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Columbia's Final Minutes in Detail
grub writes "This article on Newsday has an excerpt from 'Comm Check... The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia,' by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood describing the last minutes of Columbia's final flight in detail."
While original reports used the term "plasma", there's a good explanation at space.com's Columbia FAQ that explains that the hot gas that entered the shuttle's wing was *not* "plasma", as defined by science:Not to be a science nazi, but there's an important distinction between sci-fi-sounding "plasma" and the mundane -- but still deadly -- "very hot gas".
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
...of the shuttle is just fascinating. Call me naive, but it truly is amazing that aeronautical/space engineering has progressed as far as it has. Not to revel in Columbia's destruction, but I'm suprised that we haven't had more accidents since Challenger.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
There's a memorial at Cape Canaveral with the names of ALL of the people who have died in our pursuit of outer space.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Above and beyond this article, if you can get your hands on the article on the Colombia tragedy which was published in Atlantic Monthly, do it. As always for Atlantic Monthly, easily the most intelligent commentary I've seen about the event, and a couple of closing sentences that will stay with me forever.
But this is a classic lack of communication problem, people voiced there concerns but they where shooshed away because of the "nah that won't happen" syndrom.. lets hope we all learn from this lesson.
moo
One of the crew members came to rest beside a country road near Hemphill. The remains were found by a 59-year-old chemical engineer and Vietnam veteran named Roger Coday, who called the sheriff and then watched from the porch of his mobile home as a funeral director drove by to collect them.
IIRC (if I read correctly) they were about 19 miles up when the fuselage broke apart... So this astronaut had about that far to fall before coming to rest on the ground.
I saw it over and over again on TV and thought, well, at least it was instant and there's nothing left... I was wrong and I now have deep sorrow for these individuals.
...it's an incredible piece, and very well written. One never understands such things until it is succinctly written out, and these authors did an amazing job.
libertarianswag.com
From the article: The survivability study concluded relatively modest design changes might enable future crews to survive long enough to bail out.
I'm not sure how the crew can survive by "bailing out" of a doomed orbiter during re-entry (take-off is another matter entirely). Once the orbiter drops below a certain speed, a return to orbit is impossible anda very hot descent is inevitable. This "bail out" logic sounds like surviving an elevator crash by stepping out at the first floor to me.
Unless the crew module can gracefully decelerate to less than hypersonic speeds, exiting the compartment is instant death.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It did say that once the astronauts hit the hypersonic air flow, they would have died instantly.
:-(
It doesn't make things any better to know that though.
Steve
IIRC (if I read correctly) they were about 19 miles up when the fuselage broke apart... So this astronaut had about that far to fall before coming to rest on the ground.
Karma me down, but I'm just amazed how quickly information about Columbia's last moments is filtering to the media (and the lack of relative umbrage from family and pundits).
In contrast, it took years for NASA to admit that, yes, the astronauts aboard Challenger were most likely aware during their final descent, but that information was quickly coupled with admonishment not to dwell on it, out of respect for the families of the astronauts.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
This article is kind of an intense read... I think it's important to remember these fallen heros, who gave their lives for the purpose of furthering our understanding of science.
Hats off to those brave souls.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. The folks at NASA could have seen this coming by listening to the engineers who wanted to get a closer look at the spots hit by the foam. The folks at NASA should have been watching for this type of situation if any attention had been paid to the follow up of the Challenger explosion.
It is simply not true that this tragedy was unavoidable and that there was no way to see this coming. The most complicated machine ever built was not knocked out of the sky by a pound and a half of foam. This was murder by management.
More than 25,000 searchers, who scoured a debris "footprint" that was 645 miles long, found 84,900 individual pieces, about 38 percent of the space shuttle.
Does this not make one wonder how much of the shuttle might still be "out there" waiting to be found, or perhaps sitting on display in someone's house? Granted, much of it would have been literally vaporized, however I think that would amount to far less than the remaining 62% of Columbia.
I heard on CNN that pages of Ilan Ramon's journal were found recently in Texas. A quick google news turned up this article on the Post.
