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Shuttle Data Recorder May be Key to Accident
DreamerFi writes "A flight data recorder from the space shuttle Columbia, recovered last week in East Texas, contains readings that continue 14 seconds later than any previously studied data. Those readings are likely to play a crucial role in determining the cause of the shuttle's catastrophic breakup on Feb. 1."
Now hopefully after we know the cause, manned spaceflights can continue
Good thing they didn't use DVD-Rs or <cough> Windows Media Player...
Yeah, right.
A helicopter crashed today, while search for debris. these kinds of accidents slow down the search process, and delay the investigation, which impacts the schedule of futre flights.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
They weren't searching for the recorder, they just stumbled on it. No, they were out at Hemphill, TX for other reasons.... :D
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Shuttle Data Recorder May be Key to Accident
;)
I somehow doubt that the data recorded caused the shuttle accident. Perhaps they mean to say "finding the CAUSE of the accident"?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
In other news: Water Suspected to be Wet
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
It's great that they found the recorder, but I hope nobody is surprised that it will be useful!
'ta
This is an "Ask Slashdot" that I submitted a few weeks back.
Can't seem to find the article that I quoted from when I submitted this to Slashdot, will see if I can dig up...
'Under the conditions of a normal return to earth, the shuttle flies on autopilot until it is traveling more slowly than the speed of sound. But pilots train to take the shuttle all the way down in case the autopilot malfunctions, and so it is possible one of the pilots was trying to take control of the yawing craft in its final moments. 'It is relatively easy for the autopilot to be turned off by accident, which in fact happened just minutes before the problems with the Columbia started to become apparent. In the recovered segment of flight deck video of the waning minutes of the flight released by NASA, Colonel Husband is heard to exclaim, "Oh, shoot," and to tell mission control that "we bumped the stick earlier," briefly disengaging the autopilot. He quickly and calmly corrected the error'
What this all leads me to is this, and I have not seen this suggested in anything I have read as an important concern: Is it possible that this accidental disengaging of the autopilot CONTRIBUTED to the loss of the Shuttle? Although the pilots are trained to fly the Shuttle without the Autopilot, if they were unaware that it was turned off then the "minute" adjustments that either one would make would be missed. All accounts I have seen suggest that the slightest details on the approach make HUGE differences in the results. Add to this the fact that it has been reported that the Autopilot, when on, was acting to correct the flight path anomalies caused by the damage outside. If the autopilot is off, then what other consequences were being experienced?
Is it possible that this with the likely outside damage and other factors may have COMBINED have caused the loss of the Shuttle where any issue ALONE would have not? With all the speculation I have seen in the media, I am not sure this is any less of a possibility...
BTW, I personally am not trying to lay blame on the astronauts themselves. Much like a Cruise Control that starts to mysteriously disengage on a vehicle, I would not be surprised if the Autopilot may have "sensed" a disengage as simple as moving the stick, and the pilots assumed that one of them must have done it."
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
When the shuttle broke up, people like myself asked about a black box and were told "there is no such device due to the near impossibility of the device to re-enter the atmosphere." Nw all of a sudden there IS a box. Why were we mislead?
Shuttle Data Recorder May be Key to Accident
Well, the solution is simple -- remove the data recorder from the remaining shuttles, and *presto* exploding shuttle problem solved.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
It's time for us to move beyond the space shuttle for our regular space missions and develop something that works a lot better, a lot cheaper, and a lot more exciting. The shuttle, unfortunately, is necessary at this point to finish the ISS *cough*WASTEOFMONEY*cough* but it's not too late to go to the drawing board and develop a space vehicle (preferably with long-range capabilities) that does not involve getting off the ground by blasting itself off the ground with hundreds of pounds of fuel.
-Evan
You might want to read this.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
How much drastically could this tape change the reconstruction of the problem that is already done. There are even timelines of how things happened, when the problem started, what sensors stopped to report, and almost all that happened till it was too late. Thit last 14 extra seconds will only show the last parts of destruction, but should not change what is already know about what happened, what caused all, and most of how it propagates in the ship.
