NASA Releases Columbia Crew Survival Report

Migraineman writes "NASA has released a 400-page Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report [16MB PDF.] If you're interested in a detailed examination and timeline of the events leading to the destruction of Columbia, this is well worth the time. The report includes a number of recommendations to increase survivability of future missions." Reader bezking points out CNN's story on the report, which says that problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts on board.

Comments

ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

Is not the restraint systems. No restraint system could have saved them. The fact that their vehicle was disintegrating from burning up might have something to do with it.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Is not the restraint systems. No restraint system could have saved them. The fact that their vehicle was disintegrating from burning up might have something to do with it.

Ack!! Not everybody read the article first. Use the spoilers tag!!

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[flaming error]

With a proper seat belt-airbag system, they might have been encapsulated in a wind vortex which insulated them from the heat of re-entry and cushioned their impact as they bounced across several Texas counties. Just sayin'.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[JCSoRocks]

Yeah, this is a bit like driving your car off of a mile high cliff and saying that the restraint system is the reason you died... yeah... you know... that or the impact and the ensuing fireball.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Rinisari]

One could also consider that the most prevalent restraint system for humans—gravity—was also a factor.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[davester666]

All this means is that the next Astronauts can count on remaining belted to their seats, as the seats crash back to Earth, instead of being injured inside the cockpit because their belts and/or seats came apart as the Shuttle exploded.

Now, it's up each Astronaut to decide whether those few extra seconds of life are worth it.

Maybe they could add a "Just Kill Me Now, Please" handle to the seat as well?

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[mea37]

That's one way of looking at it.

However, the actual cause of death was apparently trauma that would not have occured had the restraints been better designed / utilized, and that information is of practical value to future vehicles and missions. That's the whole point of the report.

That they would've died of another cause, doesn't change that they did die of the stated cause.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Bandman]

This is why Scotty never bothered to install them. When going from Warp 8 to zero, seat belts are _not_ the issue

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[SecurityGuy]

Spoilers.

The report doesn't list a cause of death, it lists five events which were sufficient to cause death, the first being cabin depressurization, and IIRC, the second was the restraint system failing to keep their upper bodies immobilized as the crew compartment tumbled, resulting in what would have been lethal injuries. For the pedantic, yes, the report implies they were alive when these injuries occurred because their circulatory systems were still functioning. I parse that to mean there was associated bleeding.

Thermal injury would, of course, have been fatal, but by the time they were exposed to re-entry heat, they were no longer breathing (no heat related injuries in the lungs).

The final potential lethal event was ground impact. And actually, if they'd been in pressurized suits AND the restraint system didn't fail, they'd have likely lived until the crew compartment disintegrated and they were exposed to reentry heat. As it was, they fell unconscious almost immediately after depressurization.

It's a fascinating report, with what I gather are the more graphic bits redacted. It's quite a thorough and professional job, and though it talks about seats and functions, there's always the awareness that you're reading the story of the final moments of real people, and that the whole point of the report is that we might do a better job of protecting our future astronauts.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[amRadioHed]

Actually the cause of death may have been the trauma, or it may have been the rapid depressurization preceding that. The report wasn't able to determine which was the actual cause.

On a positive note however, at least it seems the depressurization knocked them unconscious quick enough that they didn't suffer much.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[OglinTatas]

"As it was, they fell unconscious almost immediately after depressurization."

And that is a mercy. As the joke goes: I'd rather die peacefully in my sleep, just like grandpa, rather than screaming in terror like his passengers.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, they didn't need to make that report at all! They could have just asked you. You should go ask NASA for a job.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Spy der Mann]

This is why Scotty never bothered to install them. When going from Warp 8 to zero, seat belts are _not_ the issue

Lord Helmet begs to differ!

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The report clearly stated (or rather the NY times summary of the report which I read) that no conceivable restraint system could have protected the astronuats from reentry at hypersonic speeds.

Or something of the sort.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[fermion]

In this case it might be fair to say that the restraint system was fairly well designed. It appeared to have rendered them unconscious during an incident that they could do nothing about and would have been very painful. There is no reason to design a retraint or any kind of protective system that would keep a person alive during that catastrophic breakup. As the report stated, the only reasonable thing to do is to prevent the break up, no keep people alive so they can witness their inevitable demise.

The improvement made to the new crew capsule using suggestions from this report appear to involve immobilizing the head so that if an incident is survivable, there would be less trauma. Also, they want to make the outer skin more durable so bits of foam won't penetrate. There is no indication, that if the same type of thing happened to they new capsule, and it began to spin our of control, with no hope of correcting the behavior, the new restraint system would do anything different, i.e the crew would still black out.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Yeah, this is a bit like driving your car off of a mile high cliff and saying that the restraint system is the reason you died... yeah... you know... that or the impact and the ensuing fireball.

You drove your car off a cliff. Moments before your car hit the ground, I plugged you right between the eyes with a sniper rifle. Your car hits the ground and creates a dramatic fireball. How did you die?

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[rikkards]

That's silly it was because of lack of brain activity. That was when they were officially dead

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but in that case the failure of the restraints was the proximate cause not the ultimate cause ...

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[pushing-robot]

You drove your car off a cliff. Moments before your car hit the ground, I plugged you right between the eyes with a sniper rifle. Your car hits the ground and creates a dramatic fireball. How did you die?

Awesomely.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[ozmanjusri]

How did you die?

Screaming.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[joeytmann]

Well you need to have seatbelts if you are going Ludicrous speed, its just that much faster than Warp 8.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post illustrates the need to genetically engineer super-intelligent house cats to do our space work for us -- when they fall, they always land on their feet. Plus if you attach butter-side-down toast on their backs, they can generate perpetual motion as they fall.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[vonart]

You, sir, win five internets. That's bloody awesome. Thanks for making my day.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[dpilot]

But to read the report, it sounds almost as if they want to fix the restraints, and change the pressure suit procedures... so they can suffer more??? I know, they're looking to make "slightly less catastrophic" incidents survivable.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[jrumney]

The real question is, would you really want to keep the crew alive through the early parts of such a catastrophic failure just so they could be burned to death a few minutes later? In other words, should NASA act on what they've discovered in this report, or should they just let things be and accept that when a spacecraft breaks up on reentry, the crew is going to die?

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Kranfer]

Well, I guess you don't know much about this then I am guessing. proper restraints would have been half the battle. The other half would have been the crew wearing their pressurized suits. When Challenger was destroyed on lift off, the crew was alive for a good portion AFTER the explosion... I believe what killed them was the sudden impact with the ocean. If the crew had been wearing their pressurized suits, had their visors down and were restrained properly and the parachutes were not MANUAL we might have had a different turn out for the crew. ::shrugs:: just my two cents I suppose.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[TheSpoom]

Well played, sir. Well played.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Sloppy]

The real question is, would you really want to keep the crew alive through the early parts of such a catastrophic failure just so they could be burned to death a few minutes later?

NASA's position is going to be Hell Yes. If you can keep 'em alive a little longer through such a catastrophic failure, then you can probably also keep 'em alive longer through a less catastrophic failure.

They're going to be thinking, "Ok, what if some astronauts suddenly find themselves in a spin but they're not re-entering an atmosphere at the moment. Do we want their upper bodies to flop around until half their bones are broken, or do we want them pinned to their seats for a few seconds muttering, 'HAL, engage spin recovery' and then live happily ever after?"

The result being an edict handed down: put on your seat belts.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Rub1cnt]

Amen Brother. :)

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[prisoner-of-enigma]

The real question is, would you really want to keep the crew alive through the early parts of such a catastrophic failure just so they could be burned to death a few minutes later? In other words, should NASA act on what they've discovered in this report, or should they just let things be and accept that when a spacecraft breaks up on reentry, the crew is going to die?

I've got another option: how about NASA not using a spacecraft that is required to violate its own design criteria in order to function.

In case you're unaware of it, Thermal Protection System (TPS) design criteria were that the tiles would not be exposed to debris impacts during launch. Since the very first launch of the Shuttle, tile dings have been recorded despite the fact that the tiles were never designed to deal with impacts. This should have sent up a huge red flag at NASA. For some engineers, it did. But the problem was the fundamentally flawed design of the entire Shuttle system, namely that of having the exposed TPS tiles alongside the External Tank (ET), which being full of liquid hydrogen and oxygen was guaranteed to produce ice debris. Since NASA accepted and built a known-flawed design, they couldn't "fix" it without scrapping the entire Shuttle system. Since that wasn't an option, NASA crossed its fingers and rolled the dice...again, and again, and again...until people died.

Thermal protection materials are, by their very nature, fragile materials. So long as our space program relies on either thermal tiles or ablative shielding, that re-entry system must be protected from damage during launch and spaceflight. The only way we can do that (with existing technology) is to put the crew module above anything that's likely to produce debris. We had that on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. We'll have it again for Ares or whatever the next administration decides to fund after the Shuttle is thankfully and deservedly retired.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[az-saguaro]

"Is not the restraint systems. No restraint system could have saved them. The fact that their vehicle was disintegrating from burning up might have something to do with it."

You are missing the point of what forensic pathology is all about. Correct, nothing was survivable as that craft disintegrated. BUT, examining the forensic evidence establishes precisely how the bodies were injured and when death occurred, and by what mechanism. For instance, atlanto-axial dislocation of the cervical spine, a skull fracture, rib fractures, a lacerated aorta at the ligamentum arteriosum - these all say boatloads about the moment-by-moment events, and what precisely caused the lethal and non-lethal traumas to the body. Knowing how the body was injured then lets you infer the sequence of dynamic loads on the body, and from that where and when the hardware and systems failed, and then from that, where there is room for improvement. This is no different than when the NTSB investigates a plane crash, with the "engineering analysis" being done by pathologists on the cadavers, rather than structural engineers on wing and fuselage parts.

Let's say for instance that the crew compartment was hardened to survive a breakup, no structural failure of that "escape pod", no decompression, plus a parachute system to ensure a soft landing. Even then, the crew would have died. Why? Because the seating and restraint system allowed their bodies to move in lethal ways during sudden accel-/deceleration, or because sloppy crew practices forgot to don helmet or gloves, rendering the pressure conservation system irrelevant. It is from forensic studies like this that you can figure exactly what went wrong, and then engineer or enforce better systems to prevent future calamity. No system like Shuttle re-entry can be made entirely safe and non-lethal, but understanding each aspect of failure leads to better designs and practices which can prevent lethality during lesser degrees of catastrophe.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[prisoner-of-enigma]

If the crew had been wearing their pressurized suits, had their visors down and were restrained properly and the parachutes were not MANUAL we might have had a different turn out for the crew. ::shrugs:: just my two cents I suppose.

You forgot the bit about actually escaping the crew module in order to use the parachutes. The Shuttle has no ejection seats. The first couple of missions with only two astronauts had them, but they were removed when NASA started flying full crews. The Shuttle design precluded any possible way of ejecting anyone on the lower crew deck, and a moral decision was made that if you can't eject everybody, it's better to remove the option entirely. It's grim logic, but I agree with it.

I disagree, however, on NASA's decision to actually accept a design that has absolutely no provisions for total crew escape in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Every single manned vehicle NASA had ever used had some sort of escape mechanism built in from day one. Sure, some of them were long shots, but the Shuttle is the only vehicle ever used by NASA that absolutely has no survivable escape mode during the entire launch phase. Everything has to work right, all the time, every time, every launch...or you lose the vehicle, mission, and crew. Given the enormous complexity of the Shuttle, it's a miracle we haven't lost more crews. That NASA would knowingly use such a design shows amazing hubris, hearkening back to folks thinking the Titanic couldn't sink because it was such a technological marvel of safety.

The Shuttle was and is a broken design that cannot ever be made as safe, effective, or economical as the expendable boosters that preceded it. It was a neat idea, but ultimately impractical. The Shuttle gave us a perfect example of what not to build if you want reliable, relatively safe manned missions into orbit.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Austerity Empowers]

Maybe more than a few seconds, 60kft is a long way to drop. Some people pay good money for that thrill!