It has also been stated that remains from all seven astronauts were recovered, and that some of the organisms on the shuttle actually survived.
This all points to the possibility that there is still more shuttle out there, and that perhaps we could be finding Columbia piece by precious piece for years to come...
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
How can a hole being ripped in the wing, or any other part of the shuttle not be picked up by some sensor?
though, what could be done 81 seconds after beginning re-entry? anything besides acknowledge that you're going to die? if you level your course, instead of going down into the atmosphere will you just gradually burn up? I'm thinking, skim the outter atmosphere, since the air is thin it isn't having a drastic effect on the structure (compared with a few minutes later the change in atmosphere rips into the shuttle a lot more). skip out of the atmosphere and resume some sort of drift through space. try to control the drift so you're not hurtling into nothingness, although if your travelling at 1,568 mph maybe that is a little far fetched. then, assess the damage, and deal with it somehow (emergency rescue mission, repairs if at all possible?).
i am not a rocket scientist. but at what point of re-entry is it too late to do any sort of constructive abort?
The shuttle astronauts are true heroes -- think of the bravery it takes to fly one of those things. And let's not forget the Challenger mission which failed on January 28, 1986, seventeen years ago tomorrow.
I'll be outside at about 1130am tomorrow, looking up at the skies as I do every year, thanking that shuttle crew for their sacrifice.
Tragedy isn't just measured in terms of the number of people killed. Though most of us spend our entire lives seeking our own comfort and profit, there are some who are willing to risk their lives to advance the entire enterprise known as science, enriching all of our lives. More perished in that accident than flesh and bone...they were carrying with us our very hopes and dreams. You may look at it as a loss for the shuttle's crew and their families, but I see it as a loss for everyone who's ever looked at the stars and imagined touching the sky's blue roof. The death of a starving boy is pitiable beyond description, but the death of our dreams is truly tragic.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
At the end of the day they knew the risks, and they took them, hell I'm not an American, but I respect them, and know they served humanity with all they had to give, shame we all are not like that, could be a nice place otherwise, this world that is.
moo
Like Challenger's crew, the Columbia astronauts met their fates alone and the details will never be known.
The initial government line is always that that people die instantly. After the Challenger crew compartment was recovered, it surfaced that some of crew's PEAPs (Personal Egress Air Packs) had been activated. This lead to the debate on whether anyone was conscious prior to impact with the ocean, and if there was any improvements that could be made to escape such a fate.
It may seem morbid as first but spacecraft, unlike automobiles, aren't as easy to crash-test. This promotes learning as much as you can from the mistakes.
Unfortunately, its unlikely more meaningful debris will be recovered from the Columbia.
I remember when the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed, and I really never imagined that another space shuttle would be destroyed in my lifetime.
I've heard complaints about feeding starving people instead of exploring space, and that does sound compelling in light of the fact that there is so much human suffering, but I believe (as do many) that space exploration represents a greater destiny for mankind.
Maybe that destiny could be put off a few decades while we solve all the world's problems, but I don't want that long.
It's like that t-shirt my one trekkie buddy used to wear, "The meek shall inherit the Earth... the rest of us shall go to the stars."
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Could it really have stopped it happening? Once the foam punched a hole in the craft, the Columbia was incapable of reentry. We were told back then (and I have heard nothing since which contradicts this) that the crew had no way of fixing that problem.
What I have always wondered is: if they had known, could they have hung out at the ISS and waited for NASA to send up a rescue craft? The Columbia will not have had enough food or oxygen for any extended period of time, but the ISS should have had. A rescue craft coming up a couple of weeks later could have replaced both and taken the crew home.
No idea if this was feasable.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
The openning quote really infuriates me.
It takes s special breed of bureaucratic self serving bozo to describe this accident in the most bizzarre terms possible then say something like "I don't know how anyone could have seen that coming" when the truth is people DID see it coming and tried their darndest to stop it happening and long before this NASA had been running foam inmapct studies due to earlier strikes.
Reading this was way more intense than seeing the footage... I was left in tears.
