Foam Gluing Flaw Killed Columbia Astronauts

Freshly Exhumed writes "Now it can be told: NASA's Columbia Accident Investigation Board has blamed the faulty application of insulating foam for the loss of the Columbia orbiter. From the chief engineer for the external tanks project: '...NASA concluded after extensive testing that the process of applying some sections of foam by hand with spray guns was at fault.' And further: 'It was not the fault of the guys on the floor; they were just doing the process we gave them'."

Comments

60%?

[Koushiro]

Gaps, or voids, were often left, and tests done since the Columbia accident have shown liquid hydrogen could seep into those voids. After launch, the gas inside the voids starts to heat up and expand, causing large pieces of insulation to pop off.

NASA said this happens on about 60 percent of its shuttle launches.

Sixty percent of the time? I don't pretend to be an expert, but that number seems a bit high, especially when this can cause such damage. Can anyone shed some more light on the situation here?

Amazing

[Billobob]

It's amazing how something like the method of gluing on insulation tiles can cause a shuttle to blow up, yet for all the serious damage done to Apollo 13 they still managed to get back alive.

Re:Core Problem: Lack of Competition in Space

[bogaboga]

The Russians still have the best technology in space. While the Americans were speculating about where the MIR would land, the Russian scientists were confident that it'd land on target. Indeed it did land 1.3 km within the targeted area. As usual, the Americans simply congratulated them. Russians are the only link to the ISS. They realized long long ago that the space shuttle was way too expensive...but they had one of their own that flew and landed within feet of its intended target on the runway.

To understand this, the Russians only have to prepare to sell some of their [space] tech to the Chinese, then Americans will come out screaming.

They also produce some of the deadliest weapons on earth, and all in simple production houses...and ohh...they also have the heaviest and biggest flying aircraft in the world. Please google for the Antonov-225.

Russians just need more organization.

Not Amazing; porkbarrel.

[Tom_Yardley]

The notion of the, "reusable space plane," is simply stupid. If the astronauts ran NASA, we would have vehicles, like Saturn V, that lifted mass into space and capsules that bring down only what we need. The shuttle is a boondoggle to throw money to the aerospace industry. The Progress M-50 craft is vastly superior to our shuttle when it comes to lifting weight to orbit. We lost a shuttle because Senator Orrin Hatch (Bush-loving republican, natch) overrode the engineer to throw work to Thiokol. The original design called for one piece boosters which would be transported by barge. Orrin made them cut the booster in half so Thiokol could bid. (There aren't many barge routes in Utah.) The two haves were joined by -- o-rings. In the United States, there is only one agency with the tradition, tradition and ability to explore. Let's turn the space program over to the Navy and go back to the moon.