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Austerity Empowers]

I imagine they're trying to use the catastrophe to find new ways of making them all survivable, one shuttle at a time.

It's a way of making sure their deaths weren't for nothing.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Rub1cnt]

Given a choice between professionally built and amateur built, I leave you with one nugget of wisdom: Noah's ark was built by Amateurs, The Titanic was built by professionals.

Re:ultimate reason for the astronauts death

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is not the restraint systems. No restraint system could have saved them. The fact that their vehicle was disintegrating from burning up might have something to do with it."

Still, the systems failed or did not function as expected (inertial locking). While it may not have saved them, the lessons learned could have an impact on future systems (and make other scenarios survivable).

Safety systems are implemented "in depth".... Spacecraft, Crew Module, Personal Equipment, etc...

Because such a high price was paid (loss of 7 lives, vehicle)-- it is imperative to learn as much as possible (since we don't re-entry crash test shuttles).

Opportunities were identified: (Improve seatbelts, intertial locking; Procedures: Pressure suit donning; Weaknesses (in suits durability); and changes (Personal chutes auto-deploy, Auto-pressurization like SR71 suit, etc).

I actually enjoyed scanning through the report. It is meticulous, concise, and of considerable value to the manned space program.

Why did it took this long...

[grub]

Columbia Crew Survival Report:
They didn't.

Re:Why did it took this long...

[niteice]

oh how i wish i had mod points...

Re:Why did it took this long...

[Ihmhi]

Spoiler Alert: Snape kills the Columbia Crew by throwing Rosebud through the heat shielding.

Re:Why did it took this long...

[Anonymous Coward]

The highest parachute jump is from an altitude of 101,516 feet (30,942 m) [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute ].

With a decent auto-eject system and suitably [especially physically and thermally] protected escape pods this could have been survivable.

Re:Why did it took this long...

[fotbr]

That parachute jump was from a relatively stationary balloon, not someone jumping out of a spacecraft at re-entry speeds.

I'll readily admit I'm no aerospace engineer, but it seems to me that you'd still need to get rid of a lot more energy than the guy who stepped out of a balloon. Enough so that your escape capsules would probably end up being big enough and heavy enough to remove any useful payload abilities of your lauch vehicle.

Or we could go back to a simpler but sturdier method and just use capsules again, and accept that if something goes terribly wrong, people are going to die. Then again, I saw something go terribly wrong with a car on the highway over thanksgiving and a guy literally lost his head as a result (note to self: compact cars do not fit cleanly underneath semi-trailers). Death happens. It is part of life, and especially a part of anything that relatively few people have done before.

Re:Why did it took this long...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to say "What survival?" as well. Maybe they're now counting the earthworms and e-coli on the science packages as part of the mission crew? But I'd suspect those got cooked to more than well-done status upon re-entry as well.

I'm sorry

[XanC]

The report is very clear: nothing could have saved them. The restraint system was certainly not the ultimate cause of death; it was perhaps an immediate contributor, but at best a minor one.

Re:I'm sorry

[Detritus]

I think the idea is that in a more survivable accident, an improved seat and restraint system, and better procedures, could make the difference between life and death. Look at the improvements that have been made in race cars over the years, like head restraint systems. Race car drivers are much more likely to survive a crash than in the old days. The same is true for high-performance military aircraft. You learn what you can from the fatalities, and try to fix the problems exposed by the accident investigation.

Re:I'm sorry

[EnglishTim]

I thought the report was fairly clear that the inadequate restraint system was probably the immediate cause of death, but that there were a long list of other things that would have killed them anyway after that.

Re:I'm sorry

[hughk]

An interesting point. Formula-1 drivers are also protected by a special cockpit shell.

I know that flying back from space is now out of fashion for the foreseeable future, but it does raise the issue of what would happen if the fore and mid body were made to be able to separate without integrity issues for the crew module, allowing it continue ballistically.

Yep, it would still come down with one hell of a bumb, but if it is designed for some instability, that would allow it to slow down to the point where egress would be possible.

dumbification

[spikeham]

The mainstream media once again lives up to its long history of mangling science stories.

The report cites 5 specific fatal aspects of the loss of Columbia: depressurization, extreme dynamic loads, separation of the crew from the vehicle, exposure to space, and ground impact. Implying that this really means inadequate restraint systems is a joke. No amount of safety hardware would permit surviving the breakup and uncontrolled re-entry of (pieces of) your spacecraft.

Due to NASA politics, the report omits a more accurate summary statement that the Shuttle is an inherently flawed and unsafe design when compared to ballistically stable capsules that can and do survive uncontrolled re-entry.

http://3.paulhamill.com

Re:dumbification

[Volante3192]

You know, for an 'inherently flawed and unsafe design' it did pretty well for almost 30 years, outliving it's expected life by, what, 15?

Regarding capsules, you're not exactly going to survive uncontrolled re-entry if, say, a tile breaks off or the parachutes fail to deploy. We've just had less capsule launches than shuttle launches.

The shuttle didn't break up due to uncontrolled reentry, either. The break up caused uncontrolled reentry.

As far as how the media's reporting it? Well...the media's filled with idiots who'd sign a petition to outlaw dihydrogen monoxide.

Re:dumbification

[spikeham]

In April 2008 a Soyuz made an uncontrolled reentry due to failure of the service module to separate during the de-orbit sequence. The cosmonauts survived due to the inherent ballistic stability and fail-safety of the design:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may08/6229

NASA has finally conceded that the safest place for the astronauts is on top of the launch stack, with abort rockets to escape a failing lower stage, and with no exposure to damage from falling debris. These factors plus the increased safety of ballistic reentry explain the return to capsules with the Constellation system.

Shuttle vs. Soyuz Reliability
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=7954.0

Soyuz vs Shuttle
http://salul.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/soyuz-vs-shuttle/

Re:dumbification

[Anonymous Coward]

No buddy there have been many mnay more capsule entries including this uncontrolled "ballistic" entry in 2008.
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/22/soyuz-capsule-hatch-nearly-failed-and-crews-lives-were-on-a-razors-edge/

Re:dumbification

[avandesande]

Capsules don't rely on tiles but instead use single-ablative shields that are protected during the entire flight until reentry.
After each launch the shuttle has to be completely rebuilt so there weren't any cost savings.
A little more about problems with the shuttle design by a Nobel-Prize winning physicist....

http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-appendix.html

Re:dumbification

[trappermcintyre]

You know, for an 'inherently flawed and unsafe design' it did pretty well for almost 30 years, outliving it's expected life by, what, 15?

I would be inclined to think that the reason it "did pretty well" is more to do with beating the odds than good design or good management. Read what Richard Feynman had to say about his role on the Challenger investigation board (Rogers Commission) in "What Do You Care What Other People Think?". It's fascinating. The people on the ground who had the most to do with the Shuttle put the odds of a catastrophic mission failure at much shorter odds (1 in 100 ISTR) than managers (something like 1 in 100,000 - sorry for not being more precise I don't have the book to hand). These were the same managers who were much less obsessed with the safety of the shuttle and crew than they should have been and pushed for launching when they shouldn't have done. I suspect managers with similar figures for failure in their heads were the ones to ignore concerns of more junior staff when the hole was first detected.

At the point where the shuttle broke up it was obviously a non survivable event, but I'm of the opinion it didn't have to be if appropriate steps had been taken when there was first a problem detected. I also feel anything they can learn now from Columbia to help design a better vehicle that ups the odds of surviving a catastrophic failure in future is a good thing.

To go back to my original point, I do think it is extremely misguided to say that just because a thing hasn't happened before means it is safe or well designed - it may just mean that so far it's beaten the odds, and I don't think that should be overlooked by NASA when they come to finalise future designs, or plan future missions.

Re:dumbification

[Dun Malg]

Regarding capsules, you're not exactly going to survive uncontrolled re-entry if, say, a tile breaks off...

Capsules don't use tiles. They use an ablative metallic heat shield, and heat shields don't break off--- they're essentially foolproof. The use of delicate ceramic tiles for heat shielding is one of the shuttle's many shortcomings.

Re:dumbification

[cmowire]

That really doesn't do the report justice. You couldn't add magic restraints, better spacesuits, self-activating parachutes, etc. to the shuttle and expect for crewmembers to survive the accident, but there are a lot of more subtle design points to be made.

e.g. the example of the person who survived a SR-71 structural breakup, at even greater overpressure on the suit but with a more favorable thermal environment and while properly suited up.

The big and fairly underappreciated lesson of both shuttle accidents is that the crew cabin survived for quite a while longer then the vehicle at large. To me, thus suggests there are benefits to be had in figuring out which large structural segments of a crewed spacecraft... even a capsule that can survive uncontrolled re-entry... are going to survive the longest in a catastrophic failure and see if they can last long enough for the crew to bail out. Sure you've just lost the vehicle, but at least you might recover some of the crew.

Insisting that the only way up and down is in a ballistic capsule is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Something like the Soyuz is fine for now, but there are plenty of ways to make a spaceplane that are not quite as flawed as the shuttle.

Re:dumbification

[cmowire]

Spaceplanes don't have to use a ceramic tile, just the space shuttle, the way they designed it required either ceramic tiles or reusable ablative coverings (which was optional in the design for a while in case the ceramic tiles turned out to be impossible, but hasn't been mentioned since)

One aspect of the X-33 that never got tested (which bugs me) is the reusable refractory metallic heat shield. See, the denser the craft, the gentler the reentry. If the shuttle was less dense, perhaps by having the orbiter integrate at least some of the external tank's capacity, it might have been possible to make one with a less delicate shield.

The main reason why the ablative non-metallic heat shields on capsules are essentially foolproof is that you re-enter on a piece of shielding that's been kept covered the whole flight. You could likely make a capsule with a reinforced-carbon-carbon reusable shield if it weren't likely to shatter when it hits the ground.

Re:dumbification

[Anonymous Coward]

The mainstream media mangles every story. All of them. Every single one.

Re:dumbification

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has finally conceded that the safest place for the astronauts is on top of the launch stack, with abort rockets to escape a failing lower stage, and with no exposure to damage from falling debris.

But they apparently haven't learned that multiple liquid-fuelled engines with one-engine-out capability are safer than solid-fuel rockets.

I fear it will take another deadly accident for that lesson to sink in. And in these economic conditions, one more fatal accident could mean the end of the US manned spaceflight program.

And before some dumbass says manned spaceflight is "inherently dangerous", let me reiterate my point: NASA is making it more dangerous than it needs to be, and thus imperiling their credibility and even their own existence.

Re:dumbification

[multi io]

But they apparently haven't learned that multiple liquid-fuelled engines with one-engine-out capability are safer than solid-fuel rockets.

I don't think there's any hard data to support that allegation. Solid-fuel rockets are much simpler and thus more reliable (in general), albeit less efficient, than liquid-fuelled rockets, which makes them good candidates for the first stage. Which is where the shuttle and the proposed new system (Constellation/Ares I) uses them. The "one-engine out" capability of the shuttle isn't fully available at all times -- if the engine fails early, the shuttle must immediately return to the launch site, which is an extremely risky (and never tried) maneuver that isn't necessary with an emergency escape system as Apollo and Soyuz (and the planned Ares I) have it. Such a system was successfully used several times, and it would probably have saved the lives of the Challenger crew.

Re:dumbification

[damburger]

Soyuz 5 survived a re-entry ass-backwards, and several have since. Capsules have been shown to be safer on re-entry, which isn't really surprising considering they are aerodynamically much simpler.

Re:dumbification

[Anonymous Coward]

A Soyuz is fail-sake and not prone to uncontrolled landings, huh?

Might want to ask Vladimir Komarov about that. Oh yeah, he cratered into a field.
http://suzymchale.com/kosmonavtka/soyuz.html

Re:dumbification

[jmichaelg]

The thing about the Columbia disaster is Nasa management willfully ignored evidence that there might be a major problem. Unlike the Challenger explosion, the Columbia was intact after the initial problem arose and yet Nasa management refused to allow staff to gather data that would show whether or not the foam impact had caused any damage.