I'm indeed no rocket scientist, but, why not have live, continuous transmittal of those very data by radio etc?
I'm sure there is a reason, but it does not make sense in cases like these. Cyberterroism? Military reasons? Whatever, black boxes do not stand everything.
The last bit of information on the recorder could be this.
"You idiot! You pressed the wrong button!!!"
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
Might even support it:
"Stay on target. Stay on target..."
strange heavy breathing
mysterious beam
recording ends
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
Shuttle Data Recorder May be Key to Accident
...and in other news, the pope is catholic. Brilliant headline.
This is really a great find, and an unintended one at that. Shuttles don't carry "black box" flight data recorders like commercial aircraft do. A data recorder, while useful in an accident, was thought unlikely to survive re-entry in a catastrophic event.
Why, then, does Columbia have the OEX recorder? Simple - Columbia was one of the first Shuttles to fly to orbit, and the engineers at NASA wanted a data recorder on board so they could examine and validate some characteristics of the vehicle design.
The OEX recorder contains far more information than a simple "black box". Finding it, intact, will greatly aid the understanding of what went wrong, and hopefully lead to increased safety on future Shuttle flights. Perhaps, something similar to the OEX recorder will be integrated into the other Shuttles, since it looks like a data recorder can survive re-entry.
---------------
Vpered na Mars!
Has there ever been any real news publised at that site (Commondreams)? It all looks like made up FUD stories and conspiracy theories.
It claims to be a reprint of an article by the Chronicle, which is at least a reputable news source. I suppose you could do some research on the names in the article and see what came up.
Commondreams do run some questionable stories, yes, but this one has actually featured in respectable media as well. I just picked the first link I could find.
If you think this theory is "out there," believe me, you haven't seen shit.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
During one of the original news conferences, a reporter asked if there was a black box, similar to those on aircraft. He was told no because NASA did not believe that they could design a black box that could survive a shuttle disaster. Did NASA lie? No, they told the truth, there are no black boxes designed to withstand a shuttle disaster.
mini shuttle?
I think the design of the 'box' is more compact than the shuttle...and therefor can take the impact better.
I found two books on the subject
flight data recorder
... hands-on.
...
Nobody has done it except for the first crew. If I remember correctly, the first Shuttle pilot (dunno his name, some ex-Navy pilot) attempted to manually guide the Shuttle during its landing approach, and did so for a few minutes only to give up and let the auto-pilot take over, mid-way through.
I could have this story wrong (hey, it happens) but I do remember that there's little reason - other than extreme catastrophic failure of onboard systems - for a Shuttle pilot to attempt to override the autopilot. Such catastrophic failures of the onboard systems would definitely have been detected by NASA on the ground previously
So, I'd say, there's little chance that an autopilot-override was performed by the crew which lead to the failure.
But then, I dunno. I get most of my understanding of the Shuttle landing procedure from the X-Plane sim, which makes it very clear that it's extremely difficult for a human being to land the Shuttle...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'll bite....
Because it would be TOO FRICKIN HEAVY!
Look. Airplanes are mostly thin-walled hollow tubes of aluminum with some structural bracing.
A flight data recorder can be made with walls an inch thick, and the overall size isn't all that big.
If you made a plane with proportionately thick walls, you wouldn't have to worry about it breaking up in a crash. Of course, it also wouldn't be able to get off the ground....
In an e-mail exchange, Oberg said there have been various reports about glitches or "funnies" that might have been occurring aboard Columbia even before the spaceship crossed the California coastline.
Also, I was hoping this report had some insight as to what was on the additional seconds of data that was recovered. I supposed I shouldn't expect tech details on msnbc.com.
Ok mod me down now - I'm just complaining anyway ...
Husband reporting to mission control that "we bumped the stick earlier" suggests an autopilot disengage on pilot input.
Although I don't know, it would seem reasonable that the shuttle's autopilot could be disengaged like this (much like any other aircraft). If during short-final, the pilot decides that the autopilot is leading the shuttle off the approach, a simple grab of the stick for control would seem the safest override method.
