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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.
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.
Columbia Crew Survival Report:
They didn't.
Trolling is a art,
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.
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
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.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
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.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
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.
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.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
(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.
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.
That, and no emergency transporter protocol.
Did Dale Earnhardt die in vain?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
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.
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.
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.
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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
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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.
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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Without the 2nd Amendment, the others are just suggestions.