Management claimed that even had they known that there was a problem, there would not have been anything they could have done to save the crew. One thing that's true about Nasa's engineers is that they are amazingly creative. When Apollo 13's oxygen tank blew up, within a day, engineering came up with a hack that enabled the crew to use the co2 scrubbers on the LEM. It literally saved the astronaut's lives. Had engineering been given a chance to solve the problem of how to get the crew back safely, there's simply no way, a priori, to know whether engineering would have succeeded. And yet, management denied engineering the opportunity to attack the problem.

For the life of me, I don't understand why the managers who turned down requests to take a look at Columbia's heat shield weren't charged with criminal negligence. They failed to examine all the options that may have been available to save the astronauts. The astronauts died because Nasa management was bull headed.

Re:dumbification

[Rub1cnt]

Sorry, but I gotta do the Obligatory quote, and I do apologize to the NASA folks that I'm about to tick off: Rockhound: Hey Harry. Harry Stamper: What? Rockhound: You realize we're sitting on 45,000 pounds of fuel, one nuclear warhead and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder? Makes you feel good doesn't it? Harry: Yeah, Rock.

Re:dumbification

[prisoner-of-enigma]

You know, for an 'inherently flawed and unsafe design' it did pretty well for almost 30 years, outliving it's expected life by, what, 15?

The Shuttles lifetime was based on number of flights, not number of years of service. In that light, the Shuttle fleet has flown less than half of its design lifetime.

Regarding capsules, you're not exactly going to survive uncontrolled re-entry if, say, a tile breaks off or the parachutes fail to deploy.

Capsules didn't have tiles, they had one-piece, single-use ablative shields. Given their single-use nature, they could be engineered robustly. Contrast that with Shuttle TPS tiles, which are so fragile you can damage one by pressing on it too hard with a finger. But they had to be fragile in order to be light enough to be reusable.

Regarding parachute failure, every capsule has multiple redundant parachute systems. Sure, all of them could have simultaneously failed, but that would be extremely unlikely. Contrast that with the Shuttle TPS, where a critical tile failure would invariably cause total loss of vehicle, mission, and crew. The difference here is not in the overall danger, it's in the safety margin. Capsules had more redundancies, simpler designs, and fewer compromises placed upon them. The Shuttle tried to be all things to all people and ended up being a compromise at everything it tried to do.

We've just had less capsule launches than shuttle launches.

And you could play Russian Roulette once an hour, every hour, for thirty years and not blow your head off. Statistically it's unlikely, but it's entirely possible.

NASA rolled the dice every time a Shuttle launched, and NASA did it knowing that the Shuttle's design required it to violate the engineering assumptions in order to operate. Specifically, the Shuttle design requirements stated categorically that "no debris" could impact the TPS during launch. This flew in the face of simple physics: the TPS is only a few feet away from a tank full of supercold liquid hydrogen and oxygen, and Florida's humid climate virtually guarantees ice accumulation on the tank...ice which will flake off during launch and likely impact the TPS, the boosters, the tank, or all three. Historical tile damage reports indicate this happened from the very first Shuttle launch onwards, but NASA just accepted it and kept on launching.

Tile design guidelines specifically stated they were not designed to withstand any significant impact. Yet NASA continued to operate the Shuttle outside its design criteria for years. They did the same thing with O-ring burn throughs until Challenger caught up with them. Columbia's disaster was rooted in a similar history, where many other flights were near disasters had debris impacted an inch to the left here or an inch to the right there.

The Shuttle's "fantastic" safety record is much more attributable to luck than anything remotely resembling a good design.

Re:dumbification

[prisoner-of-enigma]

I don't think there's any hard data to support that allegation. Solid-fuel rockets are much simpler and thus more reliable (in general), albeit less efficient, than liquid-fuelled rockets, which makes them good candidates for the first stage.

With but one huge, glaring, ominous difference: solid-fueled rockets cannot be switched off or throttled once ignited, unlike liquid-fueled or solid/liquid hybrid designs. So, while solid boosters are simpler, they preclude any kind of escape system while they are firing. So, they're perfectly safe to use so long as they function perfectly, all the time, every time, for the entire duration of the launch. Such restrictions fly in the face of rationality.

I'd rather have a slightly more failure-prone booster that allows me to actually escape the failure compared to a "safer" design that, if it fails, guarantees loss of vehicle, mission, and crew. Stuff is going to fail, so you'd be better off with a design than anticipates and allows for that failure rather than one that strives to eliminate the possibility of failure. The former is achievable; the latter is impossible.

Re:dumbification

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Insisting that the only way up and down is in a ballistic capsule is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Something like the Soyuz is fine for now, but there are plenty of ways to make a spaceplane that are not quite as flawed as the shuttle.

And which of these "ways" are as practical and cost effective as a capsule?

The answer, given our current or near-term-projected level of materials and propulsion technology, is "none of them." The idea of a spaceplane is great, but if it's strong enough to be reusable it can't lift enough to be useful. We need more powerful, efficient propulsion technology before a spaceplane is practical. Either that or a materials science breakthrough that gives us cheap, light, durable materials.

Re:dumbification

[DerekLyons]

Unlike the Challenger explosion, the Columbia was intact after the initial problem arose and yet Nasa management refused to allow staff to gather data that would show whether or not the foam impact had caused any damage.

Because the engineers own reports showed the impact location and probable damage would not be significant. Other reports from other engineers supported the position that even had the impact been on the RCC, the RCC was strong enough to take the impact.
 
 

For the life of me, I don't understand why the managers who turned down requests to take a look at Columbia's heat shield weren't charged with criminal negligence.

If they ever do, then the engineers who refused the managers request to provide a justification for taking those images should be right beside the managers in the dock. Right behind them should be the engineers who studied the impact and pronounced it to be not significant. Right behind them should be the engineers who studied the ongoing tile dings and pronounced them insignificant. Right behind *them* should be the RCC engineers who make statements about the RCC's strength without having ever actually tested it....

Re:dumbification

[multi io]

With but one huge, glaring, ominous difference: solid-fueled rockets cannot be switched off or throttled once ignited,

Sure.

unlike liquid-fueled or solid/liquid hybrid designs. So, while solid boosters are simpler, they preclude any kind of escape system while they are firing.

How so? What you say is true for the Shuttle, but not necessarily for a more conventional booster with an Apollo/Soyuz-like launch escape system (LES). And this is exactly what's planned for Ares I: A single solid rocket for the first stage, and an LES. The LES should provide enough thrust to be able to pull the crew compartment away from almost any kind of event that happens to the launcher, including a failure of the booster. The fact that the shuttle system doesn't have a LES is orthogonal to the fact that the shuttle system uses solid rockets. The first fact is a serious flaw, the second not so much. The Shuttle SRBs have proved to be very reliable, with over 200 succesfully flown, and only one failure: The left SRB in the Challenger accident. That failure is now well understood and its cause has been eliminated. This means that the SRBs are very reliable, even more so if you take into account that the Shuttle SRB is by far the most powerful single rocket engine ever built, and that includes the Saturn V first stage engine. And as I said, a LES would probably have saved the Challenger crew.

Re:dumbification

[cmowire]

Of course the capsule is the most practical and cost-effective option if you set pre-conditions your way. But eventually we will want to get more flight rate up and then increasing levels of reusability start to be practical and economic.

It's just that NASA has blown all of the money they might have spent getting a rational new booster more akin to the Chrysler SERV or HL-20 or Shuttle "DC-3" proposal or DC-X on pie-in-the-sky things like the X-30 and X-33 or down the gaping maw of continued space shuttle flights.

CNN? Restraints? Oxymoron?

[arizwebfoot]

Lets try this CNN,
we'll put you in your car with tight seat belts
then we'll put a bomb under the car and ignite
then we'll test if the restraints had any impact on your ability to survive.

Assuming of course there is anything left of you to test.

Re:CNN? Restraints? Oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite lack of rhyme, that should end with this line
Burma Shave.

Re:CNN? Restraints? Oxymoron?

[Cochonou]

Don't be too rude with CNN. The actual NASA report, while very comprehensive and well written, still contains little gems such as:
For the first 15 to 20 seconds, the modeled loads would not cause serious injuries to a conscious crew member who was capable of active bracing. An unconscious or deceased crew member would have been more susceptible to injury.

Re:CNN? Restraints? Oxymoron?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you imagine that a dead body can't be injured?

Put the people in a "black box"!

[erroneus]

Those things are indestructible. Put the people in a black box and launch. If it fails, the people in the black box can tell us why. Seriously though, building a VERY destruction-resistant module could be the answer to the past and future problem of space traveller safety. But then again, some technologies currently considered science fiction might also have to become reality before such an idea is truly feasible. (Hey, I am NOT a Rocket Scientist....)

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[MightyMartian]

There's also the issue of cost. As it is, getting into orbit is damned expensive. Hardening the shuttle, or some part of it, so it can survive catastrophic re-entry, even if possible, would make manned spaceflight prohibitively expensive. The best solution we have even for the next generation of craft is basically a rescue mission, because there's no feasible way to repair something as integral as a heat shield while in orbit.

As sad as the loss of Columbia, Challenger, and all the other losses of life in the American and Russian programs are, the crews understood the risks, and took them. It's a dangerous trip, involving systems of incredible intricacy and energy, and you can only make them so resistant to failures.

But I will say one thing. I think the shuttles were an utter failure, a terrible engineering compromise between the original intention and what a combination of technological limits and Congressional pork barreling. We would have been much better off continuing from the Apollo programs, and putting off reusable vehicles until we were further down the road.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[dwye]

But I will say one thing. I think the shuttles were an utter failure, a terrible engineering compromise between the original intention and what a combination of technological limits and Congressional pork barreling.

(boldface mine)

Lack of intelligent pork-barreling, more like it. If an important (read: expensive) part had been built in Wisconsin, Senator Wm. Proxmire wouldn't have, well, proxmired it down to the DC-1.5 level that it was. We might have had the original design with geosynchronus orbit capability.

We would have been much better off continuing from the Apollo programs, and putting off reusable vehicles until we were further down the road.

Continuing the Apollo program would have been a nice dream, but unfortunately, that is all that it could be. It was reduce the price to orbit or give up the program. As planned, the orbiter was expected to reduce the price per pound to LEO, even more than cheap expendables.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[Znork]

If you put people in an indestructible box you get people splattered over the insides of that box at impact, if not before. Suspending them in water or near-human density foam might keep them in one part until impact, but I suspect that the impact shockwave would still liquify bones and organs; the available deformation zone simply wouldn't be enough to decelerate a human body at a survivable rate.

You need some form of controlled deceleration or you're simply going to have a very bad day, no matter how indestructible your surrounding compartment is.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[erroneus]

Ah yes.... and if only someone would invent the parachute and retro-rockets...

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[cmowire]

The real flaw, but only painfully evident in retrospect, was not making something like the Saturn-Shuttle, like the X-20 atop a Saturn II, or even a reusable first stage for the existing stack. Likely taking a Saturn IB, II, or V stack and making it reusable bottom-to-top would have worked out far better.

The problem was barreling forwards with blinders on, not going back and checking assumptions. It wouldn't have been such an edgy design had it been more like the initial DC-3 concept or had they re-evaluated some of the early designs that were rejected for not being fully reusable or making sure that abnormal things like O-ring wear and tank debris weren't more carefully controlled.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[Junta]

In a way, they've had it. In the form of the capsule approach. A good example is the Soyuz re-entry. As much of a debacle it was, they survived.

*If* a re-usable spacecraft design proves to be useful, the crew cabin may benefit from being a capsule that could somehow explosively decouple in an incident. Of course, chances are that it's just not worth it to reuse. Even if you had such a capsule, reliable separation such that a chute could be deployed successfully would be dangerous. Add to that the cost of preparing a shuttle for re-use, *and* the limted number of uses even with those measures.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[cmowire]

Not even that.