Does anyone know any more on this? - Does the shuttle allow pilot-input overrides?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I THINK you are reinforcing my point somewhat, though I am not sure if you meant to or not.
Yes, there is little reason for the crew to try to land the Shuttle. But if you look at the link I have included and IF I could find the original link you would see that for WHATEVER reason, the autopilot WAS turned off.
AND it is clear this has happened before and that apparently all it takes to occur is the stick getting "bumped" or some other minor detail
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Oh that blackbox WM for *nix. I always knew there was something powerful about it.
They had no means to repair the damage, and insufficient life support to wait in space for a repair mission to be sent. They chose to try landing a damaged shuttle (which enginners said would probably be OK anyway) instead of suffocating in orbit. What would you have done?
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
This being Slashdot, there's a lot of people talking about things they know nothing about, and acting like experts.
There's an excellent FAQ, that will clear up a lot of misconceptions, and hopefully shut up some of the ignorant pedants.
If you're afraid it's a hidden goatse link, here it is naked:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/home.html
Most astronauts are adrenaline junkies anyway, flying experimental jets, climbing mountains, sky diving, etc. Many cadets in the space program and military personnel wishing to join the space program when their duties are up die before they join NASA. We have lost less than 20 people total defying gravity, and I call that a wonderful sucess.
Click here or here.
HEADLINE ON SLASHDOT SHORT.
Headline on slashdot are shortened to lead you to a completely different meaning. That's real news information people.
Slashdot rumors for the lunix nerds.
"The device contains 9,400 feet of magnetic tape that permits up to two hours recording time. It was turned on 10 minutes before Columbia's Jan. 16 launch and then turned off about six minutes after the shuttle reached orbit.
The recorder was activated again 15 minutes before Columbia began its ill-fated, 45-minute plunge through the atmosphere.".
Is it possible that the impact of the foam on the left wing (or other launch time anomoly) was caught on tape?
The National Transportation Safety Board pulled investigators pulled people from the Flight 587 probe to help out on the Columbia investigation. NTSB Field Investigators, unfortunately, are experienced with finding the cause from many sometimes grisly pieces of data. :-)
They also know what to bring, what to do, where to go and what to ask. And of course, they known how to extract data from Flight Data Recorders Interestingly, the NTSB issued recommendations that Require retrofit after January 1, 2005, of all cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) [...] [be] fitted with an independent power source [...] that provides 10 minutes of operation whenever aircraft power to the recorder ceases. Just one of the things the NTSB fights the FAA over
But remember the "Black box" (OEX recorder) on the shuttle is very different from a CVR.
The data on the recorder may also give insight as to what did or did not happen on ascent, as it records the same sensor data during the climb to orbit. This could give insight as to how strong the foam impact was and where it hit on the wing.
Actually ...
I heard one of the pilots in the USAF with the most air time comment something like
"Landing is easy. Landing without dying is a bit more tricky. Landing without damage is tricker still."
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Transer crew to the ISS, and send up another shuttle full of air and repair/dismantle equipment. Throw it into orbit and if it can't be repaired, bring it down bits at a time for recyling in another shuttle. Or leave it up there for spare parts.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Sounds like someone was having fun with photoshop...
Q1: B
Q2: A
Columbia was not in an orbit anywhere near the ISS, they did not have sufficient fuel for the delta vee required to reach ISS orbit. I think you'll also find that columbia, being the oldest and heaviest orbiter would struggle to reach ISS from launch.
These were not valid options, the only possible option if they had known things were dire would be to try and extend the life support, and push forward the next shuttle flight, risking another shuttle and an untrained crew.
It was a joke. But you sound so smart explaining things.
Why dont they simply make aircraft out of the same material that they make flight recorders out of?
They dont make the interstates wide enough.
sig is broken try again tomorrow
well with an exposure time of 6 seconds, that "purple bolt" could be anything that flew across the view of the lens.
-- Insert wisdom here:
Having done some control theory work, I have mixed opinions on this.
