Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety

Tsalg writes "The final report from the Stafford-Covey Commission concludes that out of the 15 recommendations they made, the 3 toughest technically are not met. The news was not official on the return-to-flight website but has been widely commented elsewhere. Says one of the task members: "It is NASA's job -- not the task force's -- to determine whether the risks are acceptable and whether it's safe for Discovery to fly." The commission said risk remained that pieces of foam and ice could break off and hit the shuttle at lift-off. It also said the orbiter had not been sufficiently hardened and it lacked an in-flight repair system.Nasa has been aiming to launch shuttle Discovery as early as 13 July."

Comments

NASA

[Godman]

I think NASA takes way too much crap.

Think about how horrible underfunded everything is, and that they are still sending people up into space in a vehicle built in the 80s. They were underfunded at the time, and made do with what they had, and that's what they have to do now.

Because its so technically difficult, it takes money to solve, and money is pouring elsewhere instead of into making it safer (Iraq, SS, etc...). Space exploration has taken sort of a backseat here.

Nasa still has an exemplary record. Only 2 crashes in 20 years. I have no idea how many missions that is, but it's not a few. If you want the people we send up to be safe, give NASA some money, and stop whining about how unsafe it is.

My $.02

Re:If we wait

[william_w_bush]

yes... well 2 shuttles with crew have died so far. I mean a: yes going into outer space is risky, but 2: if they are going to go we should stop forcing them to use the technology that really isn't fit for the task. The shuttle system is a reagan remnant, like star wars and the stealth bomber and a lot of other things that were designed PURELY to scare the russians with our way overengineered tech. seriously, that was their job, they were made with the design principal "oh and put a bunch of sharp black pointy things on the front to scare the shit out of anyone who sees it" (note the soviet's tried to come up with a copy, they never really could get it to work, and it cost so freaking much they stopped trying, and they are arguably better at space than we are). The SR-71 was made in a similar vein with the only difference being it actually worked, check out combat ready ratings on B-1's sometime.

I think we should let NASA make their own call, but we aren't, we're forcing them to play gay govt accounting games so the investment in the current shuttle program, and all its maintainance look good, and costs us over $1B a flight. Commercial sat launches go for under $50 most of the time, and are much more flexible regarding orbits. Create a new heavy-lifter, or even bring back the Saturn V, because even at $1B a shot, and counting all the cash we put in for upgrades and maint it's still way way way down the line in terms of launch vehicle capabilities. A Soyuz system is actually safer for docking with the ISS, and half the other things you need to do in space.

The shuttle was well designed in the beginning, but all the modifications to baselines due to budget pork, politcal conprimises, and simple age have made it unfit for it's duties. You wouldn't ask jet pilots to patrol the skies in p-51 mustangs because we already had some, and north american aviation was an important constituent of the chair of the commitee for armed services, why are we sending our astronauts up in vehicles that are unable to perform their real requirements, and are also designed for size and looks over safety and functionality? Also, would you rather have 1 big ship that can be launched twice every year or 10 small ships that can be launched monthly with the same overall benefit?

Very true - with one proviso

[jd]

When NASA engineers decide a risk really is unacceptable, NASA beurocrats have to stop and listen. I have no problems with NASA taking risks - space is a risky business. Life is a risky business. It is when politics override those engineers on the ground that I get concerned.

Think - when are the two times the Shuttle has been dsestroyed? Challenger, when NASA bosses decided that freezing temps were fine, because they had a propoganda coup going with the school teacher, even though engineers were screming at them, left, right and center, to postpone the launch and check for damage.

Columbia was lost - when? During NASA's other attempt at a propoganda coup, with getting an Israeli into space. Engineers wanted images of the wing, to check for damage. The intelligence agencies even offered to produce the pictures for free. But the NASA bosses - again - put the risk of bad publicity as being more important than the risk of a disaster.

Take risks - take as many risks as you want or need, to get the space program into a functional state - but please don't take risks with other people's lives because you want your photo on the front page of a newspaper. If it works, it achieves nothing and is lousy management. If it fails, it sets everything back and is catastrophic management.

I don't agree with the NASA bosses deciding that they should overrule the safety monitors, because the safety monitors' chief objection is that NASA bosses keep overruling things they shouldn't. It somewhat defeats the purpose of the exercise, if NASA repeats the very worst "crime" of all, in an effort to move forward.

I do agree, though, that the shuttle won't ever be 100% safe. It is a 1960s concept, built around 1970s technology (and having spoken to people who have built components for it, not very good technology at that), and it urgently does need retiring with something better. It's a pity Congress has cancelled all the replacement Shuttle programs, through budget cuts, or we'd have one by now.

Hey, Congress isn't the only bad boy. If Britain hadn't scrapped HOTOL, we would have had a replacement shuttle program years before the Columbia disaster, the ISS would likely have already been completed, and space technology would be easily a decade ahead of where it actually is. (We would also have commercial space travel by now, as HOTOL would have been damn good at that, as it was a design consideration.)

I also agree that NASA has made all the changes that are going to make a substantial difference, so that any further delay would be pointless.

There ARE a few things NASA could do to improve things, though - ice buildup is only a problem if there's enough humidity in the air for the water to form ice. It shouldn't be too hard to build what would be basically oversized hair-dryers to blast warm dry air over the top of the tank. At worst, there would be less ice, at best there would be none at all.

How long would it take to plug a hair-dryer in at the top of the launch tower? My guess is not very, even if it is very large. Switch it off before launch, so there's no weird air currents, and you should be fine.

This simple addition would not only cut back on ice, but should also cut back on foam risks, because the foam wouldn't be rigid and unusually heavy by being blocked up by ice.

I'm sure NASA engineers have proposed - if not this scheme, then countless others that are similar in nature. They're not dim, even if it seems that way at times, and know perfectly well that ice is water, and therefore if there's no water, there's no ice. They also know that warm air will expand into cold air far more readily than the other way round. (Pressure * Volume / Temperature = Constant, so if you double the temperature, you double the pressure. Air flows from high pressure to low pressure, on average. The rest, as they say, is obvious. :)

Leave space exploration to NASA and agencies and private organizations like it. Yes. Definitely. But PLEASE, will NASA and the others PLEASE leave the technical decisions to the technical experts and NOT to the P.R. crew? Doctors of spin are not necessarily doctors of physics or aeronautics.