Consider the A-10, with the titanium bathtub around the pilot so you can shoot all you want, but he's still sound.

Now, consider strengthening the crew cabin so that in the event of a structural breakup, they have a fighting chance of bailing out. No capsule. No separation. Just a little more plating or Titanium instead of Aluminum in the right spots. Remember, both the Columbia's and the Challenger's crew cabin held together for quite a long time.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[Plekto]

The real cause, though, appears to have been a design change in the shuttles. Originally the design called for titanium throughout the ship instead of aluminum. But it was deemed to be far too expensive when they were first built, so they went with Aluminum.

As a result, it weighed a LOT more, which required heavier shielding with less margin for error, the solid fuel boosters(added), and it barely made it into orbit instead of being able to get up to nearly geostationary orbit as originally planned. And it was much harder to fly and land - so much so that it really "flies" more like a typical plane with its engine off.(read: like a brick).

Compare the heat resistance of the two metals. I suspect that if the wings had been made out of titanium, it would have taken another minute or two to reach a catastrophic failure. This *might* have been enough to at least get into the lower atmosphere.(in theory allowing some sort of ejection/safety system to function?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_thermal_protection_system
****
The Space Shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) is the barrier that protects the Space Shuttle Orbiter during the searing 1650 C (3000 F) heat of atmospheric reentry.
****
Aluminum melting point: 1220 F Aluminum burns at ~6920F once it starts doing so, though, and as such is pretty near self-sustaining and impossible to put out as long as there is material to burn.

Titanium melting point: 3034 F Titanium burns at ~ 5300F once it gets going and is just as hard to put out. (burning metals like this are bad as a rule)

A drastically lower weight, though, would also allow for a slightly slower speed. Likely closer to 2500-2800 F which would technically make the heat shielding a redundant safety feature, at least on the wings.(they would melt and distort, but wouldn't actually catch on fire.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[hughk]

With Buran, the Soviets used rather more Titanium. However aluminium alloys were also used for key components. The Soviets (now primarily the Russians and Ukrainians) have good experience with metallurgy so the production costs of Titanium alloys would not have been such a problem.

There is even a table showing the physical properties of the alloys used.

It should be emphasised that Buran did make it to and from orbit, but was unmanned for this test.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[Rub1cnt]

I still say we need to reactivate the Saturn 5s. We've got several models that may or may not work..the Smithsonian still has the plans...so let's reverse engineer the rocket, update it a bit and launch the thing into space. For those of you who say we can't reenginer the Saturn 5, let me point out the fact that Chrysler has been doing just this with their car models for the last 5 years. Put Chrysler's engineers in charge of the reemergence of the S5, and we're golden. For the guidance system, we use Microsoft's engineers, they steal a comparable guidance system and "tweak it" then sell at the government standard price.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[BBandCMKRNL]

And it was much harder to fly and land - so much so that it really "flies" more like a typical plane with its engine off.(read: like a brick).

Excuse me, but a typical airplane flies quite well with its engine off and is nothing like a brick. A commercial aircraft ran out of fuel in flight over Canada and flew 20+ miles to safely land at an abandoned airstrip.

A drastically lower weight, though, would also allow for a slightly slower speed. Likely closer to 2500-2800 F which would technically make the heat shielding a redundant safety feature, at least on the wings.(they would melt and distort, but wouldn't actually catch on fire.

If the wings melt and distort, they cease to be 'wings' and would render the shuttle uncontrollable.

Re:Put the people in a "black box"!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Just a little more plating or Titanium instead of Aluminum in the right spots.

So it's just that simple, eh? And you've completely solved the issues of increased materials cost (checked the price of Titanium lately?), total recertification of the entire Shuttle system, and the inevitable weight gain associated with such strengthening which would cut into the already-anemic lifting capacity of the Shuttle?

To wit, such a solution was studied post-Challenger. It is possible to strengthen the crew module such that crew survivability and bailout becomes more likely. It is not, however, a practical solution to the flawed Shuttle design. It would result in a safer-yet-useless Shuttle.

What did you expect from NASA and Contractors?

[mikelieman]

This is par for the course. The damn thing FELL APART and they blame the seatbelts.

That way NO-ONE is really responsible.

Re:What did you expect from NASA and Contractors?

[Detritus]

It "fell apart" because a wing was severely damaged. The same thing happens in any high-performance aircraft when you lose aerodynamic stability, either from structural failure, control system malfunction, or pilot error. It isn't a failure of structural engineering.

Re:What did you expect from NASA and Contractors?

[fluch]

That way NO-ONE is really responsible.

1) Hmm, just wondering ... who did manufacture the seatbelts??
2) ?????
3) Profit!

Re:What did you expect from NASA and Contractors?

[DakotaBandit]

Fell apart. Lessee. It had a hole in its wing and survived how many minutes of entry? Then when it lost control it held together for 40 seconds going at Mach 15 or higher? And then the forebody held together for another 40 seconds--going at Mach 15--and then the crew module itself held together for another 10 or twenty seconds? I'll take those engineers any day. In my mind, that's freaking impressive when all factors are considered. And they blame the loss of cabin pressure with lack of restraints as a secondary possibility for the death of the astronauts. Read the CAIB report if you want to determine where to point the finger. And it does point fingers.

Pretty amazing forensics

[Tibor the Hun]

I am always amazed at the quality of forensics in cases like this, or aviation accidents and such.

I mean this thing exploded, or better yet disintegrated how many hundreds (thousands) of meters in the sky, scattered its debris all over BFE, and yet they can still piece together enough information to deduce who was unbuckled, who wasn't wearing gloves, and who didn't have their visors down.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Anonymous Coward]

They knew all that mostly from a video of the re-entry taken seconds before the shuttle disintegrated. They didn't piece it together from the wreckage (apart from finding the video tape in the wreckage).

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to discount the work of forensic experts (which I agree is amazing), but don't forget that one of the crew was recording everything going on inside the cabin with a simple hand-held video camera, presumably right up until the point of disintegration. One of the most overlooked parts of the story is the fact that A) the tape was subsequently found given the debris field covered a huge swath of the central-southern USA, and B) that only the outer layers of the tape were damaged.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be awful to watch that tape, seeing the agony on the crew's faces as they realize their fate.
Where's the torrent link?

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[darkmeridian]

The most amazing forensic work I read of was the Lockerbie bombing of a TWA flight while in midair. The debris was scattered over many square miles. Yet the investigators were able to reconstruct the bomb and find the bomb's timing circuit. A chip in the timing circuit was traced to the perpetrators.

That was pretty fucking cool, I thought.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[trappermcintyre]

Lockerbie was a PanAm flight (not TWA) :) But yes, the forensic work done to reconstruct the bomb was pretty fucking cool :D

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Shamenaught]

Not to sound like a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, but didn't they also supposedly find the passport of one of the suspects in the wreckage?

There's a fine line between pretty fucking cool and bullshit, IMHO. I know that saying that makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I evade that label as I have no theory. I just think it's bullshit.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Shakrai]

I'm still waiting for the torrent of Steve Irwin. Yeah, I'm going to hell ;)

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the debris field was a total of approximately 1000 square miles. The total search area was several times this size, as they had to be sure that they covered it all.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[DerekLyons]

I mean this thing exploded, or better yet disintegrated how many hundreds (thousands) of meters in the sky, scattered its debris all over BFE, and yet they can still piece together enough information to deduce who was unbuckled, who wasn't wearing gloves, and who didn't have their visors down.

They knew all that mostly from a video of the re-entry taken seconds before the shuttle disintegrated. They didn't piece it together from the wreckage (apart from finding the video tape in the wreckage).

 
Actually, if you read the report (as I just spent the entire afternoon reading), you'll find that they *did* piece it together from the wreckage, because they *had* to. The [onboard] video ends just after Entry Interface - 15 minutes *before* Loss Of Signal, which was in turn 46 seconds before the Columbia broke up. (And it would be another 35 seconds before the crew compartment broke up.) Lots of time for gloves to be locked in place, buckles to be tightened down, visors to be closed and locked...

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[ZigMonty]

I think it's interesting to contrast the investigations of engineering and aerospace failures with financial failures. Will the ultimate causes of the GFC (global financial crisis) be nearly as well investigated as this accident that claimed 7 lives and a few billion in vehicle? Seriously, 7 suicides are all that are required to make the current situation a far far greater crisis (it already obviously is in dollar terms).

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[tekrat]

Which begs the question: How is it that we've got such amazingly smart guys who can piece together tiny bits of wreckage to determine cause of failure, but, apparently none of those smart guys are ever involved with the initial building process to anticipate such failure in the first place?

Or a better question:

How come there's unlimted money to investigate a failure, but never enough money to build the damn thing right in the first place?

It seems to me that we've always got our priorities backwards.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[advocate_one]

Actually the debris field was a total of approximately 1000 square miles. The total search area was several times this size, as they had to be sure that they covered it all.

That was an absolute bummer of a job... I spent several days walking the fields around Lockerbie as a member of a search party looking for remains and marking the positions for the recovery teams... I still have nightmares about some of the scenes we found... a row of seats with all the occupants still in it, rooks and other carrion birds pecking the eyes out of bodies...

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[pz]

The most amazing forensic work I read of was the Lockerbie bombing of a TWA flight while in midair. The debris was scattered over many square miles. Yet the investigators were able to reconstruct the bomb and find the bomb's timing circuit. A chip in the timing circuit was traced to the perpetrators.

That was pretty fucking cool, I thought.

It was incredibly cool. I believe the fragment traced to the perpetrators was a small part of a circuit board that was identified to be part of a Toshiba radio.

That alone, to me, was -- and still would be -- an astonishing feat of detective work.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Raging Bool]

Sorry to be pedantic, but the aeroplane that crashed in Lockerbie following mid-air detonation of a bomb was Pan-Am flight 103, not TWA.

(There was a TWA mid-air explosion more recently, after flight 800 took off from New York, believed to be due to frayed electrical wiring inside the fuel tanks.)

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[DerekLyons]

I think it's interesting to contrast the investigations of engineering and aerospace failures with financial failures. Will the ultimate causes of the GFC (global financial crisis) be nearly as well investigated as this accident that claimed 7 lives and a few billion in vehicle?

Almost certainly the crisis will be well investigated - but the problem is that in economics, things are rarely so black and white. Even today, the causes of the Great Depression are only well understood only on the superficial level for example.

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4589953/Air_Crash_Investigation_-_Season_6_-_Ep_1_-_Lockerbie

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[darkmeridian]

If it were a conspiracy, the conspirators would undoubtedly want a better cover story than "I found a tiny microchip amongst 100 square miles of debris." And they would fabricate a better one. If you get to write whatever you want, you would want a story that is believable. For instance, the TWA Flight 800 explosion was blamed on a center fuel tank explosion. Wouldn't conspirators in the government want it to be a terrorist attack so as to buttress an invasion of some Arab country?

Re:Pretty amazing forensics

[Shamenaught]

Well, playing Devil's advocate, those incidents happened when different administrations were in power. If there were conspirators around, surely they'd have changed with the administration?

Lockerbie happened under Bush 1, TWA Flight 800 under Clinton, and 9/11 under Bush 2.

Gah, so damn easy to sound like a conspiracy nut. The "it's all just a big master plan by bush" conspiracy doesn't fly with me... Bush is too stupid.

The most conspiratorial thoughts I've entertained are that the government might plant evidence based on undercover sources or illegal surveillance. They don't want to risk undercover sources, and illegal surveillance can't be used in court (and people really don't like finding-out it's happening). Nobody minds if they miraculously 'find' a lead that sends them in the right direction, however, and I don't think they'd try to blame an accident on terrorists.

Oh dear, I suppose that is a conspiracy theory. I'm not doing very well though, I've nowhere near enough men in black, or aliens, or long-dead secret societies, or Elvis... Maybe some parts of it could've happened in Area 51?

