Entire NASA Safety Board Resigns

identity0 writes "All nine members and two consultants of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel have resigned today, reports CNN. The Panel was responsible for advising NASA on the safety of its spacecraft and facilities, and was set up in 1967 following the Apollo 1 fire. Recently, it had been criticized by the Congressional investigation into the Columbia accident. Here is the NASA press release, and the official home page of the ASAP."

Comments

Re:Hmmm

[fireduck]

I see it the other way.

Their resigning makes the statement that "we failed in our mission. we take responsibility. we're now going to step aside so that you can implement new policies with a new safety board."

Re:NASA: "Need Another Seven Astronauts"

[applemasker]

No one knew about the foam impact in realtime during the shuttle's 8-minute ascent seqeuence. It wasn't seen until the next day when engineers were reviewing post-launch film. At that point, the shuttle was in orbit. There was no data available at the time of ascent (though some was later found in the form of sensor readings from the left wing that suggested the foam strike) warranting an abort.

Second, Columbia had two EVA suits onboard as all shuttles do. The suits are a moot point unless you can get another shuttle up there in time.

As pointed out in the CAIB report, if NASA had concluded early in the mission that Columbia was mortally damaged, there was a possibility that Atlantis (which had already been mated to its ET/SRB stack in anticipation of an upcoming mission) could be launched before consumables aboard Columbia ran out. Once in proximity, the Columbia crew, using the two EVA suits and others brought by Atlantis, could have been transferred to Atlantis. Columbia would have (presumably) been de-orbited ito the ocean or brought down on autopilot (unlikely).

Also as CAIB noted, there was PLENTY that could have been done, aside from as one engineer said, "crossing our fingers and hoping for the best." None of it was ever done, however, becuase NASA managers failed to appreciate the possibility of damage to the thermal protection system. Even if it was detected and Atlantis couldn't be launched in time, there were ideas to stuff all sorts of junk (like water-filled bags which would freeze prior to reentry) into the breach in an attempt to fortify the structure just enough to allow for re-entry and bailout (the shuttle needs to be subsonic and in level flight for bailout), even if a landing would be impossible.

As it is, the wing held together (rather impressively) through most of re-entry and the computers worked like mad to compensate for the asymmetrical drag. Eventually, however, the wing's deformity induced yaw forces that the control surfaces and steering rockets could not compensate for - when Columbia lost this tug of war, the left wing dropped, the nose swung hard to the left (relative to the path of travel) in a "skid" -all adding up to a very bad day at hypersonic speeds.

To say that there was "nothing" NASA could have done (had they appreciated the extent of the damage) is just not true.