We know that the shuttle wing suffered a catastrophic failure (as in it broke apart), and flight stability was lost. With a tail wing and one side wing, the shuttle should have gone into a corkscrew. Immediately, sensors onboard would have kicked in, saying "the current flight path is not desireable, adjust the flaps to stabilize". Well, the computer has no clue that half the flaps are gone, and nothing in the scenarios could have fixed the rolling. It is a case where the problem is beyond the scope of the software that controls the system. At that point, you can only hope that the ingenuity of the human mind would find the right solution -- in this case, it was beyond hope.
I recall reading that when the shuttle was originally designed, it assumed 100% computer control flight & had no cockpit, and adding the viewing glass added a multitude of structural weaknesses to the design. But the pilots wouldn't ride if they didn't have the option to drive... designs were changed, politics reigned, and we got what we have today.
On the flipside, you could argue that the complexity of the situation is beyond human reflexes, and instead we should allow the computers to fly all the time. This is the current setup, and it worked for every situation ever encountered to date. If NASA would just give up on the option for human-controlled flight, they would be able to scrap the cockpit, and design a shielded "passenger" bay instead. This would remove a lot of the material weaknesses, and it would allow more "common" scientists to travel in space, since it would remove that aspect of required training.
Would a shielded compartment have saved the crew? The forces involved are (pardon the pun) astronomical, and even had they survived, I doubt it. But, our country designs some amazing things, and it's only a matter of time before we discover the materials to make it happen.
I have confirmed that the Al-Jazeera tape, all twelve minutes of it, is merely an excerpt of the hour-long version being shown regularly in Egypt and elsewhere. The short version shows the interrogation of some U.S. soldiers and the defamed dead bodies of others. The longer version includes all that, plus the murders and later abuse and mutilation of the bodies. Apparently, the whole thing is out there on the internet. I don't want to watch it tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning, when the mind is fresher, more able to withstand it.
Nobody has done it except for the first crew.
STS-112
"Making his first hands-on landing, first-time shuttle commander Jeffrey Ashby took over manual control of the shuttle five minutes before touchdown as the spaceplane passed through 50,000 feet above the Florida spaceport. "
STS-93
"Update for 11:17 p.m. EDT
Commander Eileen Collins is taking manual control of Columbia. Three minutes to touchdown. The shuttle has gone sub-sonic. Twin sonic booms now being heard in the local area around Kennedy Space Center."
STS-113
"Following a computer-controlled plunge to a point about 50,000 feet above the Kennedy Space Center, commander James Wetherbee, making a record fifth descent as a shuttle skipper, took over manual control and guided the spaceplane to a breezy landing, reports CBS News Space Consultant William Harwood."
If I remember correctly, the first Shuttle pilot (dunno his name, some ex-Navy pilot)
Pilot, Robert Crippen, USN
Mission commander, John Young, USN
I get most of my understanding of the Shuttle landing procedure from the X-Plane sim, which makes it very clear that it's extremely difficult for a human being to land the Shuttle...
I would suspect that they have a leetle bit more training than you do.
Of coruse the recorder is going to be one of the keys to analyzing the accident. What, you thought a recording of its instruments and sensors during the moments right before breakup would be totally useless in the investigation?
In other news, the Warren Commission announced today that the Zapruder film will be "key to analyzing the assasination of JFK."
insufficient life support to wait in space for a repair mission to be sent.
Given that this was a 10 day flight, knowing the Shuttle is severly damaged 2 days into it gives a LOT of options.
Then, stretching out the rations (food, air, water), would give a lot more time.
With ~2 weeks notice, NASA could have accomplished a LOT more than with 30 seconds notice.
Could they have gotten a resupply from Promise? Maybe, maybe not.
Could they have (given 2 weeks time) sent up another Shuttle? Maybe, maybe not.
But I know you can't do anything with 30 seconds notice.
Why don't they just make the whole damn shuttle out of the stuff that the flight data recorder is made out of?