What?

[joh]

So, if "problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts on board" they would have survived the plasma blast while reentering in a vehicle that is being torn apart? I'm going to read the report now, but I think CNN has got something wrong here.

Re:What?

[nedlohs]

No, they would have survived long enough to be killed in said blast.

Seatbelts, the solution to all of life's problems...

Re:What?

[Shamenaught]

Yep, and the fact that the inadequate restraints was the cause of death is an important fact to consider when they build the shuttle's successor.

Consider what would happen if they only put in safety measures to counteract all of the other potential causes of death. You'd still have a bunch of dead astronauts if they used the same restraints, so it's an important lesson to learn.

Re:What?

[ConceptJunkie]

an important fact to consider when they build the shuttle's successor.

Does anyone think our government will ever actually accomplish building a successor to the shuttle? Take the best design you can come up with, multiply the cost by 100 and divide the quality by 100. That's what it would end up being.

We, as a society, have lost the ability to manage. The technical know-how may still be there, but the culture of arrested adolescence and unrelenting backstabbing and politics will paralyze the U.S. government and any other large undertaking in this society until we can re-learn how to be grown-ups again.

Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that the pressure suits worn by the crew required user input to "configure the suit for full protection from loss of cabin pressure." Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't a certain pressure be set as minimum survivable pressure, and a "dead-man switch" set to activate at that point? Not that it would have saved them, but though.

At least this means they died rapidly and for the most part without pain. Godspeed.

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[forceman130]

It appears that the pressure suits worn by the crew required user input to "configure the suit for full protection from loss of cabin pressure." Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't a certain pressure be set as minimum survivable pressure, and a "dead-man switch" set to activate at that point? Not that it would have saved them, but though.

I think in this case it means that some individuals were not in the full pressure suit - they weren't wearing the gloves and they didn't have the visors down, so they would have had to manually correct those deficiencies to get full protection.

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[cmowire]

By "Configure the suit for full protection" that means put on the gloves and push down the visor. All of the controls are designed for a unsuited crewmember, the visor gets in the way and requires you to be on your oxygen system. And the oxygen system is pure O2 so you can't keep it running because there will be too much O2 and not enough N2 in the atmosphere of the shuttle.

So, no, there's no possibility for a dead-man's switch in the current design. But it's clearly something necessary in a future design. Even airline passengers are protected against depressurization and airliners are fairly safe.

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[Anonymous Coward]

After the re-entry burn, the orbiter *is* going to come down, and that in a limited amount of time. I would expect the pressure suits, designed as they are to protect the crew in emergencies, to contain at lest enough oxygen to get the crew back to terra firma. If the orbiter is disintegrating you don't really care about elevated O2-levels, *you're going to crash*! Keeping the human inside should be the primary objective of a protective suit, no matter the situation.

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[cmowire]

Perhaps you don't remember what happened to Apollo 1.

According to TFA, what happens when you close the visor is that the oxygen starts flowing into your suit. The suit is open-loop, not closed-loop, so the oxygen goes straight into the atmosphere of the shuttle cabin. Quite a lot of oxygen, actually. So much so that it becomes a fire hazard, like what happened to Apollo 1, where you risk a single slightly marginal connection sparking and creating a firestorm in a shuttle that would have otherwise landed.

The problem is that the shuttle was designed so that nobody would need to wear a spacesuit except to do a spacewalk and then mildly corrected so that you have a slightly reduced chance of death in an accident.

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[Rub1cnt]

Kind of chilling...the Columbia crew's wake up song on one of the days was Hotel California. This kind of gives new meaning to "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." *raises glass*

Re:Crew were incapacitated "within seconds"

[Anonymous Coward]

By "Configure the suit for full protection" that means put on the gloves and push down the visor...

So, no, there's no possibility for a dead-man's switch in the current design...

Why is it difficult to have visors that swing themselves down and cuffs that would activate an inflatable seal around the wrist and limit air loss from the suit until the occupant has a chance to don the gloves? And why should speaking between persons in closed space suits be any harder than talking on a normal teleconference?

Cascading failure

[Draconi]

The report lists the immediate causes of death as depressurization, and then trauma (not properly restrained, or failure of restraint for upper body and head in sudden depressurization) for those who survived even that long.

Each event listed after is in of itself certain death, and the report makes sure to say that even if everyone were wearing their full equipment and had been properly restrained, there was no way to survive - there simply isn't a way for our current equipment to "eject" or have a "safety capsule."

The things we can take away are that all signs point to sudden, painless deaths well before breakup, and that the things learned in the investigation can be applied for greater safety in future missions.

Re:Cascading failure

[cmowire]

Consider the SR-71 pilot referenced in the report. He didn't eject, his plane broke up mid-flight, yet he survived. Granted, different thermal environment, but same degree of overpressure.

So, to me, there were things that could have been different that might have resulted in a chance for at least some of the crew to have landed alive.

Shuttle astronauts

[Anonymous Coward]

The shuttle astronauts said they had always wanted to vacation all over Texas ;-)

Yeah yeah yeah... but seriously, I worked for Rick Husband the mission commander once, and he was a fine upstanding individual; Truly a hero.

I have to agree that the report is not germane

[WillAffleckUW]

No matter what "killed" you, if you end up burning in a giant fireball, it's pretty pointless as to exactly how you died before that.

Remember, they had seconds to even attempt to leave, and even that would have killed them.

Let's move on and admit the current systems all have flaws and build something useful for the 21st Century, not keep in the pro-military mindset of the 20th Century that would have us building bases and wasting money instead of actually getting out of here.

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[fireteller2]

No matter what "killed" you, if you end up burning in a giant fireball, it's pretty pointless as to exactly how you died before that.

That's an unfortunate line of thinking that is probably the type of thinking that contributed to NASA's reduced quality controls over the years. The report specifically discusses expanding the "survival envelope". Under this, more thorough, line of thinking one tries to solve all solvable problems, so in future accidents the chance of survival is improved. Yes they where too high and traveling too fast to survive with any known technology other then a complete entry vehicle, but if they where a little bit lower and a little bit slower they could have survived if this reports recommendations where already in place. Without these recommendations, just the loss of cabin pressure would likely kill future astronaut, fireball or no. f

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[WillAffleckUW]

The cause is the breakup of the shuttle.

All other points cascade from that event.

And, given human reaction times, escape system constraints, and the relative velocities, air quantity, etc .... my point still stands.

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what "killed" you, if you end up burning in a giant fireball, it's pretty pointless as to exactly how you died before that.

It's worth it for when things go wrong but the fireball doesn't fire...

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[WillAffleckUW]

Um, large flying brick hits atmosphere ... and you think you won't die in a large flaming fireball splatted over the earth? ... wow ...

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[goodmanj]

No matter what "killed" you, if you end up burning in a giant fireball, it's pretty pointless as to exactly how you died before that.

The cause is the breakup of the shuttle.
All other points cascade from that event.

OK, since everyone likes automobile analogies, here's one for ya:

Alice is driving her car while drunk. She rear-ends a gasoline truck at moderate speed. Her seat belt and airbag fail to deploy, causing her to die from a fatal head injury. A few seconds later she and her car are incinerated by the gasoline spilling from the truck.

You'd say, who cares about the seat belt? Who gives a damn about the airbag? It's "pretty pointless", since she'd have just burned to death anyway.

Or to take your other post in this thread, who cares about the seat belt? Who cares about the airbag? It's pointless to discuss them, since the root cause of the accident was that Alice was drunk.

I'll tell you who cares: Bob. Bob is driving a similar make and model of car. Bob's cold sober, but his brakes fail on a steep hill, and he rear-ends a milk truck at moderate speed...

Re:I have to agree that the report is not germane

[WillAffleckUW]

My question would rightly be why they let Alice keep driving after her third DUI.

See, you look for something else, and I properly identify the root cause and root risk.

Sugar-coated death notice

[RobertB-DC]

I'll admit, I'm a bit more morbid than the average bear. But the report is heavily sugar-coated, with the obvious goal of making sure nobody thinks anyone "suffered". That's the biggest thing in American culture, it seems; "At least they didn't suffer". When my grandfather died of a heart attack, someone told my uncle something about massive "blood clots in the heart" indicating that he "didn't suffer".

Sorry, I don't buy it. At least, not the Disney-fied public-consumption version.

The Spaceflight Now summary notes five "lethal events", and implies that the *first* one caused immediate unconciousness:

* Depressurization
* Buffeting without being fully buckled in
* "Separation of the crew from the crew module and the seat"
* Exposure to near-vacuum
* Impact

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode. That's not the case, as has been explained over and over -- you can't breathe (" respiration ceased after the depressurization" in the report), but not breathing hasn't been the criteria for "death" since the Middle Ages.

It's the second one that probably did most of the crew in. The crew compartment started spinning and tumbling, and "As a result, the unconscious or deceased crew was exposed to cyclical rotational motion while restrained only at the lower body." I would say that "unconscious or deceased" is window dressing, like hoping that the girl from "Dead Like Me" would grab you just before your car runs off a cliff.

But even that assumes that "the seat inertial reel mechanisms on the crews' shoulder harnesses did not lock". I kinda thought that's what seat belts were *supposed* to do. So I can only assume that at least some of the unfortunate crew made it to phase three, which is awfully hard to make sound pretty. "Separation of the crew from the crew module and the seat" sounds almost gentle, but what it means is that the forces were eventually so great that their bodies were ripped apart by the very straps designed to hold them in place.

Unfortunately for those who want their dead to enter the next world peacefully, I think it's pretty likely that the crew's last experience was anything but a peaceful passing from lack of oxygen.

Now, is that so awful? I don't think so. I don't even like to ride a roller coaster, myself, but these were a bunch of adrenaline junkies strapped to a freakin' ROCKET. These weren't people who planned to die in their sleep. I would imagine that all of them -- and especially the pilots, who were almost certainly strapped in and helmets on -- would want to go out kicking, screaming, and pushing every possible button to try to turn the damned thing around.

They died with their boots on. Give them that, at least.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Amazing Quantum Man]

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode.

Spaceflightnow wouldn't buy into that. I suspect that the incapacitation was due to hypoxia.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the one that wrote the "crew incapacitated within seconds" - reply. You don't have to believe that that low pressure "makes your face explode", but that's not necessarily wrong. A very rapid depressurization will make you face explode ... as well as the rest of you. Read about the Byford Dolphin accident, a diving "bell" that explosively decompressed. The spine of one of the divers inside the bell was "ejected" from his body, and found several tens of feet away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_dolphin

This is not necessarily, and even not probably what happened to the crew of the Columbia. But depressurization can kill in other ways than making you explode. The rapid dacay of pressure in your surrounding environment will cause your blood pressure to plummet, your brain to become rapidly hypoxic, and you will pass out. Fast.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said, RobertB-DC. Folks such as these people, military special forces, Everest climbers (the originals at least), etc. don't do what they do in hopes of dying a peaceful death. They recognize the likelihood of their fate and run straight to the edge. If they meet their fate, I have to think that they do so with a lot of 'fight' in them. In any case, they are...check that, were true pioneers.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Dunbal]

During the incident you mentioned, the pressure differential was one of nine atmospheres. However between atmospheric pressure and vacuum there is only one atmosphere difference - at rest. That is hardly any pressure difference at all. I should think that a more important factor is the actual pressure experienced caused by the shuttle's tremendous speeds - even with a very low static pressure. I for one would not like to be hit in the face by that since it's enough to heat the shuttle's outsides to well over 2000 degrees - but in this case it would be pressurization, not depressurization.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[forceman130]

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode. That's not the case, as has been explained over and over -- you can't breathe (" respiration ceased after the depressurization" in the report), but not breathing hasn't been the criteria for "death" since the Middle Ages.

