks, and I don't like it. I posted at the start of this whole thing several weeks ago that I thought the foam theory was a red herring, several of you argued with me and the next day NASA all but ruled it out. I suppose it's human nature - the foam theory is the simplest explanation (even if it doesn't make logical sense) and it's one that we can visually see with our own layman eyes (we've all seen the video of the foam hitting the wing).
The problem is the truth is almost never that simple when it comes to accidents involving complex and highly redundant systems. NASA is obviously having a hard time believing a 2 foot, 2 pound piece of foam could bring down such a technologically advanced piece of engineering (and yes, it was technologically advanced - much of Columbia's heat shielding, including the leading edges of the wings, was replaced with state of the art materials in 1999). I am having a hard time believing it too.
Anyone who has ever read a major aircraft disaster report from the NTSB knows that it is almost always a series of highly implausible events that conspire to cause disaster. Any one of these events would be remote; the chances of them coming together in the way they did would be almost impossible (but not completely impossible). This is the way it almost always is. We know that several shuttles - including Columbia - have been hit in their wings by launch debris in the past and suffered no ill effects. Why do we all suddenly want to believe that same debris brought the shuttle down this time? I don't believe it.
I do believe it could be part of the answer, though not the full answer. I believe it's possible (and I'm sure NASA's looking into this, among other things) that the foam hit was the first in a series of problems that compounded upon each other to eventually cause disaster. If it hit in exactly the correct (or incorrect) spot, where a fault already existed, then that's a different story. I know NASA's looking at the procedures used in the Columbia's last overhaul, for example (it's flown only once since then). In that case, the foam hit wouldn't be the cause of the accident - the faulty overhaul of the heat shielding would be. But NASA's looking at a lot of things, and I'm just speculating here, like all the rest of us.
The point is, NASA is an organization of scientists. They wouldn't know how to spin if they tried. They're looking at things analytically and none of their computer models are telling them that the foam by itself could bring the shuttle down. Who are you to argue with them? You'd think on this site, of all places, people would understand that scientists don't go rushing and jumping to conclusions - they examine all the possibilities and analyze everything very methodically. It has nothing to do with what they do or don't "want us to believe". I'm sure if they weren't so focused on their job at hand right now they'd be laughing at what so many of us apparently want to believe, whether or not there's actually any evidence to support our "theory".
Soon after the accident, some people were correcting news casters that this would was not accident, but, like the Challenger, a failure of process. The media has been harking on certain reports that long ago reported the danger of certain tile damage. There are likely many reports on many of the shuttle systems that vulnerable under certain circumstances. Unlike many place, NASA does not hide it's head in the sand. It actively looks for problems and tries to solve them, if necessary. If the process works this makes the space travel safer. When the process does not work, as in Challenger, people die.
I have no doubt that whatever the cause of the accident, some report exists somewhere detailing the scenario. That does not necessarily mean NASA was negligent, just that NASA is thorough. Space travel is dangerous and as much as they might try, the process cannot be made so perfect as to catch and solve every problem. As many people have already said, you solve identify the problem, figure out the best way to solve it, and move on.
I would like to add one personal note. In my experience NASA is very focused on identifying problems, solving problems, and moving on. The step they don't do, and the step that many firms would do well to leave out the process, is the scape goating. It is as waste of time. In some companies in which I have work, fully half the time is spent figuring out how to blame other people for your fuck ups, and then participating in the ensuing punishment. It is inefficient and does nothing to create better products.
And one more thing. Under the the rules of the Clinton administration, all government agencies were required to do al they could to release documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Bush administration, John Ashcroft has request the agencies do all they can NOT to release document requested under the FOIA. The implication of this is that the rapid release of document requested from NASA under the FOIA is totally voluntary. If they wanted to hide thing, Ashcroft has given them permission to do so.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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 its 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.
(I really don't see why 10+ paragraphs worth of stuff would ever be formatted is one giant blob. That this was modded up was incredible -- I know I can't read a 50 sentence blob!)
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
At no point has NASA or any investigator come out and said that it was "'X' that caused the shuttle to break up." If anything, they've been imploring to the press not to jump to any conclusions. The easy answer would be to say, "Gee, it was an ice-engorged chunk of foam that struck the wing and broke the tiles off that caused this terribly accident."
The problem is, the foam is the most obvious candidate for causing the damage. But what if it wasn't? What if it was actually a fuel line that cracked open, began to burn -- hydrazine's value to the space program is that it can burn in a vacuum -- maybe it burned a hole from the inside out, allowing plasma from the rentry to get into the wing. What if it was actually a piece of space debris that struck the shuttle? We almost lost a crew a few years ago when a paint chip almost penetrated through one of the windows.
We just don't know, If they say it was the foam and it was actually something else, then the actual problem will not get fixed, and we will lose more astronauts.
The answers aren't going to come instantly. It is going to take a long time. It can take experts a couple of years to figure out what made an airplane come down, in spite of the fact that usually with a plane crash, the debris is in one small area. The shuttle debris is scattered over several states. The further west a piece is, the more likely it is going to shed light on what happened. The first pieces to come off are the most critical.
The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed. It's a testiment to how NASA does things that we haven't lost more astronauts. They accept this risk, because the work they do does eventually help everyone else in one way or another. They feel that this is worth the risk, to do what they can to help other people.