"The truth suffers from too much analysis"
Whenever I read these sorts of narratives about Columbia, I'm always sitting there unconsiously thinking "Come on, a few more minutes. Hold together just a bit longer." Even when I know the exact times of breakup, it doesn't matter, I still think it.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
We see here how the astronauts lives depended critically on technology performing flawless during a complex series of steps, and begs us to wonder how many times in our own life we also depend on technology performing a flawless series of steps. This doesn't just have to be your car your job, but perhaps you live close to a nuclear power plant. One could easily imagine a series of assumptions in this environment leading to even more tragic consequences.
I will not go into my job description, and this is little in my everyday performance of it to remind me that at times peoples'
lives might depend on me having done it correctly and not having cut corners. We are all part of very complex web of interactions both personal and technological. Poignant descriptions of events likes these are a wake up call and a reminder we all have responsibilities to those around us to do our best everyday.
Letter To Iran
"For the astronauts, the final sequence was mercifully brief, but no doubt terrifying."
IT was 2 minutes from the time all hell broke loos until the died! 2 freaking minutes!
Ever hold your breath for two minutes? While somebody you don't know is forceably holding your head under water?
Most roller coster last about 40 seconds.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Unfortuantely, there was no way for Columbia to get tot the ISS even if they had known about the problem. The Columbia was the heaviest shuttle in the fleet and was incapable of getting to the orbit that ISS is at even if a mission called for it.
Also, when a shuttle mission is sent to the ISS they have to carry special equipment in the cargo area to actually connect the shuttle to ISS and transfer crew members. The Columbia obviously didn't have that kind of equipment along.
From what I understand, about the only thing they could have done had they known was a) try and launch another shuttle to evacuate the crew, or b) bring them down in Columbia and hope that the shuttle would hold together long enough for the crew to be able to use an escape hatch and parachute to the ground. The likelihood of getting another shuttle prepped in time was almost nill so it's quite possible that even if they did know they didn't really have an alternative anyway.
-Brian
To be a plasma, the gas should have many free electrons (or ions) in each Debye length. There could be many more neutrals, just along for the ride, in the same space.
Most molecular gases become more or less fully ionized at around 10,000 degrees Kelvin (give or take a factor of four or so, depending on composition) since that's the temperature at which the collision energy becomes significant compared to valence electron binding energies, so most collisions can make new ions. So anything hotter than that is definitely plasma.
But even a fraction of a percent ionization is often enough to give you the nice bulk behavior of a plasma, because the ionized particles do their thing and drag along the neutral ones by collision. Depending on the density, it's probably reasonable to call the 8,000F (3800K) gases "plasma".
Parent poster is operating under a series of faulty assumptions and applying some bad reasoning.
When you've got an object traveling very vast what happens? What happens when you move your feet across the carpet? Static electricity. What is static? Electrons stripped from one object to another.
Static charge accumulates when loosely-held valance electrons transfer from less to more electonegative atoms. (Electronegativity is a measure of an atom's tendency to attract electrons.) It is analagous but not identical to dissociation, which occurs in plasma formation. Dissociation is the complete stripping of electrons from the nucleus, even the tightly-held inner shell electrons, which do not transfer when you shock someone by scuffing your feet on the rug. Dissociation, especially of diatomic gases such as O2 and N2, the major components of the atmosphere, requires immense amounts of energy. N2, for example, dissociates around 9000K (~16,000 deg F). For comparison, graphite vaporizes at about 6000K (~10,000 deg F).
Static can be a huge problem in pipes that move large amounts of non-polar fluids. Guess what most gasses in the upper atmosphere are? Non-polar fluids. So, there is your ionized high velocity, high temperature gas. Plasma.
I don't know alot about the shuttle's design, but I'd guess that if you talked with some NASA aerospace engineers they'd confirm this phenomenon. It's got to be a factor with all very fast aircraft.
Static charge is not plasma. Plasma requires complete ionization, and static doesn't even come close.