The concept there is Time of Useful Consciousness - which is how long a human can remain conscious when exposed to high altitudes. For someone taken from essentially sea level (whatever the shuttle normally is) to 200,000 feet that time is going to be very, very short - probably on the order of seconds. Even at normal fighter altitudes of 40-50,000 feet the TUC is 9-12 seconds, and it is even lower (up to 50% lower) in the case of a rapid decompression, which this almost certainly was.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[subreality]

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode. ... not breathing hasn't been the criteria for "death" since the Middle Ages.

"Incapacitated" isn't a euphemism for dead. Depressurization causes hypoxia, which results in unconsciousness in tens of seconds. They probably died of trauma, but it probably happened after they blacked out.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA:

The NASA report found the astronauts knew for about 40 seconds that they did not have control of the shuttle before they likely were knocked unconscious

Knowing for 40 seconds that you're inevitably about to die is worse than any physical suffering.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[mazarin5]

not breathing hasn't been the criteria for "death" since the Middle Ages.

Tell that to Cass Elliot.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Darth_brooks]

But even that assumes that "the seat inertial reel mechanisms on the crews' shoulder harnesses did not lock". I kinda thought that's what seat belts were *supposed* to do. So I can only assume that at least some of the unfortunate crew made it to phase three, which is awfully hard to make sound pretty. "Separation of the crew from the crew module and the seat" sounds almost gentle, but what it means is that the forces were eventually so great that their bodies were ripped apart by the very straps designed to hold them in place.

No, they didn't. Read the whole report for yourself, it'll change your POV pretty quickly.

If you look at the time lines the crew had, at the absolute most, 12 seconds before loss of consciousness once the cabin depressurized. The telling fact was this: None of the crew had closed the face shields of their helmets, which is a requirement to use supplemental oxygen supply (one of the crew didn't even have their helmet on when the problems started). The G load on the shuttle never really exceeded 3.5 G's (the roll rate was only 30-40 degrees per second initially) until the shit really hit the fan, which was long after loss of cabin pressure. The force on their bodies wasn't enough to prevent them from doing so, so they must not have been able to do so.

Based on the reconstruction of the flight deck, and the data gathered, the report lays out the last few seconds like this: Tire pressure sensors go off the scale. Ground control sees this, confirms with crew. Master alarm event goes of, Crew tries to communicate with ground control but is cutoff, likely due to a planned radio outage between comm centers. In their (unbeknownst to the crew) remaining few seconds of consciousness the flight crew begins to troubleshoot what appears to be a loss of hydraulic pressure issue which may be tied to what they are now seeing as a possible landing gear problem with the left gear. The nose pitches up, cabin depressurizes and the crew is almost certainly rapidly incapacitated, as evidenced by the stop in troubleshooting procedures. As compared to Challenger, where several members of the crew took deliberate steps to follow emergency procedures (turning on oxygen supplies, etc.)

Bottom line, even if they knew the cabin depressurized, they didn't have time to take even the first and most basic corrective step in their training before passing out. You'd think it'd be instinct. Maybe they didn't *die* due to a lack of oxygen, indeed they almost certainly died of blunt force trauma. The lack of oxygen just ensured that the deceased had no idea that they died of blunt force trauma. Like lethal injection. The first drug puts you out, the second drug paralyzes your heart.

The report is very morbidly interesting, and I think you'll see a lot of procedural and technical changes come out of this, just like with Challenger. There are a ton of "wow, yeah, that makes sense now" safety procedures that would've altered the outcome slightly. In this case, we'd have had astronauts ripped apart, burned to death, or killed on impact rather than asphyxiated / bludgeoned to death. Maybe next time, something we learned here will actually save a life. We can only hope.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[DerekLyons]

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode. That's not the case, as has been explained over and over -- you can't breathe (" respiration ceased after the depressurization" in the report), but not breathing hasn't been the criteria for "death" since the Middle Ages.

Actually, you should read the report before commenting. The report goes into considerable detail as to why they considered it likely the crew was incapacitated in a fairly short time - and 'their faces exploded because of exposure to vacuum' is noticeably absent from the scenario.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[goodmanj]

It's the second one that probably did most of the crew in.

The report points out that the buffeting forces were probably just a few G's, and that if the crew had been conscious and able to brace themselves, the "buffeting" injuries would probably not have been lethal.

The fact that they *did* get tossed around enough to take fatal head trauma indicates that they weren't conscious at the time.

The claim that the initial "depressurization" would make the crew "incapacitated within seconds" relies on the common perception that exposure to the vacuum of space makes your face explode.

No, it's based on the observation that of the crew who were fully suited up, none of them had closed the visors on their helmets, a quick and obvious response to depressurization. This indicates they lost consciousness *very* quickly once the cabin was breached.

You're right that we should avoid sugar-coating the truth here, but still, the smart money's on "sudden unconsciousness due to hypoxia" rather than "bludgeoned to death while conscious".

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[DerekLyons]

Bottom line, even if they knew the cabin depressurized, they didn't have time to take even the first and most basic corrective step in their training before passing out. You'd think it'd be instinct.

You'd think it would be instinct - but there is a flaw in the astronauts training... The report discusses this, but I suspect the implications will fly right past most laymen.
 
The flaw can be basically summarized as follows;

• They are trained in the event of an emergency to close their visors - but emergency training is done separately from operational training.
• Operational training conditions them to keep their visors up and their gloves off because when the suits are fully buttoned up they interfere with crew communication and restrict their ability to operate the equipment.

Because emergency and operational training were performed separately, in simulators designed specifically for each purpose, the subtle difference between what they were trained to do and what they were conditioned to do wasn't caught.
 
It was assumed that they would perform properly in an emergency because they had been trained extensively on what to do in an emergency - but NASA never performed any training scenarios that transitioned from emergency operations to emergency survival. The main reason for this, which does make some sense to one who has been there (having done this kind of training), is that you don't need to practice dying - it doesn't accomplish anything positive, can be damaging to morale and crew cohesion, and consumes valuable and scarce training resources.
 
Disclaimer: I'm not an astronaut, but I don't count myself a layman because I am a former submariner. I've done countless operational and casualty drills both as a crewman and as an instructor at a training facility. We spent a lot of time making sure we didn't start getting into what we called 'negative training', one facet of which is the difference between training and conditioning I discuss above. (And its a remarkably easy trap to fall into.)

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[SecurityGuy]

On the contrary, the report says they were incapacitated by the loss of pressurization was an inference based on known fact, not a desire to mollify the public. Ok, I'm reaching on that last bit. Maybe they do want to mollify the public, but the inference stands on reported fact.

Six of the seven were wearing helmets. If they noticed the loss of pressurization and had time to respond, they'd have closed their visors. I don't recall how the gloves fit in, since most or all of them also didn't have gloves on. Nobody closed their visor, so the investigators infer loss of consciousness happened pretty fast. By your last paragraph, I don't think you read the report. Helmets on (6 of 7), yes, but visors open (6 of 6). The forces were also not that great for quite a while (2-3 Gs). One hell of a ride, but as the report says, you'd likely be able to keep yourself from the sorts of injuries they sustained if you were awake and able to brace yourself.

Personally, I'd even find death by banging around comforting. I'd imagined the capsule splitting open and spitting them into a 12,000 mph windstream.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you do lose consciousness after 14 seconds in a near vacuum, as cited above:

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

It is entirely feasible that the astronauts would lose consciousness within ~30 sec after depressurization.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

They died with their boots on. Give them that, at least.

Actually, no, they didn't. FTFPDF:

"Although all crew members were wearing the main portion of the suit [including their boots] at the time of the accident, at some point the suits completely failed and separated." I.e., their boots were literally torn from their bodies. At about Mach 14.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[tehcyder]

you don't need to practice dying - it doesn't accomplish anything positive, can be damaging to morale and crew cohesion, and consumes valuable and scarce training resources

Er, I think it might reduce the number of volunteers too, once they're told what the training schedule involves...

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a tad bit ironic that you started by making a case for valuing the truth over an emotion-based reconstruction of the event, but ended your post with exactly an emotion-based reconstruction of the event yourself.

Did you consider that maybe that's why the report was "sugar-coated" (your allegation) to begin with. Us humans (yourself included) need it, in one way or the other.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[Rub1cnt]

Astris Semper Fidelis.

Re:Sugar-coated death notice

[bckrispi]

you don't need to practice dying - it doesn't accomplish anything positive, can be damaging to morale and crew cohesion, and consumes valuable and scarce training resources.

Aren't military test pilots given this *exact* training? In the event of catastrophe, aren't they trained to continue to communicate with ground control to let them know what they are attempting to do, and how their vehicle is responding?

Clearly an intertial dampener problem

[unassimilatible]

That, and no emergency transporter protocol.

Did Dale Earnhardt die in vain?

Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the actual cause of anyone's death when suddenly exposed to the extreme thin (lack of) atmosphere at high altitudes, is extreme forceful asphyxiation.

At 30,000 feet MSL, the healthiest humans can only maintain consciousness about 1.5 minutes max.

At 35,000 feet MSL you'll last only about half as long... 45 seconds max.

At 40,000 feet MSL, after rapid decompression, you might stay conscious for 25 seconds if you're in excellent shape.

Remember the Payne Stewart LearJet crash? They lost cabin pressure and the plane on autopilot went up into the flight level 40's.

Above 50,000 feet you must wear a pressure suit in addition to breathing supplemental oxygen... unless you're inside a pressurized aircraft/spacecraft.

At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.

The Columbia began it's breakup around 200,000 feet MSL and most educated guestimates place the altitude where the pressurized crew compartment broke away from the rest of the craft at around 100,000 feet and that it held its pressure until about 60,000 feet until it broke open.

The ballistic trajectory of the big chunks of what was left of the ship took a sharp downward turn once it reached about 40,000 feet MSL due to all the pieces slowing down so rapidly and then fracturing into such small pieces as to next be more accurately called a debris cloud in the relatively thick atmosphere of 35,000 feet compared to where the breakup first began.... at least that's what the math models derived from the shape and size of the debris field on the ground seems to suggest.

One thing that always amazes me, and that most people don't even understand is that the actual atmospheric air pressure difference between here on the ground and being in the "vacuum" of space, is only 14.7 teeny-tiny pounds per square inch.
That's right. Less than 15 measly PSI. Fifteen PSI ain't even enough air in your car tire to make it roll very well. And that's all the difference there is between ground and space. Space is not some huge gigantic super vacuum that'll crush a strong metal container as if it was a beer can. Space is actually a quite subtle difference in pressure from what we breath here on the surface, especially when you compare it the pressure difference to what you'd find a only a few thousand feet under the sea.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Da Cheez]

At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.

[Citation Needed]
I'm not trying to challenge what you're saying (too much) or start an argument, but I'd just like to see an original source for that. I've often heard that even in complete vacuum a healthy individual will maintain consciousness for 10 to 15 seconds and then have another couple minutes or so before they asphyxiate. But I don't have any completely reliable sources for that information either. Just wondering.
Also, it seems to me (though again I have no source for this) that your blood would in fact not boil as the pressure imposed on your blood vessels by the surrounding flesh would be more than adequate to keep anything more severe than a bad case of the bends from happening. Anyone know if this is correct?

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Da Cheez]

Terribly sorry to reply to my own post, but I located a Wikipedia article with useful information on this subject.
It would seem that in my previous post I was (at least partially) correct.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[0xdeadbeef]

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

exposure to vacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blood does not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly lose consciousness.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[sam_v1.35b]

Space is actually a quite subtle difference in pressure from what we breath here on the surface, especially when you compare it the pressure difference to what you'd find a only a few thousand feet under the sea.

At only 10 meters (c. 30ft) beneath water you're exposed to twice the pressure you experience at sea level. It then increases by about 1 atmosphere per 10 meters. So, at one hundred meters it's an order of magnitude higher. You don't even need to go a few thousand feet under the sea to experience significantly higher pressure.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Qrlx]

At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.

In other words, my arteries and veins are wholly dependent upon atmospheric pressure to keep the gases in my blood from from boiling out as I type this?