;)
Same with airplanes too.
http://almostsmart.com
"risking another shuttle and an untrained crew"
I'd hope that by now NASA wouls have enough poeple to put together an ad-hoc shuttle flight. True, it would take some time to get it to the lauch pad and everything set up, but by then the crew should be in place.
If NASA hasn't come up with such a simple contingentcy plan and crew by 2003, that too is negligence.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
It seems that the top 24" of the vertical stabilizer also houses an infrared camera system that takes a snapshot of the shuttles thermal image as looking forward. Its (was) called the "SILTS" pod. Its data went to one of the OEX recorders. A link here Http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts -newsref/sts-inst.html#sts-silts
describes its operation. I'd be very interested in what the data from it indicates.
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Sorry bout the double post but that link was'nt correct. This one should work. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shut ref/orbiter/comm/inst/silts.html
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
there's little reason - other than extreme catastrophic failure of onboard systems - for a Shuttle pilot to attempt to override the autopilot
So don't you think whatever happened to Columbia in the last few moments might fit into that "extreme catastrophic failure of onboard systems" prerequisite?
NO CARRIER
The IS department at a previous job couldn't create a backup tape that would maintain valid data moving it across the datacenter. (as discovered after a harddrive crash). NASA has a backup system that can survive re-entry in a disintegrating shuttle, fall 200,000 feet and STILL have most of the data intact?
Amazing.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
"Nobody has done it except for the first crew. If I remember correctly, the first Shuttle pilot (dunno his name, some ex-Navy pilot) attempted to manually guide the Shuttle during its landing approach, and did so for a few minutes only to give up and let the auto-pilot take over, mid-way through."
n go/shuttle.html
Not true. Almost every landing has been flown manually in the last stages when the shuttle reaches the landing site and slows to subsonic speeds. Every shuttle pilot flies hundreds of landings in an executive jet fitted with shuttle controls and HUD and modified to fly like a shuttle (aka like a brick) before they fly a shuttle for real. I can't find an official page, but here's one person's writeup of a flight in the STA: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/journals/aero/ri
AFAIR there has been one flight where the crew flew manually all the way down from orbit (one of the first half-dozen or so, I think Crippen was flying), and one flight which did a 'hands-off' landing. Otherwise every other flight has been flown by computer until it went subsonic, then taken over by the crew.
As for the accidental autopilot disengagement, no, it's extremely unlikely that it had anything to do with the burn-up.
Actually it will be the largest chunk of glass ever seen .\[
Looking for more to support your theory I found articles from USA Today, Time, and IOCOM.
USA Today also has a link to a very nice graphical representation of the sensor failures.
The Time article interestingly describes what the final moments may have been like on board for the astronauts. It appears there was another 2 Sec burst of data after contact was lost. Time states, "For 5 sec. after that, only computer data streamed down, and then all contact was lost. Finally, 25 sec. later, the ship crackled back online for just 2 sec., but the data packed into that brief burst told a chilling tale. According to the readings, the ship was in a flat, counterclockwise spin, moving at 20 per second, meaning it would complete a full rotation in 18 sec. Actually, Columbia was probably twirling faster than that, but 20 per second is as much as its systems could record, given that that's more than the ship could take. The data also suggest that Husband switched the spacecraft from autopilot to manual, evidently fighting to stabilize his spacecraft. There was no "Oh, shoot" this time."
IOCOM's FAQ is pack full of info. I have not had a chance to read it completely, but it does contain dialog that does mention "we bumped the stick earlier".
I have to agree with you that this may be one of the many things that when looked at alone would not have caused a catastrophic failure. I am very interested in what the final findings will be.
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
The next time you want to make a first post, you may want to consider the fact that your participial phrase is dangling. And as a result, you've made an error with your plurals.
A brief explanation: The phrase must refer to the grammatical subject. The grammatical subject of your sentence is your balls. They are what are being covered with duct tape. When you refer to ripping "it" off, you are accidentally referring to the grammatical subject -- your balls -- so you're saying something really awful and you're saying it incorrectly.
