NASA engineers raised disaster scenario one day prior to explosion

USA Today ^ | 2/26/03 | AP

[NorCoGOP]

WASHINGTON (AP)

[sam_paine]

Engineers are not trained as optimists. Our job is to do what ifs and worst-case scenarios!

I'd like to see the thousands of other doom-and-gloom warnings that happened on previous flights where everything turned out ok. But they're not newsworthy.

[PatriotGames]

I agree with you as to what we engineers are supposed to do.

However, in this case they were spicifically discussing possible damage as it related to the large piece of foam that hit the shuttle on takeoff.

[aristeides]

So were "top NASA managers" totally unaware of the problem as Columbia approached landing?

[TLBSHOW]

nasa problems

http://www.nasaproblems.com/

[RightWhale]

the thousands of other doom-and-gloom warnings

True, but most people wouldn't dare get out of bed in the morning if they were aware of all those warnings. Maybe staying in bed isn't such a good idea either considering all the disasters that can occur in that venue.

[genefromjersey]

One day before the disaster ?

Pardon me, but wasn't the shuttle already in orbit at the time ? Hadn't it been in orbit for weeks ?

If the engineers were so well-informed, why didn't they issue their warning before the shuttle was launched ?

What is being reported here ? Self-serving 20/20 hindsight ?

[aristeides]

Kling wrote just 23 hours before the disaster that his engineering team's recommendation in such an event "is going to be to set up for a bailout (assuming the wing doesn't burn off before we can get the crew out)."

So people were thinking about a bailout.

[aristeides]

Kling seems to have recommended a course of action that could still have been taken: a bailout.

[mikegi]

The email released today was focussed on possible landing gear door damage. It was just one of many scenarios looked at by the team. Click on the link above to read the threads. The news story says this was discussed "one day prior", which is not true. It started a week before with thermal analysis.

One email, referring to the landing gear door, says, "This area was considered a low probability hit area by the image analysis teams, but they admitted a debris strike here could not be ruled out". However, a later email says, "In [the damage analysis], the large gouge is in the acreage of the door. If the gouge were to occur in a location where it passes over the thermal barrier on the perimeter of the door, the statement that there is 'no breeching of the thermal and gas seals' would not be valid. I think this point should be clarified; otherwise, the note sent out this morning gives a false sense of security".

Once this email was circulated, Daugherty got involved because he was the expert in the landing gear system. He then wrote the oft-quoted email about what would happen if the wheel well was breached. He minimized his concerns with "before I begin I would offer that I am admittedly erring way on the side of absolute worst-case scenarios and I don't really believe things are as bad as I'm getting ready to make them out". He writes about verious scenarios from exploding tires to flat tires and focusses on how to land with a bad left gear. This sets off the email flurry on Jan31 about what to do if the left gear was seriously damaged (belly landing, two gears down, bailout, ditch, etc.). There are a lot of interesting technical details in this discussion. For example, simulations show that the shuttle has excellent ditching performance except for the fact that the cargo bay contents would be rammed into the crew cabin.

To me, all this looked more like a standard theoretical discussion between engineers about an interesting worst case scenario. No one knew exactly what was the right thing to do in this case. I guess the surprising thing in all this is that NASA didn't already have detailed existing procedures to handle this problem on landing.

[Fred Mertz]

After intense debate — occurring by phone and e-mails — the engineers, supervisors and the head of the space agency's Langley research facility in Hampton, Va., decided against taking the matter to top NASA managers.

NASA is NASA as the Navy is the Navy. That's what leapt out to me, the way they're trying to assign blame to only a layer of the agency. Fairly clintonian.

[Jael]

If they were talking bailout, that makes Dittemore's comments of "even if we would of known, there was nothing we could do" all the more chilling.

Thanks for keeping me bumped.

[John Jamieson]

Kinda of like finding out your airliner is falling apart. Remember that landing a few years ago?

[John Jamieson]

No, many knew that it was "pucker time" (NASA lingo) including the guy running the show at JSC. But there was nothing nothing they could do except the last minute bailout nonsense, if the Columbia actually made it far enough. It didn't.

[leadpenny]

This is bound to come up at a House Committee Hearing to be carried live on C-SPAN at 10:00 a.m. EST.

Future of the Space Program
Sherwood L. Boehlert, (R-NY)
Sean O'Keefe , NASA

[leadpenny]

House Committee on Science

[John Jamieson]

"If the gouge were to occur in a location where it passes over the thermal barrier on the perimeter of the door"

Very interesting. Drawings of the seal show it just below the surface of the tile where it would be quite vunerable to a hit.

I still think the breach was outside the wheel well in the RCC because the first failed sensors' wiring looks outside the wheel well on the NASA drawings. That would put the breach near the wing leading edge crotch, just outboard of the wheel well.

[aristeides]

I think, in light of all the new information, we need to ask ourselves again why Andy Card happened to be watching the Columbia landing on TV that Saturday morning.

[leadpenny]

I didn't know Andy Card was watching that morning but could it have been because he is just interested in the Space Programs as many of us are?

[snopercod]

If the engineers were so well-informed, why didn't they issue their warning before the shuttle was launched ?

At least one of them did. Greg Katnick of United Space Alliance at KSC. Five years ago.

FOAM HAS PLAGUED NASA FOR 5 YEARS