Don't they have some structural integrity on their own? I would be surprised if they suddenly stopped working just because the surface pressure on my skin were removed.

Briefly surprised. Hopefully long enough to think "Hey, that AC was right! gurgle murgle blurgle..."

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[evanbd]

I'm not trying to challenge what you're saying (too much) or start an argument, but I'd just like to see an original source for that. I've often heard that even in complete vacuum a healthy individual will maintain consciousness for 10 to 15 seconds and then have another couple minutes or so before they asphyxiate.

That's basically correct. In vacuum exposure, your blood does not boil, but since your lungs still work all the dissolved gases (like oxygen) in your blood leave through your lungs. 15 seconds is about how long it takes the extremely deoxygenated blood to reach your brain, at which point you suddenly black out. There are plenty of other things that go wrong in vacuum exposure, but that's the first one. Note that this is much faster than asphyxiating from breathing an inert atmosphere, which is faster than from being unable to breathe.

Holding your breath doesn't work; your lungs can't contain enough pressure to help. You'll just get a ruptured lung, which is a medical emergency even if you were in a hospital and not exposed to vacuum.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Rorschach1]

That's right. Less than 15 measly PSI. Fifteen PSI ain't even enough air in your car tire to make it roll very well. And that's all the difference there is between ground and space.

Here's another way to look at that measly 14.7 PSI pressure differential - on a 1-meter diameter circular hatch, that's about 17,890 pounds of force. Or roughly 3.5 Ford F-150's, since this is Slashdot and car analogies are mandatory.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. Less than 15 measly PSI. Fifteen PSI ain't even enough air in your car tire to make it roll very well.

Wrong... Yet another failed car analogy. You tire would actually look almost normal at 15 PSI. Maybe some bulging on a tire that isn't very stiff.

Offroad we regularly run 5-10 PSI and to be honest if you weren't paying attention it would be hard to tell that from a fully inflated tire.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Shakrai]

Or roughly 3.5 Ford F-150's, since this is Slashdot and car analogies are mandatory.

How many Libraries of Congress is that?

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[iknowcss]

To answer your question, yes. The pressure of the atmosphere is greater than the vapor pressure of the gasses dissolved in your blood. This keeps the gasses from escaping. If you remove that pressure, the gasses escape or "boil" out.

You're basically asking "You mean to tell me that the earth pushes back on the beams holding up my house? So it has no structural integrity on its own?"

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[jonnythan]

I think he totally made those numbers up. If anything, he's not taking into account arterial and venous blood pressure.

But no, you're not thinking of it correctly. Your blood will absolutely bubble violently throughout your body if you are saturated with gas at, say, 100 feet under water and pop right up to the surface. Your body is, except for the lungs, entirely uncompressible liquid. If you drop the absolute pressure enough, then, yes, the liquid will release its gases. And the water itself may boil.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[iknowcss]

I'd also like to point out that, on average, the skin has a surface area of 16.1 to 21.5 sq ft. At 14.5 psi (pounds per square inch, average atmospheric pressure) that's 233 to 312 pounds of force keeping you from exploding.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[mollymoo]

One thing that always amazes me, and that most people don't even understand is that the actual atmospheric air pressure difference between here on the ground and being in the "vacuum" of space, is only 14.7 teeny-tiny pounds per square inch.

Only? Atmopsheric pressure is comparable to the weight of a person on the palm of your hand. I'd call that pretty significant on the human scale.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct - One's blood does not boil in vacuum, much less at 63,000 MSL. The structural strength of your blood vessels will indeed hold the blood inside at a reasonable pressure. What does happen in vacuum is that your lungs work backwards - and the gases are pulled out of your blood through the alveoli. When this happens you have about 14 seconds before the blood from your lungs (now completely devoid of oxygen) hits your brain and knocks you out.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[tlhIngan]

At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.

The Columbia began it's breakup around 200,000 feet MSL and most educated guestimates place the altitude where the pressurized crew compartment broke away from the rest of the craft at around 100,000 feet and that it held its pressure until about 60,000 feet until it broke open.

Guess what that fancy orange suits that they wear on liftoff and re-entry are for! Yes, they're pressure suits.

When the shuttles first came out, the crews would all don those pressure suits on both legs of the trip. Then as the shuttles came into regular use, they didn't wear them anymore - you can see this in the crew photos taken at launch. They'd go in initially in the suits, then a few years later, they were going up in blue flight suits. This happened until Challenger exploded, and the crew died from hypoxia. Now they all don those suits again, in case of any issues on liftoff. Part of the launch and re-entry procedures actually involves doing a pressure test to ensure the suits seal properly, and they close their helmets.

Of course, if the shuttle disintegrates on them, well, those suits don't protect much against your whole vehicle burning up and taking out your life support as well.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[aqk]

Mr AC-
My blood is boiling and I am about to explode.

I sense a tremendous vacuum between your left ear and the right one.
Let's hope that there is no imminent implosion.
At least, not while there are innocent children present.
.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[fnj]

You're off by a factor of 144. 14.5 psi is 2088 psf. Multiply that by 16.1 to 21.5 sq ft!

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[jeremyp]

Leela: Depth at 45 hundred feet, 48 hundred, 50 hundred! 5000 feet!

Farnsworth: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure.

Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?

Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[hughk]

One of the Soyuz's had a problem leaving Mir. An O2 equalisation valve did not close properly so the air started venting immediately after undocking. The crew attempted to fix the situation and they were clearly aware for about half a minute and were trying to do something about the situation.

Unfortunately, they couldn't, so they passed out and died. On return to earth no problem was immediately observed when the capsule was opened so no ruptures (not even in the eye). Once medical personnel saw the crew, it was clear that they had asphyxiated.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[khanyisa]

Holding your breath doesn't work; your lungs can't contain enough pressure to help. You'll just get a ruptured lung, which is a medical emergency even if you were in a hospital and not exposed to vacuum.

/me wonders about the corner case of being in a vacuum in space and being in a hospital, that happens to be floating around... would they be able to help you then? :-)

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[khanyisa]

However fortunately our blood is all not exposed through our skin (otherwise we'd leak anyway). For example, putting your arm in a vacuum tank is unlikely to make it explode...

As far as I understand, the pressure is exerted on the lungs, which allow gas exchange with the blood through lots of tiny air sacs.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[PriceIke]

So you're saying Cally and Tyrol shoulda died.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[bcattwoo]

"I'd also like to point out that, on average, the skin has a surface area of 16.1 to 21.5 sq ft. At 14.5 psi (pounds per square inch, average atmospheric pressure) that's 233 to 312 pounds of force keeping you from exploding

And when you properly convert sq ft to square inches, you get an even more impressive 34-45 thousand pounds of force.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[scharkalvin]

Actually the best way to hold your breath is to first breath quickly to hyperventalte. This saturates your lung tissue with oxygen. Then exhale as completely as possible. You can hold you breath longer this way than just taking one deep breath and not exhaling.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[evanbd]

Not true. Hyperventilating gets (at best) a little extra O2 in your blood, but mainly just drives down the CO2 level. Since your breathing reflex is controlled by CO2, not O2, this makes it easier to hold your breath -- but disproportionally so compared to how much more air you really have available. Hyperventilating will make it much easier to pass out. Furthermore, your lung tissue is really just an exchange membrane -- it holds almost no oxygen. In a vacuum exposure situation, your lungs are exposed to vacuum. You *cannot* hold your breath because your lungs aren't strong enough. As blood passes through your vacuum-exposed lungs, essentially *all* the dissolved O2 and CO2 leaves (remember, your lungs are quite efficient as exchange membranes). The blood leaving your lungs is now completely devoid of O2, regardless of anything you did or didn't do before the decompression event. Once that blood hits your brain, you *will* lose consciousness. That takes about 15 seconds.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[bckrispi]

The NASA report stated that the Astronauts passed out nearly immediately from the decompression, as their suits weren't pressurized. The blunt force trauma apparently killed them before asphyxiation.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[Anonymous Coward]

At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.

BULLSHIT. Complete, & utter, you read too much garbage scifi, 2001 had it more accurate than you realize.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

There's my citation, and it's from NASA. Not that I'd recommend it, but as long as you don't try to hold your breath you'll be ok until you run out of oxygen.

At least ok in terms of the lack of pressure... there's plenty of other stuff that'll get you like radiation, cold, giant black monoliths, etc.

Re:Extreme forceful asphyxiation

[szafran]

Can anyone explain to me the following: the report say that the Columbia crew lost consciousness immediately on the decompression, so fast that even the crew members who did complete the suit pressure check before had not time to seal their helmet visors and activate the suit O2 supply. Yet the same report says that this activity takes single seconds. All the sources I checked say that TUC (time of useful consciousness) on rapid decompression to full vacuum is 8-12 seconds (see Wikipedia on "rapid decompression"). This value is supposedly based among others on two cases of accident with pressure suit testing in pressure chambers. It (the 8-12 seconds) also agrees with the time it takes the deoxygenated blood to reach the brain. There are factors which may shorten the TUC (i.e. physical exertion) but it does not look like it happened here. So I do not understand why ALL the crew did not pressurize their suits. Also - the very fact that the NASA procedure was for the crew to descend with visors open indicates that the med authorities were certain the crew will have time to pressurize the suits in the case of decompression. I cannot believe NASA was not basing this procedures on well established knowledge. So what have happened? The pilots may have deliberately proceeded with trying to control the situation and decided NOT to loose time for suit pressurization. It is a separate issue - they might understand that out of control shuttle will mean death anyway and trying to save the crew to the last moment of consciousness. But what about the rest of the crew? It looks like either the TUC is badly understood or something else happened (tumbling intense enough so it was impossible to seal the visors?). I have the feeling that the report does not raise this issue clearly enough, and maybe even contradicts itself (they say that the G forces actually initially decreased upon CE which was - according to report - also simultaneous with decompression). Any comments?

What is a survival report?

[Bromskloss]

Jokes aside, why is it called "survival report"?

Re:What is a survival report?

[tehcyder]

Jokes aside, why is it called "survival report"?

Obviously it's to look into future astronauts' survival prospects, although you're right that the title sounds wrong when you first see it.

Missing the Point of the Restraint Failure

[systemeng]

This report does absolutely nothing for the astronauts that tragically died. It attempts to extract valuable lessons for future endeavors.

The failure of the restraints under this circumstance is only significant in the context of future missions.

It means that future astronauts in a much less dire situation would be killed due to failure of their restraints even if no other mishaps beyond a temporary loss of control occurred. In this particular case, the TFA is pretty clear in pointing out that the crew was either dead or unconscious due to restraint failure which could have been prevented long before catastrophic breakup of the vehicle for which prevention is stated as the only remedy.

A loss of astronaut lives in an event that did not promulgate loss of the vehicle would be politically devastating and need not occur if more attention is paid to this system on future vehicles.

Columbia astronauts lived about a minute

[peter303]

Challenger's lived about 2.5 minutes. Probably too fast to really have worried about it too much. In both cases the immediate cause of death was not the actual accident, but depressurization in one case, and water surfaceimpact trauma in the other.

It sounds from the report that some engineers speculated if they made the suits a little better, yada-yada, some could have survived. NOT.

No, it doesn't say that

[hwyhobo]

The summary above says that "problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts".

1. Nowhere does the report say that
2. By no definition of ultimate could problems with the restraint systems been indicated as such a cause
3. The CNN's John Zarrella repeatedly states that hypoxia was the ultimate cause of death

Therefore, the problems with the restraint systems could at best be described as "ancillary".

Re:No, it doesn't say that

[hwyhobo]

Aarrgghh.... Clicked on the wrong button before finished editing.

Edit item (2) above:

s/been/be/

Append to the end of message:

Let's leave sensationalizing to mainstream media. They do a splendid job of it without our help.

Mount Everest Altitudes

[sjbe]

At 30,000 feet MSL, the healthiest humans can only maintain consciousness about 1.5 minutes max.

