Columbia Disaster Anniversary

Jorkapp writes "One year ago today, seven astronauts perished in a horrible silver-white comet over Texas skies. Since then, life at the Johnson Space Center seems to have returned to normal. Still, memories of the doomed STS-107 mission can be found throughout the center. Space.com has a rather interesting editorial about NASA's past, present, and future with the Space Shuttle program. In the immediate future, returning the Shuttle fleet to flight is a key first step. Eventually, NASA plans to launch Constellation, a new Crew Exploration Vehicle designed to replace the shuttles." Jim Lovell has a few words to say.

Comments

Re:Pretty amazing

[FTL]

I've held one of the replaced shuttle tiles. They're almost as light as a brick of styrofoam. It is no small wonder that the damn stuff broke off so easily.

They didn't. If the ET insulation had impacted the tiles, there would have been only minor damage (a weeks worth of repair time before the next flight was estimated).

The insulation didn't hit the tiles, it hit the RCC panels at the front of the wing. These are entirely different. They are big, tough, heavy elements which turn out to be unexpectedly brittle.

Various FAQs

[Alien54]

There are various FAQs online, in case someone forgot the Details:

Online at Space.Com

The Online Columbia Loss Faq, compiled through March 2003 much of which might be outdated, but good for lots of small details, and a sense of the history as it happened.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board Website, due to become inactive on February 1st, 2004 (!)

People might want to download the final report while they can, dated October 2003, although It is also available on the Nasa Website here

Need some additional perspectives

[sphealey]

Most of the current discussion on the Columbia accident is being driven by NASA management and the Bush Administration. I would suggest that you read William Langewiesche's article in The Atlantic. and Jerry Pournelle's comments on the overall space access and the NASA situation (that's one of them; he write an essay about every month on that topic). Then the overall picture might be clearer.

sPh

Re:Blame the subordinates

[gclef]

It was both (not proving their case and not speaking up), but you're right that the blame lies not with the techies but with management. The engineers that did speak up were slapped down, which convinced the others that they should not speak up. (a lovely example of a "Chilling effect") A good summary of this all (which was posted in a response to the story on this a few days ago):

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/11/langew ie sche.htm

Re:Not astronauts

[red floyd]

1. Not tiles. It was the RCC panel.
2. The flight crew was trained astronauts. The science crew were highly trained as well.

Nice troll, though, you got +1 Insightful.

Re:Pretty amazing

[Slashamatic]

Actually there is also the angle of incidence issue. A blow against the tiles woulkd be glancing, however the RCC panels face the direction of flight and are therefore *much* more vulnerable.

The reason that I suspected the foam was not just the relative velocity, it was how much ice would be around the foam. I don't know if all the ice would have been shed immediately, but foam plus ice would be a lot more damaging.

Re:I remember

[dfrandin]

I remember getting up at oh-dark-thirty and driving out of town a ways to get past the excessive light pollution here in Las Vegas, to see my first shuttle reentry.. Recently I read where it looks like the shuttle was starting to break up as it passed over Nevada.. I remember watching it and thinking to myself.. 'gee! that sure looks like sparks coming off of it..' and having never seen a reentry before, I assumed all was well.. Which lasted until I got home, and heard the news... God bless the Columbia astronauts...