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NASA Commemorates Space Shuttle Tragedies

Posted by kdawson on from the in-memoriam dept.

eldavojohn writes "Space.com is covering NASA's commemoration of the Apollo 1 crew & the last shuttle crews of both the Challenger and Columbia orbiters. The Apollo 1 crew was lost forty years ago yesterday to a fire while testing their spacecraft on a launch pad. From the article: 'While the nearly two decades separating NASA's three space disasters allowed room for the agency to grow complacent, the relatively short time between the 2003 loss of Columbia and the end of the shuttle program could avoid a repeat of such behavior.'"

1 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Lessons being forgotten already by Y-Crate · · Score: 5, Informative

    Challenger had to get off the ground as soon as possible. Columbia's loss was in part due to "we don't have time to check that" attitudes from those who could have looked for damage while the orbiter was still in orbit (i.e. photography from other spacecraft) and the assumption that there was no real problem. Challenger, yeah. Columbia? Not so much. Even if they did take the time to get satellite pics of the damage, there was nothing to be done. There was no feasible plan for rescuing the crew. Not enough fuel to fly to the ISS, not enough supplies for them to wait for Atlantis to be prepped for launch, and no means of resupplying them. NASA put all their eggs in one basket, and then broke the basket. Once that foam hit and they reached orbit, they were screwed. The shuttle is simply overly complex and delicate. The problem is more that they went out of their way to not find out if Columbia was OK. Engineers were worried and put in a routine request with the DoD to have one of their birds take a few shots of the orbiter, but NASA managers found out and had it canceled. They were adamant that everything was fine and there couldn't possibly be a need to take a closer look at what happened, despite the fact it wasn't any skin off their back to evaluate the situation further. It wasn't like they were really putting the DoD out in any way, they would have gladly taken some pictures and then resumed whatever it was they were doing with the satellite.

    It was a case of "My theory is 100% infallible and don't you dare counter it even if it can be done effortlessly and for free"