Citation please.

You are saying that despite the fact that mountaineers have summited Mount Everest which is 29,029 feet MSL (8,848 meters) without supplementary oxygen that they would only last for 1.5 minutes just 1000 feet higher? Sorry but I'm having a hard time swallowing that one. Yes it is very dangerous for anyone to be above about 26,000 feet (8000 meters) - it's called the death zone for a reason - but it seems to me that people can very likely last longer than 1.5 minutes at that altitude even assuming rapid decompression.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[quenda]

He did say _sudden_ exposure. Mountain climbers take many days to acclimatise. But then that stuff about blood boiling in seconds is total crap.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[sjbe]

He did say _sudden_ exposure. Mountain climbers take many days to acclimatise.

But posted anonymously and cited no sources. Sorry but I've got a bit too much skeptical scientist in me to buy that assertion at face value.

BTW Mountain climbers acclimate to avoid altitude sickness, not to avoid sudden asphyxiation.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[multi io]

The numbers are basically correct (the "your blood boils and you die within seconds" stuff is not). Pilots use the term "useful consciousness" to describe the timespan between rapid decompression of the plane and the time at which you can no longer perform basic tasks (like putting on your oxygen mask). At 11,000 meters, this time is down to something like 20 seconds. Which is the reason why oxygen masks are automatically deployed in such a case -- there just wouldn't be enough time to manually obtain them from a storage tank or something like that.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[DakotaBandit]

at 63,000 is the Armstrong Line or Armstrong Limit. The oxygen in your blood "boils" out, in that it turns into vapor. Now, let's see, air we breathe passes in and out of our lungs...see a problem here? What a rapid decompression results in is damage to the lungs (and heart and CNS). No delicate way to put it. The lungs "explode". Now, let's not think Hollywood special effects. Each little--okay, many--little airsacs in the lungs rupture from differential pressure. This is called ebullism. For you reference folk, check out Wikipedia Armstrong Limit, although the entry there isn't entirely correct, or more accurately, complete. More importantly check out its 2nd reference. Here is the reference for simplicity: http://www.geoffreylandis.com/ebullism.html It's not crap, folk. It's physics.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[sjbe]

The numbers are basically correct...

So the numbers per your link (thanks btw) are in the ballpark but they are averages for the ability to perform useful work, not as the original link asserted maximums of physical consciousness. I suspected there was a nugget of truth in their somewhere but the original assertion ("unconsciousness in 90 seconds at 30,000 feet") seemed a bit of a stretch.

Re:Mount Everest Altitudes

[Anonymous Coward]

in their somewhere

"there".

retarded parent poster

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just dead wrong. The atmospheric pressure is so low at 200,000 ft that the oxygen transpires out of your body within seconds, leaving you hypoxic and unconscious. It's not like holding your breath, your lungs are much more effective at exploiting a tiny differential in partial pressure then that. They were unconscious within a very few seconds, not 15 seconds.

I believe you've missed the point

[Weaselmancer]

There is no reason to design a retraint or any kind of protective system that would keep a person alive during that catastrophic breakup.

What they noticed is that the restraint system did not keep the astronauts alive during a situation where it could have.

What if there was an event that shook the cabin really hard, but was non-lethal? The current restraint systems would injure or kill the astronauts and turn a survivable event into a fatal one.

Having the best safety equipment is always the preferred option. A slim chance of survival is better than none.

Re:I believe you've missed the point

[prisoner-of-enigma]

What if there was an event that shook the cabin really hard, but was non-lethal?

Given the design tolerances of the Shuttle, I would posit that any such shaking strong enough to be hazardous to the crew (and outside the limits of the standard restraints) would result in vehicle destruction. The Shuttle has a structural weak point where the crew module meets the cargo bay. Challenger and Columbia both fractured there first -- and in largely the same fashion -- long before either burned up or impacted anything.

Russia is safer than US space program?

[SonicSpike]

Are you trying to say that the Russians are now safer than our American space system?!?!?

Re:Russia is safer than US space program?

[fotbr]

Capsules are better than the shuttle, yes. Almost always have been, except for the few cases where you need to launch 40k+ lbs of payload AND 7 people all at once.

I'd mention quality control, but NASA hasn't exactly been immune to QC problems either.

As is usually the case, simpler = more reliable, and a capsule is far simpler than the shuttle.

Understatement of the report

[sdo1]

"The ground impact without parachute protection generated a very large instantaneous G event."

Yes. Very large. Free fall from 100,000 ft will generally do that.

-S

protecting medically sensitive data!? WTF?

[rokkaku]

In the executive summary (sorry, I haven't finished all 400 pages yet), they suggest that, "Medical sensitive data should always be protected to preserve the privacy of the the victims and their families." WTF?

It seems to me that we spend billions of dollars to train and deploy the astronauts as human guinea pigs to help understand space and spaceflight. A huge pool of applicants are winnowed down to a tiny, privileged astronaut cadre. These folks have every chance to opt out -- any and all data about what happened to them and why and how should be available.

I'm not talkin' about naked astronaut pictures, but it seems like just about everything short of that should be available. Anybody who isn't comfortable with that sort of disclosure can just stay on the ground.

A classic stand-up routine

[snowwrestler]

Have you ever noticed that in every plane crash, no matter how horrible, they're always able to recover the "black box"? And it's always intact?

Just what is that thing made of?? And maybe they should make the entire airplane out of the same stuff! Then after a crash they could just recover the entire airplane intact.

(note: not my jokes. not sure where I first heard this.)

Please No Hogsheads per Bushel

[meehawl]

Metric or it's just make believe!

No seatbelts? WTF?

[jlmcgraw]

Am I the only one amazed that being in your seat, with all of your safety harnesses fastened, and your suit/helmet on and sealed, isn't absolutely required during re-entry? Having your seat belts fastened during takeoff/landing is legally required in a junky Cessna 152, much less the multi-billion dollar space shuttle

Re:protecting medically sensitive data!? WTF?

[goodmanj]

In this case, "medically sensitive data" isn't just heart-rate data. It also probably includes extremely graphic and grisly photographs.

Even if you think the astronauts have waived their right to medical privacy, their families have definitely not done so, and they deserve discretion and respect.

The "sensitive medical data" in question have not been thrown away, nor have they been ignored: if you read the report you'll find that autopsy data are used (in a guarded way) to reconstruct the events. But beyond that reconstruction, details of the physical injuries suffered by the crew aren't relevant to the public's understanding of the event, and should not be made public in a report like this one.

Re:protecting medically sensitive data!? WTF?

[Wyatt Earp]

Federal Law prohibits it, Astronauts are Federal Employees, except Ramon, so they'd be protected like everyone else is.

The did have a chance

[Anonymous Coward]

It was known after the launch that something had hit the wing but an inspection to check the status of the shuttle was not done for some reason.

If they had checked the outer state of shuttle's surface in the ISS they would have surely discovered the damage in the wing.

Repairs attempts could have being tried, or at least the crew, or part of the crew, could have survived in the ISS.

Even the most novel pilots know that it is important to check your aircraft before taking off!

I only have one question in my mind. Did NASA mission management prevented the crew to inspect the shuttle before reentry? If yes, why?

Checking the outer integrity of the shuttle by the crew should be standard procedure before any reentry. If I were crew commander would do it no matter what NASA mission control had to said against it.

Survival/escape alternative using the ISS should be seriously considered. That would be use a good use for that piece of hardware.

speak for yourself!

[r00t]

I want the naked astronaut pictures.

Did they call in Dr G, Medical Examiner?

[Anonymous Coward]

She would have done the Y-incision and have solved the case in half an hour, less not counting commercial breaks and the dramatizations.

And even if the suits had internal life support...

[Viol8]

... they wouldn't have been much use once they hit the ground at terminal velocity.

Short of some miracle that allowed the astronauts to ride out the tumbling fireball until at 10,000 feet then bail out with parachutes on their backs this accident was unsurvivable no matter how much they'd tinkered with the space suits or seat restraints.

Survival Report.....

[IHC Navistar]

Here is my 'Survival Report'..... .....Start Of Report.....

"No Survivors". .....End Of Report.....

Re:The did have a chance

[grumbel]

Except of course that this isn't StarTrek, Columbia couldn't have reached the ISS even if they wanted to, fuel is a rather limited resource in current day spaceflight.

semantics

[Trailer Trash]

Reader bezking points out CNN's story on the report, which says that problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts on board.

The *ultimate* cause is because the thing blew up. The specific cause of their deaths is that their restraints allowed their upper bodies to be tossed like rag dolls while the vehicle was breaking up, causing their heads to hit inside their helmets or just generally shaking them too hard. It's hardly relevant unless they could have survived reentry with no vehicle from 200,000 feet up.

I LOL'd.

[maillemaker]

Now that was funny. I don't care who you are.

Death Zone

[justthinkit]

Minor nitpick but Wiki says the death zone is 7,000 to 8,000 meters (23,000 to 26,200 ft). The reason I checked is I had thought it was above 18,000 feet (the height of Everest base camp).

Re:Death Zone

[sjbe]

Minor nitpick but Wiki says the death zone is 7,000 to 8,000 meters

The same article also says "in the "death zone" at 7,000 to 8,000 m (23,000 to 26,200 ft) and higher". There are only 14 peaks in the world higher than 8000 meters and the actual deaths don't usually occur at the summit but below, frequently while descending. This is simply due to the timing of summit assaults versus human endurance. Once in the so called death zone climbers have a finite amount of time to summit and return - the exact amount depending on the climber and the conditions. If they are delayed for some reason (weather, accidents, fatigue, etc) they will die, the only question is how long they will last. They often die on the way down as they make bad decisions while loopy from lack of oxygen. But the effect is the same above 8000m as between 7000m-8000m, there just aren't as many deaths there due to logistical reasons.

Above about 7000m the human body simply cannot sustain life for extended periods. Digestion becomes difficult if not impossible and oxygen is used up faster than it can be replenished. Delirium, fatigue, and pulmonary problems occur with frequently fatal results. I admire the courage of people who climb these mountains but I also think they are mildly insane - especially those who climb K2 (27% fatality rate) or Annapurna (54% fatality rate).

Re:Israeli flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really not know that Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut, was one of the crew killed by the accident they're explaining?

very very very basic stuff

[richard uk]

The chilling finding from this report is this - You are a spaceman/woman You will fly this spacecraft Don't use the full spacesuit on re-entry because it is dangerous. Sure, four other factors would have killed them. but the fact is that the most basic thing - the spacesuit operational procedure killed them first. Until that is fixed, none of the other fixes would save a crew. I note that they are already highlighting the restraint system as a primary fix. Get real, the spacesuit issue killed them first. What on earth is wrong with these people? With their way of thinking? If five factors killed the crew you address them one by one, not skip the first one (which was fatal). Yes, I have read the full report. All 400 pages. Summary - Killed by not wearing full spoacesuit Killed by poor harnesses Killed by breakup too fast to egress Killed by not having automatic parachutes (which exist) Killed by collective stupidity and head-in-sand-sticking.

Re:Israeli flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not know that - turns out he was one of the F16 pilots who bombed a nuclear reactor construction site in Iraq a while back. What goes around comes around, I guess. Cheers!

Re:No seatbelts? WTF?

[eli pabst]

Yes. Actually if you read the report, towards the end they conclude that the main cause of death was a failure to place their seat backs and tray tables in the upright position.

missing the big picture

[tbonefrog]

Assume the shuttle is inspected and after reentry has just started, a tile breaks off. Is there any way of altering the trajectory so that the shuttle bounces back up to a higher altitude, cools off, and then falls back again, repeat as necessary, until the reentry temperatures remain nonlethal to the shuttle airframe? The idea is to limit the worst-case outcome to be a splashdown in an ocean or a crash landing, by actively controlling the trajectory before the temperatures cause the airframe to break up. There's also the possibility of using plasma fields surrounding the vehicle rather than ceramic tiles, to thermally protect future vehicles.