Static is not a problem insofar as flight mechanics are concerned. It may be a factor for avionics, as much as it is for any electrical system, but that is outside my area of experience.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
It's true, exploring space is dangerous and lives will be lost.
The real tragedy is using this as an excuse to keep flying the shuttle and killing more astronauts. The US needs to develop a new vehicle ASAP. NASA needs to step up to the plate, admit that the shuttle is too unsafe to fly as is and too old to reengineer, and get the money to develop its replacement on a fast track. A number of opportunities to develop a replacement and retire the shuttle were wasted before the loss of Columbia. NASA is unwilling to risk ending the shuttle program, their most prominent icon, and their fixation on it blinds them to other possibilities. There are ways to keep the ISS operating and astronauts flying without ever launching another shuttle. NASA just doesn't have the political will to pursue them.
The "studies" of in-flight repair are hideous examples of a cheap hack gone too far. It should be a joke. Who would ever voluntarily go through re-entry in a shuttle with a hand-patched wing?
Why won't NASA just admit that the shuttle is a first-generation vehicle and cannot be "fixed"? Why doesn't NASA recognize that Soyuz, and Apollo for that matter, prove that space flight can be much safer than the shuttle? When was the American way ever to throw people's lives away when there was an alternative?
The shuttle is just a piece of hardware. It has killed fourteen people. Walk away from it. Put the remaining three orbiters in museums. Move on.
1. Of the two, only Marie Curie died from causes of radiation exposure. Pierre got run over by a vehicle, but would have probably met the same fate.
2. Clarence Dally was Thomas Edison's assistance with Xrays. Here's a link.
This is not my sig.
Keep in mind that the shuttle designs are pushing 30 years old.
The thing that amazes me is the 1969 moon mission. Ever see the kind of equipment those guys had back then? Think about what kinds of computing power they had with them. Your car has more computing power than the Apollo mission modules.
Ask yourself this: Would you volunteer for a moon mission using the same equipment as they did in '69? From today's perspective, it'd be suicide! And yet, back then, that was the state of the art, and people did it. Amazing.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
One of the astronauts, Dr. Kalpana Chawla, was an alum of my school. Chawla Hall is a $20 million dorm on campus that is nearing completion. I remember a story in the school newspaper that her husband was not happy with the dedication service when construction began. Everyone tried to make it out to be a deep, spiritual event and that is not how she would have wanted it. She was not a religious person at all, and her husband felt that the religious subversion was completely inappropriate. He even said she would have walked away from the service had she been there.
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
Indeed. Reading the article was far more moving than watching the footage. I suppose it's because the footage was from considerable distance, while this explanation has an erie firstperson-ness to it.
Essentially this is a myth circulated by some NASA management apologists.
...could they have hung out at the ISS and waited for NASA to send up a rescue craft?
No. Columbia was the oldest orbiter, and even though it had been refit and upgraded in many ways, it still had it's original airframe. Columbia was the heaviest of the orbiters, and unable to achieve the high orbit of the ISS. It was the only shuttle unable to make flights to the space station.
Even IF Columbia were able to achieve the altitude needed for docking, it was in an orbit that would take it nowhere near ISS. And IF it had been able to make it to ISS, Columbia did not have the docking module needed to dock to ISS. Without the docking module, the crew would need to EVA to get to ISS. Columbia did not have the spacesuits needed for this.
Columbia's ONLY option would be to wait for Atlantis, and Atlantis would have to be preped for launch in such a hurry that it's crew would be at extreme risk.
Columbia should have been retired a long time ago. We should have been using a 2nd gen shuttle by now. It may be sad to think that the shuttle fleet is to be retired with NASA's Mars goals, but in truth it was time.
I'm a big fan of the Space program, but NASA's claims that the shuttle fleet was designed to fly for 50 years should fail anybody's smell test. We don't use school buses for 50 years. Are we supposed to believe that they accounted for 50 years of metal fatigue when designing the shuttle fleet?
After Challenger NASA placed the odds for loss of a shuttle at 1 in 100. Those are risky odds. You wouldn't fly on an airplane with those odds.