The final words heard on the tape: "Yeah? So what? I'm going to do it. They always say 'DON'T PUSH THE BIG RED BUTTON!' Well I'm pushing it! More than once too! What's the worst that can happen?" Seriously though, why don't they just make the whole shuttle out of a data recorder?
> I heard one of the pilots in the USAF with the most air time comment something like "Landing is easy. Landing without dying is a bit more tricky. Landing without damage is tricker still."
Someone also described it as "like flying a brick".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A bit of searching at the Cronicle's site turned up this link for the quoted story.
It appears to be directly quoted by commondreams, FWIW.
I'm curious about something -- If it's not an anomoly caused within the guy's camera, how come nobody else saw it? It's not like San Fran isn't populated.
--
In fact, nearly all the times the shuttle has flown, it has landed under manual control. The reentry is flown by computer, but the pilots take over about 5 minutes before touchdown. It's likely that the number of times a computer has flown the touchdown could be counted on one hand.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Oberg is a well-respected expert on spaceflight, and worked for NASA in the MCC for several years; I'm sure he was just talking down to a technically challenged reporter.
If the Black Box is oh so resilant why can't they make the whole shuttle out of it?
They KNOW the shuttle was damaged before re-entry.
No, they didn't.
They declined to have it properly inspected before re-entry.
They didn't have the *ability* to inspect it.
I'm no NASA expert
In that case, stop acting like one.
Ummm... those are all on final approach. I think that these overrides you're quoting occurred *much* later in the envelope than where the accident occurred.
...
I thought they were 20 minutes or so away from final when they lost contact?
What I'm referring to is the descent stage, prior to the point where full control surface energy allows 'gliding' to occur.
It's my understanding that the Shuttle broke up a fair ways *before* it would've been possible for the final approach, in the stage of the re-entry program whereby very *long* wide sweeps through the atmosphere are done to burn off enough delta-V for the control surfaces to start to take effect, so they're not *dropping* so fast any more. This is where the wing surfaces do the brunt of their work, dispelling heat energy as well as delta-v... no?
I know the CS" doesn't truly start to perform until *ground effect* kicks in... but I mean, weren't they at the point where it was mostly 'plummet for 15 minutes' and not 'glide for the last 5 minutes'
Thus, computer control over the re-entry.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I would suspect that they have a leetle bit more training than you do.
I would consider you stupid to not suspect this, and now think you're a bit of a dickhead for bothering to mention it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
At the point where Columbia was lost, the entry envelope was *DEFINITELY* under computer control.
... It was not 'done', and it has always been 'done' by computers.
At that point in the envelope, I believe only one human being has ever taken the stick, and he let auto-pilot take over. Columbia was doing it as planned: by computer.
Here, read the 8:49 a.m. section here:
Columbia was still going too fast, so at 8:49 a.m. it made the first of three planned sweeping S-curve maneuvers, banking first to the right and, later, to the left. These maneuvers extend the time the shuttle is in the atmosphere and can be slowed by friction.
The computer was still doing the flying, and that was supposed to continue until about three minutes before landing, when the astronauts would take computer-assisted manual control.
If something had gone wrong, said Rob Navias, a press officer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the astronauts could override the computers. It has never been done, and Hauck said it probably would not be done except in the most extreme circumstances, because computers can react more quickly than humans.
Word I have is that this S-curve maneuver has only had human hands involved with it *once*, and it was a quick default back to auto-pilot
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
... hands-on. Nobody has done it except for the first crew.
I beg to differ. In this movie, Lea Thompson did it manually without any problem.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
It was not 'done', and it has always been 'done' by computers.
:|
--
Ermm... except in this case of course.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Probably some camper with a railgun.
I have the IMAX film Hail Columbia. There is a scene at Edwards where they're doing a landing, and they've marked a very small (50ft or so) section of runway as the target zone for touchdown. The approach is very long (with an F-16 flying alongside, just for kicks) and the pilot lands the shuttle rear right smack in the middle of the target zone - an entirely perfect landing. I'm not saying it's easy, but the pilot was good enough to make it look easy, and there certainly wasn't any damage or death involved.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association, for you ground pounders) Pilot Magazine did an "aircraft review" article on the Shuttle orbiter a few years back. It described in great detail what it's like to "fly" the shuttle from orbit to earth.