Will we stop going to space? Hell no! Even if the government gives up, people won't. How many people have died over the centuries when sailing ships explored the oceans? How many Polynesians sailed away from their home islands to colonize somewhere else, never to see dry land again? We have a pretty good idea how many Spanish galleons were lost in the Carribean. With a crew of upwards of 400, one ship resulted in a lot of lives lost.
None of that stopped us. Losing Challenger didn't stop us. Losing Columbia won't either. But it clearly serves as a terrible wakeup call that we missed something, and a sad reminder that spaceflight is not without risks.
So before you cry 'foul' and 'coverup,' give the people a chance to find out what happened to their friends.
Last -- what if they did know there was a problem? Do you think the crew would have wanted their friends and family knowing? Sitting there for the duration of the mission knowing their loved ones were doomed? I wouldn't want my family going through something like that. I'd rather put on a brave face, do everything I can to finish my work and life in some meaningful fashion, and then face destiny without making them suffer.
Sorry about the sermon...
Whew! This water sure is cold!
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.
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.
I did my own this animation of the shuttle sensor data found on the NASA page here. I have a /. journal entry for it here.
My, admittedly amateur, conclusion is that one of the carbon shields located on the front of the wing (right ahead of the wheel well) failed for some reason. Check out the animation page to see why I say this.
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
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.
I want NASA's budget cut because they have failed to provide a ship that meets the original design parameters.
Yeah, if we just get rid of all their mechanical engineers, I'll bet they could build much more reliable shuttles!
Most notably the shuttle's turn around time and payload size. Both of which were cut way back from the original goals.
Yeah. Bastards. NASA is the only organization that doesn't meet initial estimates. Unlike, say, software companies.
No one else *builds* shuttles, you know? It's a little bit hard to *make* accurate estimates. If they simply underestimated everything, would *that* make you happy?
NASA in my opinion is mishandling our money. This has been my opinion for almost 20 years. Two shuttle accidents just prove my point.
You're cranky because of an accident a *decade*? Hell, Ford would *kill* for that kind of record, and they have a *much* easier task to do.
Ignoring for the moment the lives lost: If this had been a normal rocket we had lost then we would not have lost so much money.
The lives lost are essentially irrelevant. Maybe in a couple of hundred million years of shuttle flights, it'll measure up to some of the *other* things that we've done, like WWII or Vietnam. Why do you think they used only military personnel on the shuttle for years and years?
As for being a normal rocket and cost -- sure, it would have cost less. OTOH, the cost *per flight* would have been higher, because the vehicle wouldn't be reusable. There's a *reason* they built the shuttle, laddie buck.
If the shuttle flights were occurring more often then it would have been comparable with loosing say an airliner. Annoying but within expectations. The number of flights would pay for a shuttle loss quicker, maybe enough to be factored into the costs. As it is we have lost a very expensive craft used for very rare missions. 5-6 launches a year is a sorry waste of my tax money for a system designed as if it was running 50 times a year.
Had you been less ignorant about what you were talking about, you'd be aware that the reason shuttle flights were cut so far back from original design parameters is *because* NASA had their funding cut so much since the moon landings.
This is pork barrel spending at it worst hiding behind science and patriotism.
Yeah! We could *obviously* put the money into pursuits *far* more productive for the human race, like blowing up Iraqis! Are you stupid?
May we never see th
Richard Feynman once observed that he had seen NO science come out of the shuttle program - he was not aware of any articles resulting from shuttle research that were published in peer-reviewed journals.
How the heck did this ignorant A/C post get modded up to 5? NASA already has a big piece of the left wing, see here.
What they can learn from it, and what they will admit after they do are different issues, but moding someone up to 5 when they shoot their mouth off as an A/C and claim that something can't happen when it's well known that it already has doesn't make much sense.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The US won't have a real space program as long as NASA has any control over it. Real spacecraft will not be invented by a massive US govenment program any more than any other transportation system has been.
Government programs did not make the first aircraft, automobiles, locomotives, steamships (or sailing ships for that matter). Why should the first true spacecraft be any different? It does not take any more fuel to get a pound into orbit than it takes to fly a pound from the US to Australia. (yeah, airliners don't carry oxidizer - but bear with me).
The SSTO (X-whatever) that got funded and then killed was a damnable con job. It would be like Curtis Aviation promising to build a supersonic jumbo jet capable of flying 12,000 km at MACH 6 without refueling.
In 1908.
NASA does not "get" the idea of manned spaceflight. They "get" 20,000 jobs to keep some 20 year old experimental spacecraft flying at a cost of about 1 billion dollars per flight. Experimental spacecraft that were designed by political committes ten years earlier. Experimental spacecraft that the designers promised would be orders of magnitude cheaper to operate than the Saturn V (1970 cost to launch a Saturn was around 100 million). An experimental spacecraft that would be re-uasable. Well the solid fuel boosters cost more to recover and refurbish than paying for new ones each time. And the Orbiter itself has a tendency to be pretty well rebuilt between flights. (Maintenance and upgrades)
We still need the orbital equivalent of the Wright Flyer. Then data from that design can be used in developing newer, better designs. What is not needed is "the most complicated machine ever built" (NASA's favorite way of describing the Shuttle)
But don't fret about Mankind's destiny among the stars - there are other countries besides the US that have space programs. Once the US government realizes that lack of a real space program with cheap access to space means condemning the USA to a role in international affairs somewhat less prestigious than what France now enjoys, there will be a new Space Race - one that won't be looking to an organization whose greatest claim to fame now is that they once sent some powdered orange drink to the Moon. (Ok, I know that Tang never made it to the Moon, but hte makers of Tang claimed it did)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
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.