The Shuttles never made the price of lauching satelites cheaper (it's primary goal) and it never made the turnaround cycle shorter than disposable launch systems.
It's time for NASA to get out of the trucking business and back to science.
What you are describing is a supercritical fluid (A fluid or gas beyond the critical point pressure on its phase diagram). While superciritcal fluids have funky properties that don't seem to match gases or liquids, they are not plasmas. They are something else entriely. Google for it and you may be able to find some extra info
- Sig
(You may argue against that, but have *you* worked out a way to end hunger, to end want, to wave back the forces of nature? No, you haven't. And nor has anyone else. But people *have* worked out how to send people into space - to other worlds, even - and bring them back safely. But yet...)
People dying in the most complex piece of technology ever created, exploring the most dangerous environment known, when they have the backing of the greatest concentration of human brainpower on the planet, and it *could* have been prevented if the bureaucrats hadn't ignored the engineers and scientists... that depresses me. That tells me everything I don't want to hear about humanity. That tells me the Dream - of accomplishing the impossible, of pushing the boundaries, of going beyond mundane everyday existance and achieving what conventional wisdom believes cannot be done - is dead. After reading the Atlantic article, to find that fucking PowerPoint slides helped contribute to the destruction of the Columbia and the death of the astonauts when there was a chance they could have been saved... Jesus Christ!
It's not like I don't feel sorry if I hear that people have died somewhere. It's just that I feel more sorry if they die in space. I can't explain it, but the idea of space travel has always stirred powerful feelings in me... and to have them shattered by what after investigation turn out to be the most stupid of reasons (metric/imperial confusion, slightly too low temperatures at launch, a piece of foam I could hold in my hands) really hits me hard.
Hell, I was depressed all Christmas Day after learning that Beagle 2 had basically cratered. Maybe you might think my priorities are wrong if I care about the fate of a machine, but it's not just the hardware - it's the hopes of all the people who worked to create it, and hoped to discover something new about the universe, being shattered.
(Plus I want to get on good terms early on with our new robot overlords...)
You must think in Russian.
I'm acquainted with plasma, the ionized(electrically conductive) gas, and I've always wondered why they don't use magnetic fields to help steer the plasma away from the critical areas, ie. leading edge of the wings and nose. What would it take to generate such a field?
I can understand if there is a lot of power required, but couldn't some of it be taken from the supersonic plasma/airstream in some way, perhaps through MHD(MagnetoHydroDynamically)? In this way you would have a self balancing system, as the ship goes deeper into the atmosphere, where it's hotter, more power would be generated, and thus the field strength could increase?
I'm not a plasma physicist, but there would seem to be some merit in such an idea for re-entry craft such as the shuttle. Anybody of the appropriate technical persuasion have any comments about such an idea?
In memorium.
I understand. But I think people in general have been lulled into thinking that space flight is routine. We are just now developing a method for an on-orbit tile repair, so even that wasn't really possible at the time.
In my opinion, best case scenario, you use spy satellites to take images of the left wing leading edge and belly on flight day 2. Upon finding damage, you decide the next day to attempt to scramble a shuttle with a crew of 2 (we can bring 9 back). I believe the estimation was that we could get a shuttle up in 10 days, but you're running a huge risk by forgoing the normal safety checks required before flight. Mission control would have the extra stress of flying simultaneous shuttle missions - never been done before. You have the added risk of multiple space walks required to transfer crews (don't be lead to believe that these are a walk in the park either). And to top it all off, you run the risk of losing your rescue vehicle to boot. Would it be the right thing to do? Probably. Gotta wonder what the outcry would be if you lost 2 vehicles and 9 people!!
You mention that Soyuz was at a higher orbit, which means more energy. But that doesn't mean we can "coast" to a lower orbit at a different inclination - any change in your orbital geometry would have to come from a burn of some sort.
Future shuttle flights will probably be restricted to ISS inclinations, even if it's strictly a science mission as opposed to an ISS assembly mission, to save the possibility to dock and hang out if an emergency is encountered.