The article writer "hand flew" the simulator from orbit to earth. It's not as bad as you might think. Anyone trained to fly an ILS approach (even a private pilot like me) would have very little difficulty with this. On the other hand, if you've never flown an ILS approach in real gooey weather, I can see why one might think this is "extremely difficult."
Anyhow, that's why astronauts train. Yes, if the autopilot is available, it's worth using; but it's not nearly as difficult to fly the re-entry profile as you make it out to be.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
Is it just me or does that thing seem to be in too good of shape considering what happened to it? It looks like an aluminum box, but it hasn't been dented at all? I'd think that thing would be trashed but the corners look like new.
"what do you mean there are risks?" ;)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yes they did. They had offers from the military to use satalites to inspect it. Why they did not just get out and look is beyond me.
I'm not acting like an expert, just someone who has been following this apearently a lot closer that you.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
For some of you that don't know. Nasa in it's brilliance concluded that they don't need black boxes because they can use radio telemetry instead and save some weight on the shuttle and get instant feedback.
Worked real well. Didn't it.
Re-entry is THE most dangerous events in the shuttles job !
By the way the shuttle system is old and was outdated years ago. We should be using an affordable multistaged rocket like the old days in space and what the russky's use.
Nasa = complete incompetence.
so this perosn claims to have had something, but then gave every piece of evidence away?
hhhmmm.... how convienant for a conspiracy site.
yes there was something, but they won't give us the picture back. its a ba ba baaaammmmm conspiracy. they don't want us to know. for no apparent reason.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well, if they'd used WMP, Microsoft would have a complete record of their data already. The hard part would be getting that data from them.
sic
They want their spectrum analyzer back...
Why they did not just get out and look is beyond me.
Hmmm, let's see:
- No spacesuits onboard
- No airlock
- No air in space
So sorry it's beyond you.
Nobody has done it except for the first crew.
No, every crew lands it by hand; none have landed on auto-pilot (although some of them probably should have).
Landing the shuttle by hand is not that hard. The GPC has some steering cues - a vertical and a horizontal needle that you keep centered within a corresponding pair of reticles. You steer the needles using the Rotational Hand Controller (RHC), which is kind of tricky to use because it doesn't pivot at the bottom like a joystick, but in the center. I landed the shuttle in the SMS (mission simulator) flying down from 10,000 ft - first time, too. Landing without the GPC-provided cues, like you have to do when the Backup system is running, is probably several orders of magnitude harder. I don't know whether the Commander lands using the steering cues, or without them, but I know they always take control. BTW, the one thing that the computer can't do, even when landing by autopilot, is to put the gear down. The Commander or Pilot has to do that.
when you get on an airplane, do you assume that if your aircraft is damaged, that united or american will be able to get a spare airplane to transfer the passengers and crew of the striken airliner to the rescue plane? no? is that because the airlines are negligent?
I mean failure of onboard flight control systems (computers) ...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
When an airplane is defective, they don't continue the flight until it is repaired. I've been on flights where they landed and made us switch planes because a problem was discovered. I would never expect them to finish the flight. If they did, and we crashed, then that's negligence.
So yes, I do expect that.
Furthermore, if we could transfer passengers in mid flight, I'd expect that too. But don't start comparing an atmosphereic docking to a space docking.
Knowing about a problem and doing nothing about it IS negligence.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I was under the impression that the Columbia disaster happened *ABOVE* 10,000 feet.
...
Way, way above, beyond the point where 'normal' (as normal for the Shuttle as can be, anyway) flight dynamics are actually in effect... the point where they're doing the S-Curves to burn off delta-v enough for the atmosphere to actually *get its grip* on the Shuttle body...
