Three Strangers Forever Linked, Forever Haunted by Questions That Still Follow Columbia

AP via TBO ^ | January 31,2004 | Marcia Dunn

[eno_]

Dittemore was the embodiment of a defective culture that not only didn't see the signs they should have seen, but actively denied that they could have been seen. This is a poisonous culture, and must be rooted out. One of the most defective things about "homeland security" is the presistent official line that 9/11 "could not have been foreseen" in the face of such obvious precedent as Project Bojinka.

[HardStarboard]

Yes, but,... but, the foam we used was environmentally friendly.

[Prospero]

With respect, I believe Ron Dittemore has gotten a bad rap. The CAIB report speaks for itself, and while the temptation is to say I told you so, and, believe me, many of us did, its conclusions went beyond the direct cause of the breech to the systemic flaws within a NASA culture, underserved by Presidents since President Nixon's decision to devote the agency to the reusable experimental spaceplane after Apollo.

Many had promised, but George W. Bush actually outlined the first real mission for the agency after promises made by Ronald Reagan, his father, and Bill Clinton lacked the vision or knowledge to follow through on their vision.

Sadly, it is the story of every new traffic light. Often we pay with our dearest blood to shake out a new public consensus.

It took Columbia to finally admit that the Shuttle was never more than an experimental system, from which we learned a great deal, not the least of which the merits of expendable boosters.

Congress also shares some of the blame, as does our complacient and proserous culture who did not make them accountable nor listened to the sober voices who called for many of the exact changes recently codified by the President.

Whether or not Dittemore embodies everyone's idea of a rigid bureaucracy, failure is at the heart of good science - the final uncovering of an orthodoxy that had fallen prey to the what usually happens to all orthodoxy-the inevitable creep from its mission to a mission of self-continutity.

It's an old story.

While so many of us remember Ron Dittemore's incredulity at facing the possibilty that a suitcase of politically correct insulation material had breeched an airframe subject to more scrutiny and real-world testing than any flying machine in our history, I also remember his openness and patience, without condecension, in those press conferences immediately after the disaster.

As a good engineer and scientist, no matter how disbelieving, he accepted the cause and discarded all the other possibilities that lead to the death of close friends whose lives he accepted as his responsibility.

Kepler was as wedded to his perfect spheres being the orbits of the planets, but with Tycho's data and the obvious failure of Ptolemy's Cosmos to match observations, he too cast aside long-defended beliefs and came up with a model for the orbits of the Planets that more closely matched reality.

As a long proponent of change in the NASA culture and that Agency's focus, very similar to the CAIB's eventual conclusions, I have to thank Ron Dittemore for his ability to help a shocked and angry public come to grips the the emotional overload of those first weeks after Feb. 1, 2003.

If for no other reason, I salute him for helping me and my family cope in those first horrible days.

I don't remember him for being rigid is his disbelief at the shedding foam being the cause. I remember him for being a voice of reason at a time when that voice was called for.

Ron - if you're out there, thank you. It wasn't your fault. It was always an experimental enterprise that politicians insisted must become something other than what it had been demonstrated to be time and again.

You did a good job, especially in the aftermath, and science, to be science, must collide with the truth in order to be true to its method.

You shared your personal and professional grief with us, and your nation owes you a huge debt for taking more than your share of the responsibility.

[VOA]

It was so sad to see that even the brainiacs of NASA didn't heed Richard Feynman...

[Prospero]

Well, again, with respect, there hasn't been a launch after a sub-zero cold since Feynman shattered that O-Ring in a glass of ice water.

Maybe they did listen to him.

[IncPen]

"Iain, what are you doing?" Clark asked.

"I'm waving goodbye to Mommy," he said. "I felt her."

[Phil V.]

If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me



. . . remembering Columbia . . .

[Ditter]

Have they ever said that they could have gotten Columbia safely down immediately after the foam broke off or was it doomed from that point no matter how long it remained in orbit?

[Johnny_Cipher]

The families were rushed to astronaut quarters where they were told that while there was no confirmation of fatalities, the accident was believed to be unsurvivable. The screams were bloodcurdling.

If I were the person who had to deliver that news to the families and listen to those screams, I'd probably still be in therapy or would have gone home and put a shotgun in my mouth. Probably the worst job on the planet to have on that particular day.

[rabidralph]

During the Challenger investigation, they did say that there is an emergency procedure to bail out of the shuttle before it leaves the atmosphere. So, it's possible that if someone made the call after seeing the foam hit, they could have saved the crew.

[Truth29]

"...the foam we used was environmentally friendly."

That fact gets very little emphasis in the mainstream press. The role that environmental PC culture also gets little coverage. It was not advisable to challenge environmentalism, even after it was technically permissable to use a wavier to go back to the old foam formulation.

[Ditter]

That would have been a tough call. One of those "you're damned if you do & damed if you don't" moments.

[snopercod]

The coverup by NASA and the media of the role played by the EPA in this disaster (and the loss of the Challenger) is unconscionable.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[snopercod]

With respect, I believe Ron Dittemore has gotten a bad rap.

I agree. Thanks for the excellent post.

[Phil V.]

. . . or was it doomed from that point no matter how long it remained in orbit?

Columbia (as I understand) did not have the fuel required to change orbit to reach the space station. That leaves a rapid launch of another shuttle to rescue . . . another shuttle subject to the same foam risk that doomed Columbia. It would have been a huge roll of the dice to launch another shuttle knowing that the rescue ship was subject to the same risk as the ones that caused structural failure on Columbia.

It would not have been impossible. But I do not see the call being made.

[Budge]

Oh, we could NEVER blame the environazis. That would be so un-pc.

[Gracey]

Yes, but,... but, the foam we used was environmentally friendly.

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Yes, it had no freon and wouldn't contribute to the ozone hole......right?