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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

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.