Fly the S-curves by stick, and then tell me it's something that *every crew* does by hand
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You're right, they fuck up far too much. I say let's just get rid of NASA all together. The more space exploration we do, the more people might die. Best to just not do it at all.
but it's not too late to go to the drawing board and develop a space vehicle (preferably with long-range capabilities) that does not involve getting off the ground by blasting itself off the ground with hundreds of pounds of fuel.
If you look at the standard rocket equation, you start with the payload. Then add the fuel and engines to carry the payload. Then add the fuel and engines to carry the fuel and engines to carry the payload and so on. Short of nuclear (flying nuke) or fusion based rocket (practicly impossible, we don't even have a working one on earth) the best we have for escaping earths gravity is chemical rockets. And even under the best of conditions, 80-90% of any chemical rocket will be fuel. Not because NASA is a big hog, but because of physics.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Remember back to Challenger? The whistle blowers about the o-rings got all the attention, movies, books, etc. They were right in their thinking that the launch should have been scrubbed. But, do you realize there has always been a group of scientists at NASA or supporting companies that have wanted to scrub every launch? There is always someone dooming and glooming about a failure that will kill everyone aboard. We only get to see these people when they are right. And, they are wrong more often.
Click here or here.
10. Transporter buffer patterns of Scotty, etc.
9. Outbound SPAM
8. MP3s
7. RIAA DOS attack
6. Freenet cache
5. Rejected slashdot submissions
4. Cell phone interferance
3. Full Circle Talkback Quality Feedback Agent
2. Blue screen of death
1. EBay outbid notice for ceramic tile
I'm curious as to why you didn't include this in your poll.I'm not sure if I should be offended.
I think this story might have already.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I don't know the inventory of the shuttle, but no spacesuits? Odd.
Airlock is easy though, that huge bay door on the back of the shuttle would suffice as an entrance/exit point.
I wonder if any of the travellers had any spacewalking experience.
Actually, they were seriously considering that as a cause. Electrical strikes on a space shuttle are a very real possibility. As the shuttle moves through the atmosphere at a high rate of speed, it creates a trail of ionized air. This causes a buildup of charge on the space shuttle that may reach a high enough level to essentially cause a large electric strike. This is the same type of thing that causes lightning. The irony is that Columbia photographed from space for the first time strange electrical phenomena above clouds. They're a lot stranger than lightning between the clouds and earth.
"Shuttle Data Recorder May be Key to Accident"
So the recorder did it? Man, I didn't see that coming. I guess that's more believable than the culprit being the shuttle's evil twin K.A.R.R.
In other news: Black boxes might be used to find the cause of plane crashes... :P
I imagine the real thing is a little harder than what you went through at Space Camp.
can suck on your penis?
please?
I was under the impression that the Columbia disaster happened *ABOVE* 10,000 feet
Yes, but the poster was talking about final approach and landing. CDR doesn't usually (if I remember correctly) take the stick until after the vehicle is subsonic.
We lost contant with Columbia at over 200,000 ft and something like Mach 16-18. It would have been flying under control of flight software.
--Jim
Let's see, at $10,000 a pound, you don't bring spacesuits unless you plan to go EVA.
An airlock has 2 doors (step into the lock, close the inside door, pump out the air, open the outside door) so the folk remaining in the vehicle don't have to suit up. The bay doors are not an airlock.
2 (I think -- certainly at least one) of the astronauts had spacewalk experience. But with no spacesuits and no airlock, this is irrelevant -- they could not step outside to look around.
The shuttle is designed for minimal shock (3g max on launch), so read/write head stability is not a problem. Once tape is written it is relatively invulnerable to electric fields (unlike most solid state media) and radiation (ditto). It also takes a hell of a lot of heat to erase tape; data are regularly recovered from hard drives that survive fires, even when the drive electronics are melted.
Finally, this recorder was an experimental device intended for fine-tuning the shuttle design; later orbiters weren't equipped with it. Exotic technologies weren't justified for a device that was not really envisioned as standard equipment. And in 1981, this kind of tape was state of the art.
Even deep-space probes of the era (such as Voyager) used tape to cache data locally because nothing similarly reliable with comparable storage capacity existed.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]